Task 5 | Games to Insight (Chess Drills) | Strategix Universe Personalized Chess Training Program

The third game I am sharing, I was reminded that I need to not only do check captures and attacks for my opponent but also for if they can do it to me. This game hurt a bit to play after my inaccuracy. Just felt it in my gut that that one mistake decided the game. I still fought on to try and learn but it definitely is a demotivating one when I was crushing out the opening and one misjudgment flipped the whole game around.

I resigned as I had literally no moves that were good, only bad moves and could easily see that they were going to promote in next few moves.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/165430814649

8. cxd6 Qa5 I decided not to take back the pawn, to save time (a serious mistake). I learned that you have to avoid having a material imbalance, therefore recapture when an opponent takes a piece.

where was the "bad move" gambit? I see move 23 Qxe7+ and can't see a benefit of that, but from doing your daily puzzles I know you love a cheeky queen sacrifice so...? Or move 20ish not anticipating the bishop check-rook fork? Even with my blunderblindness it looked like you had far superior board presence after that naughty little bishop check rook action

Move 19 I should have done Qxe8+, I waited too long and let them counter. Sometimes winning endgame better than going for the win

I play kings Indian for black. On move 7 you probably should have developed your knight to support c5 or of just gone e5. Their bishop was indirectly protecting the c5 square as well.

This game reminded me not to get tunnel vision. I had a plan on move 16 to reposition my knight so I could push my d pawn. But by getting tunnel vision on my plan I missed a rook capture on move 17. With that said, I was lucky as they blundered it again and I captured it on move 18.

Day 4

https://www.chess.com/game/live/165529212167

4. fxe4 Qg4+ 5.Re2?? This defensive move by the King was a mistake and could have allowed Black to attack the Rook a second time with the Bishop on c4.

I learned that you have to explore all defensive solutions before attempting to counter a check to the King

Reason bishop take was best move far as I see with my limited experience is 2 reasons.

1. Bishop was trapped. It was a desperadaux. You were losing bishop anyway so you sack it and instead of queen check take second pawn. 2 pawns for trapped bishop good way keep close to equal.

2. It opens up enemy King making them vulnerable to an attack.

Day 5: Today I won a game when my opponent resigned - it would have been a king vs king and rook endgame. I found when I tried to continue against the computer I couldn't figure out how to win.....so today's drill is endgame.

There was no pivotal move. Once again, this was probably attempt no. 8 or 9, and I kept ending in stalemate, so back to youtube I went to relearn how to win with queen and king vs king. I was able to add to what I already learned last time I had this (move the king via being a knight's distance away) to

a) stop moving the queen when the king is in the corner

b) get my king to the third diagonal square away from their king
the actual drill was more about anticipating the enemy pawn moves and being careful not to allow them to promote. After many attempts I learned to try and think 2 steps ahead and thing about the follow up to my follow up...

This game is like 4 or 5. I learned about patience. So there came a point where I did a pawn break on the kingside because I was trying to opening up the position but that was a mistake, it actually wanted me to be patient, stay solid, and reposition my knight to the kingside bringing in another attacker, adding pressure to the side of the board I had the most initiative. Hard to see but it did teach me none the less that sometimes I need to ease up and stop rushing my attacks. I need to work on being more precise like a surgeon.

https://www.chess.com/game/daily/887921451

9.Bg2?? I didn't think I could play kingside with with the bishop placed in h1

I learned that you really need to review the fundamentals in Chess960

https://www.chess.com/game/164841260368

11.Bf3 Nd5?? I continued with the idea of ​​trapping the Queen, but the situation had changed with the White Bishop in f3

I learned that the center needed to be reinforced (with d5).

By learning lessons and looking at puzzles, I finally manage to find checkmates in several moves.

Hi!

I did my drill today, and then proceeded to play a ffew games. The one I shared is the first I played right after the drill:

I will be honest, I struggle to find something positive I learned, for different reasons.

I think there are 2 key moments (see below for the board) that made me win this match, which are 2 blunders from my opponent.

- on move 26, Ba3 Ke5(??), the balance of the game is totally white.

- Then we did Bd5 Kd3, to which I answered with Re3 (?) , which is a blunder for me too according to the engine, as I lost all advantage. This opens a parenthesis to me on why this was a mistake, why Rb2 was a better move and why the engine suggests the correct follow up of white will result in a rook sacrifice for black;

- After my Kd3 blunder, black moves Kf4, opening me for a checkmate, which I did with Bc5.

My sad lessons are:

- While I try to give a general direction/idea to a tactic or game apprach, I struggle to put it into practise and I really can't manage to see even just 2 moves ahead on the board. For example, I didn't even realise It was a checkmate until I got that pawn. Or, I missed a possible fork with the Kinght at moves 6/7 after attacking the queen with a pawn capture. In general, if you check the "balance" black/white balance graph, there are many instances where my moves end up losing the advantage, which I hardly and barely gained.

- As a consequence, the second sad lesson is that I probably tend to play in a somehow defensive way that just waits for an opponent super mistake, while I believe that I am actually reading a couple moves ahead and making good tactics.

- I lowkey thought it was a matter of time, but I see that a lot of bad moves still come from a long turn, which means that after long calculations I still end up picking the bad or worse choice.

I hope that the tomorrow's posts will not have the same reasons looped 😅