I recently played a game that I thought I won quite comfortably. All of my moves seemed natural, the trades favored me, and I was even able to be a little creative. These games are the ones that make me wish I had rybka, or, at the very least, something stronger than the basic membership, once-a-week chess.com analyzer (to be fair, even the 2000-strength engine helps me).
When I went over the game the first time, everything still had had a rosy tint. I patted myself on the back and figured I'd done quite well. Then something started to knot in my stomach. It was doubt. It was my pride being challenged. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are- the former are few, and the ladder are many. I looked over the game again and thought my ideas were sound, but also that the opponent played into my ideas. So I submitted the game to the chess.com basic engine. While it found that I made few outstanding errors, a few disappointing suspicions were confirmed. The first: the opponent did play into many of my ideas. The second: my favorite move in the game, my "brag-about-it-to-your-friends/ captive audience" move, was deemed a mistake.
Which brings me back to the first suspicion and the lesson that can be learned from it: 1. Don't chase "ghosts"/ idealized variations. 2. Always put up a fight. Find a way to make things difficult for your opponent (though some players choose to make things easier for themselves).
Here is the game. I'll include the computer lines, too, even though I doubt the engine's ability to be accurate in positional analyses at the strength given.
I recently played a game that I thought I won quite comfortably. All of my moves seemed natural, the trades favored me, and I was even able to be a little creative. These games are the ones that make me wish I had rybka, or, at the very least, something stronger than the basic membership, once-a-week chess.com analyzer (to be fair, even the 2000-strength engine helps me).
When I went over the game the first time, everything still had had a rosy tint. I patted myself on the back and figured I'd done quite well. Then something started to knot in my stomach. It was doubt. It was my pride being challenged. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are- the former are few, and the ladder are many. I looked over the game again and thought my ideas were sound, but also that the opponent played into my ideas. So I submitted the game to the chess.com basic engine. While it found that I made few outstanding errors, a few disappointing suspicions were confirmed. The first: the opponent did play into many of my ideas. The second: my favorite move in the game, my "brag-about-it-to-your-friends/ captive audience" move, was deemed a mistake.
Which brings me back to the first suspicion and the lesson that can be learned from it: 1. Don't chase "ghosts"/ idealized variations. 2. Always put up a fight. Find a way to make things difficult for your opponent (though some players choose to make things easier for themselves).
Here is the game. I'll include the computer lines, too, even though I doubt the engine's ability to be accurate in positional analyses at the strength given.