So why did I join. Well as it happens a bloke at work that I've known for years wanted to play. Great I thought. Anyway he is a better player than me so I decided to play a tournament. I figure the more games I play the sooner I can make and learn from my mistakes.
Then I met farbror who went out of his way to help and suggested this group. So, now I'm here and lets see where it goes.
Thank you for joining! The two of us will have to form the Grumpy Geezer sub section of the Study Buddy Group.
I recognize the feeling: The Enjoyment of Learning
I hope you will find some use for our group!
Well I won my first game in the tournament I'm playing. Against a player rated 1472 at the time so felt pretty good about it. Since I've lost all but one (a draw) so far the confidence boost was appreciated ;-)
Perhaps you would be interested in annotating our first Tactics Training Game and post it here? It is a great way of improving your chess skills!
My move was q g6 to f7. Have I made a mistake I wonder. I felt I had control now I fear I'm going to lose it. Black to move.
Qg6-f7 was maybe weaker than, say Qf6 but I fear black will ride out the storm
I have the same fear ;-)
Now you mention qf6, I had planned that originally. It somehow forgotten about after thinking of the other potential moves - I blame my girlfriend who doesn't understand that I'm not ignoring her, it's just that well... it takes a lot of concentration
Now I've spent some time looking at it. It was a very stupid move. Think then move!!!
This is the position I find myself in a game today.
Me to move, clearly I'm about to come under attack by black (farbror) and it doesn't look to pretty for me. So my current train of thought is that I need to distract at least one peice away from the pawn otherwise I'm not going to be able to defend that area.
Bishop to g7 would (I think) draw the rook away from my pawn. But can I recover? I'd dent white's defence but I'd lose the very bishop I'd need to apply pressure to that square. Hmm, needs some thinking about.
This is an unrated game so it is OK with me to have it discussed even though it is ongoing.
Thanks farbror, I should have made it clear it's an ongoing game. At this point I was only intending to record my thoughts at what I consider to be key points so that I can refer back once the game is over and I analyse the game to try and see at what point I screwed up that led me to this situation.
h4. I hadn't even considered that
My game with farbror . Not being able to see many moves ahead I think is what is hurting me. At one point I really though I might be able to get myself out of trouble and perhaps even gain a slight advantage.
Sadly I suspect he saw my plan and defended against it before I'd even though of it.
Up to now I seem to have settled at aroun 1400. Still not enough games to know it thats a true ranking I guess.
Since my last post what's changed? Well I still make stupid mistakes have a LOT to learn. But one positive change is that I'm spotting the mistakes made by other players and have had the pleasure of being the one to punish these mistakes rather than be on the recieving end.
I've become a gold member and will be making use of the tacticts trainer.
Goal : get a 1500 ranking
Tactics trainer will help you!
As soon as I posted that I wanted to get to 1500 I suffered a few loses. I'm getting back up there though. I'm just short of 1500... maybe tonight ;-)
About me. Well I'm 38. My dad taught me chess as a kid, that is, how each peice can moves. I never could find anyone to play against. This is before the internet ;-)
Next chance I got was while doing my A levels at about 18 when a guy brought in a chess set. After I won a couple of games he wouldn't play anymore. The story of my life since then.
So I never really had the opportunity to learn the game. I do tend to feel I'm too old to ever get good at it now. But that's OK. If I can learn to improve my game then I'll be happy. If I can get to a stage where I'm playing games that my opponents enjoy then that would be ideal.