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You guys can post a game here. I will analyze 5 games in january. In febuary I will analyze another 5 games. Please only post 1 game here until march.

Okay I finally have time. I should be studying for nationals but I promised this so here it is. The isolated queen pawn is a funny duck. First lets look at a normal isolated queen pawn structure. This can be reached in queens gambit lines like this... The isolated queens pawn should be looked at as a strength by the owner..... and a weakness by the opponent. Here are a few plans to keep in mind. 1. If YOU have a isolated pawn do not trade minor pieces. A bad position for the owner is this. This is black to move and after 1. ..e5 black wins. 2. Likewise if you are playing against the isolated queen pawn trade minor pieces! 3.If you have the isolated pawn go at the kingside like a rabid dog! TIP! If you have failed to prevent trades when you have a isolated Q pawn trying to trade queens is a medicine. This lets you king get into the defence and you should be able to hold! Thus we can draw the conclusion: One side tries to trade and treats the isolated d pawn like a static (longterm) weakness. He thus tries to play solid chess and get a hold on d5 to prevent the pawn push. The other player treats it like a dynamic strength. Like any dynamic advantage it is important for active play. This brings up 1 more question. Should we push the pawn? The pawn push can be strong in some cases and cause huge energy or it can be played to open lines at the kingside or as a pawn sack to (in some positions) remove your weakness and then even though down a pawn you may very well be better depending on your opponents position. This should help you understand isolated queen pawns. I hope you liked it!

This is a series that helps players study what they want. Harish I am puting up the forum you asked for shortly. Now lets start! The game starts here so here are ways to study the opening. 1. After somone plays it on you look up the line and learn the moves and some of the ideas. Then when you play against it (or choose to play it) you know what to do. For lower rated players just learn some simple openings. 2. Learn opening ideas. What I mean is what you should do in the opening. Here is a good article to read. https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening 3. Learn some simple openings that you can play. You will learn more the stronger you get and the more games you play. 4. Try new ideas (create yur own opening) and check them with a computer to make sure there are no blunders in it. You can also use game explorers to see if it is already a opening and learn the theory for it if it is. 5. Play openings that you like! (unless they have huge mistakes in them like the scolars mate) Play openings that fit your style. A good book to get is chess openings for dummies by james eade. It is very good at making it easy to get a opening that fits your style. Okay that is all pretty easy. Here is a "program" orginized by rating. 700< Learn some principles of the opening and use them in yur game. Also learning a simple opening as black and as white is good. But don't over do it! Also learn a few BAD opening ideas to avoid. 1299< Learn the principles of the opening and learn a few simple openings. Try to learn 2 openings as white so you can choose what to play and learn 2 openings as black. 1 against d4 and the other against e4. If your opponent plays another opening move you should explore it after the game. 1300-1599 Same as 1299< except learn more openings and deas behind them. At this level it is important to know what you are playing and the ideas of the opening. It is also important to play something that is comfortable. Many people say I am agressive(I like to think I play sharp lines because I cope well in them and I like positional chess where I can hunker down and eventually crush my opponent) so if you feel you are ahressive play some agressive lines! 1600-1800 Same as 1300-1599 except now learning a variety is important. Thanks and the next Study it will follow.

Now we will talk about two more common problems in thought. Last time we talked about things that hinder players. Here is the link if you have not read it. https://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/going-down-in-flames-no1 Okay. So here is what we will talk about today. 1.High Ratings 2.When your opponent plays fast you play fast 3.I beat him before so I am better Okay lets start with number one High ratings. This fairly simple. I went to a tournament (school tourn) and in round one was paired with one of my friends (a 800 player who should be in FIDE 1200+) and he was already saying I would win. Why? We have played well over 100 games and he has drawn maybe 3 and won 1. So yes I understand his thinking. However this is never a good way to aproach the game. The same thing happens when you are paired with a higher rated play. A side affect of this is Over exitment. Many times I have blown won games when I got over exited when beating higher rated players. I have lost vital games to over exitment. When you go into a game expecting to lose you are playing for a loss. and if you end up better over exitment takes over. Here is a example from round one against the player mentoined above. How do you fix these two problems? Simple! 1.Go into a game to PLAY YOUR BEST and do not let ratings scare you! If it helps don't pay attention to peoples ratings and you will play your best nGames! 2.If you are better against a stronger opponent keep calm and think carefully. On to are next topic: When your opponent plays fast you play fast This one is simple. Here is the story: There was a strong grade 2 player. He won the first and second school qualifiers undifeated for his grade. He made it to the final tournament (The school nationals) and did terrable! He played unprepared for the strong players awaiting him. he placed 9th out of 10 and was completly disheartned. He has now improved 10 fold and is ready to try again. However he would have done better if not for a mistake.... He can NOT play quick chess. In one round he played a player who plays REALLY fast. He two played fast and got shalacked. But what if..... he had played his OWN game and drove his opponent to the edge? The odds would be against his opponent! The lesson here is PLAY you OWN game. Do not play fast because your opponent does. Then you are playing into their hands. So here is how you fix this. 1.If your opponent plays fast play SLOW and your opponent will get uneasy. 2. Play relaxed and play at your own speed. Now on to topic 3! Many players beat a player once and say I am better!! I took a player by suprise once when this happened to him. He beat me 3 to nil before the tourn (still a school tourn) and in the round he got uneasy when I didn't go down. Then disheartened I beat him quickly. After the tourn I beat him 4 to nil. The way to fix this is simple! Always expect a fight and play your best game no matter if you have beat him more. I hope you enjoy this! Have a great day everyone!

Yes this is a interesting topic. I believe that many people "go down in flames" because of two reasons. Reason 1.Move to fast Reason 2.Not paying atention How do we avoid these things? It is simple. They are both psychological and are easy to fix. Yet they take down strong players. International Master have this problem. Now I know many of you laughed at this and many IMs will say "He is wrong the little lier!" but I am indeed correct. IM Jeremy Silman talks about simaler things in his excelent book How to Reassess your chess 4th edition. He even says that during a tourn when he came back to the board he had already decided what to do and made a move. When he looked again he said that he hade moved the wrong piece! In the book he talked about for differant reasons but it got me thinking. Have I had simeler mistakes? I have, for everyone has. I looked over my games and found a good example. Example no.1 Here is what should have been played instead of Rd1. So I hope you enjoyed this. The topic will be explored later in Going down in Flames no.2 The point is this: When you play chess play Sslloowwlly. Try not to play bullet because it makes it harder for you to improve. Play slowly and think about your moves. Until next time!

The windmill The windmill is one of the most beautiful combinations in chess. Kotov provided the definition of a windmill as ‘a forcing series of attacks with discovered check.’The following famous game made this type of combination so well-known. The attacking side exploited the power of a rookbishop battery. It is very important to learn how to coordinate these different pieces. They complement each other very well. The windmill and other similar attacking set-ups are very dangerous and often lead not ‘only’ to a gain of material, but also directly to mate. Thanks for reading!

Okay yes. Tactics are called the soul of chess. It is also said that chess is 99% tactics. I know many people are braught up on this belief but it is false. Chess tactics and positional understanding are the soul and make 98% of chess. The other 2% are minor things. So why not work on positional skills? There is far more material on tactics so this series (yes it is a series and going down in flames will continue but lets take are time addressing chess matters) will mostly address positional chess. So lets begin! You must now how to play positional chess. So understanding the position is the key. Lets go to a good example played by the member skichess123. He/She is black here. Yes indeed. What does black play? Do you see the positional move? wow. Okay breather time. Okay now continue. Did you see that? That was like boom smash rip crash kadoom!! Positional moves like that leave a player in a great, you guessed it, position! Now whatch in aw as this 1300 player shreds white! This does a good job of showing us how you have to know how to play positional chess. If black had not played positional then who knows who would have won? But black played positional and then when his position was great white messed up and black won via tactics. But keep this in mind. Did the tactic or did the positional combination come first? So if black had not plyed positionally then the tactic was not possable! See why I said about positional chess and tactics being the soul of chess? They go hand in hand! In order to succeed you must be able to play both tactically and positonally. Until next time folks! (or maybe sooner!)

Sorry Chris. I do not have time to create a study plab for you. Instead I will create a "guide forum" for you. First that game analysis. The same thing will follow in another forum here for BDG ryan. So here is the analysis. This is one game done. The next game will be in another post. But you need to learn this from this game. 1.Castle quickly! 2.Pay attention! 3.Don't be afraid of doubled pawns! 4.Watch so you don't create weaknesses. 5.You are tacticaly weak! 6.Your positional skills need improving. So do the following. 1.Do tactics trainer! 2.Read books that teach you positional stregth. 3.Learn how to take care of your pieces! 4.Play slow games! Slow down! Play less bullet chess! 5.After ANY slow game look over it and try to figure out where you went wrong. Use pencil and paper and write down your thoughts in positions right after the game. Look for tactical blunders and positional mistakes. Here are to good articles to read. One is my own. 1. https://www.chess.com/groups/forumview/king-in-the-centerthe-stolen-crown 2. https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-past-masters-can-help-your-game The first teaches you the danger of a centeral king and how to take advantage of one. The second teaches you that you can't just know tactics you have to be positionaly strong or you will never be as strong as you could be. 1 or two more post will follow for Chris and then 2 to 3 post for BDGryan. Thanks!

I hope you liked my last forum Going down in flames and I hope you will enjoy this. It is not the next going down in flames forum but is another important idea that all should know. The name gives it all away. But what do I mean by "the stolen crown"? I mean that a king in the center is a target that players should attack instantly with out giving their opponent time to react. Here are some pointers on when you should attack a king in the center and some tips on how to do it. When to rules. 1.When you are castled and well developed. 2.When your opponent is less developed and it will take him at least 2 moves to castle. How to rules. 1.Open the position! 2.Strive for a attack in the center 3.Centeralize your peices when the position is open or in order to open the position. 4. Agressivly! 5.Quickly and do not give your opponent time to develope and castle. and with out wasting any more time lets see how it is done :) The following is a game I played recently. That should help you know how to react to a centrel king. White had a go on all of the above things and won a beautiful game. Here is a puzzle where you can try a quick king hunt on your own.

This forum is all about puzzles or tactics. The puzzle above won't occur in the actual play. But these are fun! Mate in 2:

1. Do not vote before the 24 hour mark 2.Talk about what move you want to play and why you want to play it 3.Be nice and do not insult peoples ideas 4.Analyze lines is you want to 5.Listen to peoples ideas 6.Let people help you! If there is a flaw in your move people can tell you and you can improve. 7.(optional :) ) Have Fun!!!!!!

At the moment I am the only one helping people. I will post more forums but for now you can challenge me to a 7 day unrated online chess game. When it is over I will analyze it.