Chess Rx

A long long time ago, my grandparents bought me my first chess book, The Chess Doctor: Surefire Cures For What Ails Your Game by Bruce Pandolfini. 

The book was simple, giving a problem then the remedy.  "How To Develop Your Pieces" was one section I think I used half the highlighter on, and I learned chess annotation from the inside cover. 

Aside from developing your pieces in the first 10 moves, I've never realized how important every square is to the piece that belongs on it, and accuracy is the name of the game. 

It wasn't until I heard enough GM's rattle off the infamous "Well this move is more accurate."

...like uhhh, what does that even mean?

Luckily, l've spent the last few weeks wandering in the dark forest trying to figure out the meaning of the word "accuracy", and here is my concluding journal, culminating yesterday in a 60+15 over the board game where I played an expert as black:

What is accuracy?

Like, what is it?

I've deduced that it's a bit like Calculus, where you are inching towards this goal, never to reach it, and the only numbers I know as accurate to solve the problem are the opening theory.

Why?  Because when everything is at zero and the first move is made, you are slowly becoming less and less perfect or "inaccurate" until one side is mated.

In fact, the more inaccurate your opening, the worse off you are in the middle and endgame.

How do I sharpen up my piece accuracy? 

For starters, Chess.com has their new analysis report tool, but if you tab over to details, you can actually view accuracy by piece.

As you can see, the minor pieces and King are the weakest for me.

This search for accurate moves all started when I skyrocketed 207 points in my blitz rating.  I started memorizing opening theory, which I have never done.  I started doing tactics puzzles, which I never do. 

The daily routine that cured my game, or so I thought.

Then I hit rock bottom.  The floor gave out, and I began my Elo freefall.  The routine stopped working.  I gave up on my chess accuracy philosophical quest.

This past Saturday, almost a week and a half after giving up on learning what accuracy is, I played in an OTB tourney at the local Minnesota Chess Club, the Chess Castle. 

This game was Round 2 Board 5 against a 2000 elo rated player. I basically lost to an expert around 2000 OTB rating in an Exchange Slav playing black.

The computer did the math and I scored a 91.6 accuracy while my expert opponent put up a 96.8.

It shouldn't be crazy to think that slightly less accurate moves can build into a loss, but as you can see, I made 3 inaccuracies and 1 mistake, while he made 5 inaccuracies, we are stuck even in material in a King-Pawn endgame (pictured below), and yet, he's looking at a win, and I'm already packing my bags.

My big revelation came to me at the end of my journal: chess is just a continuation of a series of single moves from single positions studied over time and strung together.  Accuracy is based off of those single moves, and is what comes after the blunders and mistakes stop (accuracy is so relevant that at the higher levels, GMs will often over complicate the board position to try and dull the opponent's accuracy).

Which leads me to my next question: what does accuracy mean to you?