How to Analyze 3 Check Games: Part 2

Today I will show you the proper method for analyzing games so that you will actually learn from your mistakes and improve. To do this you will need to import your game to lichess.org. I demonstrated how to do this in Part 1.

However, before you analyze a game with an engine you should ideally first try to make some conclusions about the game on your own to maximize the amount that you learn and retain from the game. Try to figure out where you and/or your opponent went wrong and try to find better moves or ideas that could have been played instead. Then compare your thoughts with the engine's assessment to correct any errors in your thinking.

You should keep in mind though that the engine's evaluations can vary wildly in 3 Check depending on the depth so you should mainly use the engine to check for blunders. Don't worry about what the engine considers inaccuracies or mistakes too much when analyzing 3 Check games. You should also not put too much stock on the engine's evaluations of the opening moves. Instead you should mainly use the 3 Check opening explorer on lichess to learn opening moves. That way you will see what moves work best in actual games against human players. To open the opening explorer click on the little book icon to the right of the chess board.

Now I will show how I analyze a game. The game that I have selected as an example is from March 2019 back when I was rated 1700 in 3 Check. I chose this game because I made some instructive mistakes that I was able to learn from. First I will show the graph of the game from the lichess analysis:

I was playing Black and what the graph shows is that I was winning but then blundered the game away. According to the engine I made 3 blunders and White made 2.

If you want to improve you should try to figure out the reason the engine considers a certain move a blunder and then make a mental note to not make the same mistake again in future games. You should also try to figure out why the engine suggests a different move instead. It's not always easy to understand why certain moves are good or bad according to the engine but to help you figure it out you should follow the engine's suggested line for a few moves to see if things become more clear. If that still doesn't help then you can ask a stronger player for help. Here is how I interpreted the blunders from my example game above:

Now you might be wondering how to remember what you learn from your analysis. The trick is to remember the concepts rather than the individual moves. You can do this by putting what you learn into a sentence. For example, to help me remember what I learned from the game above I formulated the following sentences in my mind.

"Don't move the pawns around your King unless you absolutely have to because that will create weak squares in your King position that your opponent's pieces can exploit."

"Don't move all of your pieces away from your King because then your King will be more vulnerable to attacks.

"Sometimes the best way to defend is to go for a counter attack."

Make a point to remember at least one takeaway from games you analyze. If you do this for every game, or at least for every loss, then you will improve for sure. I was able to go from 1700 to 2200 in 3 Check in less than a year by using this method. I hope this helps you improve as well!