I'm an idiot :X

Have you heard the expression - 'If you're trying to start an argument then you've picked the wrong subject !' ?      

But on a more positive note, although you made a few serious errors in this game, the way you've arranged your pieces seems pretty good to me - particularly your queen & bishops. For example, 18...e4 leaves your g2 rook hanging but if the king takes it then e3+ wins the queen.

The thing about move 18 that caught my eye was the placing of your white-squared bishop & g2 rook. Had you just wanted a quick win of material, then  18...Rxf2+ enables you to capture the queen on the next move, albeit at the sacrifice of your rook.  It reminds me of a type of repeat-check attack known as a 'Windmill':-

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No, I haven't. What does it mean?

This move was really stupid because I could have checkmated my opponent there and then (20.Rxh2#), but instead I decided to throw away the Rook. I completely missed that move and felt like kicking myself when the computer analysis pointed it out .

And while we're on the subject of clever moves, check out this brilliant move I made in an endgame:

Someone shoot me .

The irony of this is that I'm now a member of the Chess Intelligence Quotient group :X.

Don't worry about that expression - just a 'smart' way of saying no-one can disagree with you ! (I meant it tongue in cheek)

But I can see you have a problem with making rash moves (the example above in #3 is pretty bad !) - is it because you feel under time pressure & don't have time to think ?  I also notice that you don't fare very well in Blitz games.  Perhaps you just need to allow yourself more time for each move.

I only play Online chess for that reason with a 1,2 or 3-day limit. Then I can analyse each move to death if I need to. That way it's much harder to make bad moves. Of course you can have as many simul.' games running as you want but I generally stick to less than 10 at any one time.

But it does seem as if most of your problems are with Live chess so how about avoiding it until you improve in Online ?  It's also a good idea to set up the position on a board & test your move before you make it. I copy the FEN of the  game I'm studying into the Board/Game Editor on this site & step through my move looking for problems with it & trying out different variations. Then I can copy the PGN of that into my own text file of current games & keep it for future reference. 

Then I go through a check (no pun intended) list - is my king safe from check or mate; is my queen safe ?  Can any of my pieces be taken & if so can I recapture an equal amount of material:  Are there any forks, pins or skewers threatening me or imminent ?

If you can train yourself to think this way then your playing should improve.  After all, you only need two things to play chess to a decent level - method & concentration.

Good luck with your games.

{ If you need help with any of the above, just drop me a note }

Thanks

I'd love to be able to analyse my games, but I just don't have the time right now. That's why I'm relying on computer analyses for the time being. (I'd also love to be able to do more Tactics Trainer, Chess Mentor, watch more videos, and of course play more Chess).

I think you're right about making rash moves. I tend to rush when I'm running out of time or when I'm desperate for a game to end if I think it's in the bag or if I think I know what the result will be. I don't know if you've seen aww-rats's videos, but he talks about impulsive moves and I think that's one of my biggest weaknesses in Chess.

About using the analysis board to analyse an online game in progress, isn't that considered cheating, unless you do it all in your head? I've also encountered annoying problems with the analysis board before.

Don't worry about using the Analysis Board - it's nothing more than an electronic chess set (unless I've missed something), it doesn't analyse anything.  You still have to do all the hard slog yourself - most certainly not cheating !

Now I think about it, that may be a misunderstanding because I'm talking about the Analysis Board & Editor that can be accessed from the 'More' menu at the top of the page, not the computer analysis on this site which is only available on finished games I think (?) - I've never used that. In fact I think it's only available to diamond members ?

You're right though about it having some annoying 'quirks' - it keeps freezing on me & I have to refresh the page time & again. But overall, the benefits outway the problems. But heck, any legitimate means of helping us improve our games has to be a good thing.

Yes, aww-rats's videos are the next thing on my to-do list. Right now I'm working through a couple of library books on chess strategy but I understand your problem with finding time for these things - chess eats up my time as well.

Just remember to think twice before you hit the submit button & you'll soon stop making so many blunders.
                                                      ----o--o---- 

Edit:  I should have mentioned that I use the analysis board in Game Editor mode after loading in the FEN string.  This then enables you to try out all kinds of moves & variations which you can annotate & save the entire thing if you want but it's all your own work !

Basic members get 1 computer analysis per week ar 2000 strength

Gold members get 2 per week at 2200

Platinum members get 25 per week at 2500

Diamond members get unlimited at 2500

That's my understanding of it anyway

The analysis board (and the insert game function in the forums) keeps freezing for me as well.

Thanks, adamplenty - that's cleared up my confusion. Perhaps I'll start using that facility in future but am I right - you can only use the computer analysis on finished games & not on current games ?

As for the analysis board, I press Ctrl+R to refresh the thing every so often but some days it's really bad & if you forget to save what you've done then it's easy to lose it (in both senses!).
But then I find a lot of things on this site just don't work very well - I've got a rapidly growing list of complaints that I'm going to present to the support staff one of these days.

I don't have the same problem with the insert game function for messaging/posting but what does happen to me is that long posts or messages sometimes vanish when I hit Submit, never to be seen again! The first time it happened I came close to throwing my laptop through the window    

I reported it to the staff but they seemed rather clueless...  What I do now is to save everything I can in Notepad.  Also, it works much better if I post a short comment first & then use the Edit function on the forum to add more text & diagrams - that always works perfectly.  Perhaps you could try doing that ?

I believe you can only use the computer analysis feature on finished games. Not only that, but you're also limited to games played on chess.com.

I have had the 'message vanishing' problem before. It's only happened after I take a while to submit it, and so far I think it's only happened here (due to the unusual nature of my posts there ). I think I just clicked back and it reappeared. Now, when I make long posts or take a while to post it (which isn't often), I copy it to the clipboard just in case. It's possible that the connection expires (because I was idle; you haven't actually sent anything to the server until you hit Submit or Preview. You're only telling it what to send it when you do click Submit) and it has to reconnect, and as everything refreshes when you connect, your post disappears. Servers probably do this to save bandwidth.

Yes, that's a good point about the server. I remember the staff asking me how long I took before submitting my posts & messages.

As a matter of interest what browser do you use ?  I switched to Chrome a couple of months ago on the advice of the staff - this site seems to be designed around it.

Firefox 13

I must be going blind . Here I missed 3 mates in 1!

Don't beat yourself up over this one - you played some good moves. Nice forks & skewers.

 I must be going blind as well because I could only find one mate in one move:   30...Qa6#   What were the other ones ?

 I thought  29...Qd1+  would have been a stronger move because a lot of mating strategies involve forcing your opponents king into ever smaller rectangles & the queen is particularly good at this.  Throw in a rook as well & you're really motoring !

 I've added a few alternative mates that I saw to your diagram:-

 It certainly helped that your opponent effectively took his queen out of play at f6 but did you see the risk of moving both of your rooks from the 8th. rank ?  By moving his queen between f6 & d8 he could have forced a draw by perpetual check !

And no rash moves either     

Thanks

According to the computer analysis, I missed 30.Qa6#, 35.Qa3#, and 41.Qa3#.

Oh well, at least I didn't do anything stupid this time like throwing away my Rook .

No, I didn't see the risk of moving my Rooks. Although I wasn't paying that much attention to that area of the board . I don't usually see that far ahead anyway (I know I probably should if I ever hope to become good at Chess).

Yes, of course  Qa3# - I missed those two (it was well past my bedtime!).

  Have you tried going over your games without the aid of computer analysis when you have enough spare time, looking for those better moves ?
  That's the only way to really train yourself to see good moves - after all, you can't use the computer when you're playing.

That's my point. I don't have the time to fully analyse every possible move and every possible combination in any game . I may be able to analyse some of the more interesting positions though. But it may turn out I've missed some obvious move from the opponent .

I see your point - this game can eat up all your time if you let it.  As long as the computer analysis is teaching you something then that's the important thing.

But one thing at a time eh ? - control the urge to make those hasty, disastrous moves & you'll be on the way to a better rating   

Have you heard that saying (I think it was by Fischer ?):-

"When you see a good move, look for a better one"

I think about that every time I make a move in a promising position - sometimes when you look again, there really is a better move.

I've tried to control the urge to make impulsive moves, but I see I need a lot more practice:

If this carries on, I may have to make a thread (on the public forum) about these moves for the benefit of everyone .

And no, I haven't heard that saying .

Just when I thought you were making progress     

There's one recurring theme in those games - you leave your king in the castled position behind three pawns without any escape if you're attacked on that rank !  It's a good idea to move one of those pawns forward, say g3 or h3, if you think the rank is vulnerable to a rook or queen attack.

Other than that, it's essential to allow yourself as much time as possible especially when you are about to move a piece to a square on which it can be taken.  For instance in the third diagram above, Rd1 is clearly a very bad move but if your opponent had played it instead then you'd have come out a rook ahead & with your queen.

There's a 'first strike' advantage to making the first capture when the pieces involved are equal & you should never hand that advantage to your opponent !

Do you feel that you are learning anything from these mistakes & the analysis you're doing ?

I usually only make moves like h3 if I don't know what else to do. I try to create threats because I never know what my opponent is going to pull out of his sleeve.

It's too early to say if the computer analyses are helping yet, as I've yet to find adequate time to study them in full. In the meantime, I've been watching the videos here on chess.com and the ones from aww-rats and ChessNetwork. I've also been using Chess Mentor.