Ameteur - Chess Forums

fischerprodigy412

Nov 6, 2017

0

#1

I am not the best at chess. I love chess though. I have a great tatical mind, and good at strategy. My biggest and worst weakness is opening principle. I always feel like frustrated because I like to play as black but always lose control in center and I don’t develop my pieces in the best manner. I need help or advice playing as black.

Strangemover

Nov 6, 2017

0

#2

Your ratings suggest you do not yet have a great tactical mind and are not yet good at strategy. If you did you would not be troubled by the opening. You should try to maintain control of the centre and develop your pieces in the best manner. Pick an opening vs e4 and vs d4, play them almost exclusively, analyse your games to find your mistakes, look at games of great players and see how they have handled these openings, do a little research on what the plans are rather than trying to memorize a sequence of moves.

Sqod

Nov 6, 2017

0

#3

It looks like you're playing only Rapid Chess on this site, which is a problem in itself. Chess is too difficult to play quickly if you're serious about it.

For Classical School games (which you should start with) you first want to get a center pawn duo, especially e4 and d4 as White, or e5 and d5 as Black. If one of those center pawns gets dissolved early, then the next goal is to move the remaining center pawn out, which is usually necessary and the optimal move. If you're playing Black in an e-pawn opening you'll typically have to wait several moves before you can safely equalize with ...d5. In the mean time, as White or Black, don't get your knights get chased off, like 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5, or 1. Nc3 d5 2. e4?! d4. The typical way you prevent that is to anticipate such a pawn push, and put a pawn on the 3rd rank that guards that advance square. Also, don't let your opponent centralize his queen without being able to drive it away with a *piece* (not pawn), like don't play as Black 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nxd4?! 5. Qxd4. If you do all that, bring your knights out to B3 instead of K2 or Q2 or R3, and castle early, you shouldn't have much trouble maintaining your center.

P.S.--Also, if you spell "amateur" wrong you'll *really* look like an ameteur.

leoultimater

Nov 6, 2017

0

#4

Let's look at this game: https://www.chess.com/live/game/2411962886?username=fischerprodigy412

On your 7th move, you already blundered away the game. Your knight is pinned, and after pawn takes pawn, your pinned knight is attacked by a pawn. A better move would have been pushing your pawn, attacking the bishop. This reply is so powerful, it actually shows that your opponent's bishop check move was actually an inaccuracy. A better move for them would have been pawn take pawn immediately.

Your most recent game you played quite solid:
https://www.chess.com/live/game/2414051268?username=fischerprodigy412

Unfortunately you abandoned the game toward the end. If you took the rook, you would have been a rook up. It might appear your opponent was going to mate you next move, but your bishop on the long diagonal prevents this. Long diagonals can be hard to see even for advanced players.

This one you lost your queen 7 moves in:
https://www.chess.com/live/game/2412071479?username=fischerprodigy412

Technically the h6 blunder lost the queen for you already on move 5. When you see a bishop-knight attack like this, it's actually an equal trade, material wise, to give up a rook and a pawn for a bishop and a knight. It will, however, weaken your king's position. The best move here was to castle.
Even still, I'd like to comment on your g6 move you played at move 3. This move creates two holes for your dark-squared bishop very early in the opening. This is generally considered very bad for an opening. As far as opening theory goes, you want to be able to develop all your pieces. Development finishes when you're able to connect your rooks. In order to connect your rooks, you need to get both bishops out of the way, both knights out of the way, the queen out of the way, then either castle or in rare positions where castling is bad: move your king out of the way. This then connects your rooks.

Since the knights can move around the board without needing to push any pawns, the main focus in your opening should be: is my light-squared bishop going left or right, and is my dark-squared bishop going left or right? You can fianchetto both bishops, one, the other one, or develop both through the center.

Another thing you should be aware of in chess is weak squares. On move 3 when your opponent plays Bc4. While it's easy to see your pawn is attacked once and protected once, this isn't an immediate threat, but you should be aware whenever an important square becomes unprotected. When a piece is hit and defended the same amount of times, it's unprotected. At this point you should be wondering if the need arises, do I have a way which I can defend this square again? While the queen can protect it, it won't help much if your opponent attacks it with a knight. Keeping this in mind, you return to your opening needs. Your light-square bishop hasn't decided whether it's going left or right yet. This would be a good time to push your pawn: d6. This allows you to play Be6, to get an extra defender to your f7 square.

As far as tactics go, NEVER leave your king on the same diagonal as a bishop so that it can check you whenever it feels like. This is pressure you shouldn't have to live with and you shouldn't leave your opponent with such opportunities. If it were a knight, it's the same idea. It's bad to just leave your knight there so they can exchange at a time that it would be the biggest advantage to them. Generally when your opponent has an annoying bishop like this, you should trade bishops on the same diagonal.

Another problem with this opening is you have an e5 pawn just sitting there unprotected. As soon as they play Nf3, you're tasked with protecting your center pawn. They develop their knight with tempo and before you know it, Ng5 is played, and there's a double attack on the weak f7 square.
I'd also like to comment how weak your 4th move Bd6 is. This traps your undeveloped light-square bishop in. Your pawn g6 move ain't so bad if you decide to play d6, now both your bishops can develop.

You might also want to take a look at your opponent's position. They developed their light-squared bishop via the aggressive Bc4. If you try to attack it, it can sit safely on b3 while still eyeing your king. Bobby Fischer loved eyeing this pawn. Even if you manage to attack the bishop on b3, after a3, it can sit safely on a2 while still eyeing the f7 pawn near the king. The thing about the f7 pawn is that before you castle, it's a square that can check the king. After you castle king side, it is a square that can still check the king. Your opponent got their bishop out of their pawn circle. Now that you know they want their light-squared bishop to eye your king, they can push their d-pawn later and develop their dark-squared bishop via the center as well. This is generally the recommended way to develop your bishops.

In games where you decide you want to play using a modern opening and fianchetto your bishop(s), it's generally better to push your center pawns once initially, not twice. This way when you fianchetto your bishop(s), you're not blocking in your own bishops with your own center pawns.

It's important to understand the difference between an open game and a closed game in chess. When the pawn structure gets locked up in the center (closed games), the bishops lose mobility and the knights become stronger. In open games, where the pawn structure is not locked up, the bishops are stronger as they have more room to move around. Thus if you're going to put your bishop(s) on the long diagonal(s), it's a good idea to keep the pawn structures open to flexiblity. Pushing a pawn once is much more flexible than pushing it twice. You can't push a pawn backwards. However leaving the pawn at home prevents you from developing. Thus you push it once so you can get your pieces out.

There will come times when you need to challenge the center, and your position is too tight to maneuver your pieces. This is where you should trade some pieces so you create gaps in your camp that you can move your pieces to in order to coordinate your pieces properly so they can challenge the center later.

Here's a game where you played as white:

You were playing fine until the e6 pawn advance at move 8. It accomplishes nothing and gives your opponent a free pawn.
I also dislike move 11 f6. When your opponent questioned your knight, by exchanging knights you're left with a pawn attacking your bishop.
I'd sooner have retreated the knight rather than trade off all my developed material.
However as your opponent can castle either way, and they're attempting a king-sided attack on you, they'd probably want to castle queen sided.
I'd have traded my bishop for their knight, to mess up their queen side pawn structure, then retreated the knight.
Move 13 a serious blunder, failing to see your bishop was under attack.
Move 16 a useless king move that blunders away material. When there's a deadly pin like this, try to break it as soon as possible.
The method to breaking these sort of pins is usually move your queen up two squares.
If that weren't an option, I'd have tried Kg2 to protect it, then you can simply move your queen away since the knight would have been guarded.
Or you could push up the h-pawn and question the bishop. Break pins as soon as possible.
If you decide not to break a pin as soon as possible, make sure they can't add more attackers to the pin.
Incoming pawns are the first such thing to look for. If that weren't an option, you'd look for other pieces which could attack it.
There's a knight near by, but it would take four moves to attack the bishop. Can it move 4 times with tempo? Nope.
There's a dark-squared bishop, but it can't add to the attack. There's a queen near by, and it join the attack in two moves.
Opponent also has rooks. One rook is already on the correct file to join the attack on your pinned knight.
They'd just have to get their pawn off the file. So f5 followed by f4 followed by fxg3 and they got their rook into action.
You could take with your f-pawn though to get your rook guarding, but then you're justing weaking your king's position.

After e5 has been played, it should be obvious they want to play e4 next to attack your pinned bishop.
At first glance dxe5 looks decent, but then this lets them take back with pawn and get their rook to attack the pinned piece.
At this point I would have realized the knight is doomed and how deadly their light-squared bishop is.
I like the idea of h3 in this position. Let them have a free pawn followed by my rook in exchange for the bishop.
This way I get their powerful bishop away from the attack on my king.
I'd also like to comment on move 20.
You should never take back with an edge pawn if it's guarding your castled king.
Now a queen can slip into the file and mate you via the g2 square. Even worse is your opponent has a protection circle with their bishop and pawn.
You have no way to challenge their bishop either. Taking back with the f-pawn rather than the h-pawn is day and night difference.
It allows you to challenge the bishop with your rook and gives your king a flight square via f2 to escape to safety.
Since you took back with the h-pawn, notice how your rook is trapping your king in.
Also be aware in this position, you can get mated by a rook on h1.
To untrap your king now, you'd have to swing your rook over to c1, but you'd need to move your bishop first.
Then slowly walk your king from g1 to f1 to e1 until he's finally off the back rank via d2.
That's six moves to get him off the back rank. Very weak back rank position by taking back with the h-pawn.
Compare it again to taking with the f-pawn. Boom Kf2, you're off the back rank in a single move.

As play continued, you're a bishop down, still have decent drawing odds or maybe your opponent might blunder.
There's a saying, when you're down in material, push pawns.
The idea is if one of those pawns promote, you gain back material.
Another concept to keep in mind when you're down in material is to avoid trades.
Your idea of losing three tempo to trade dark-squared bishopes is terrible.
Be3 is one move. Qc1 is another move. Finally your third move Bh6 which only offers a trade.
Your opponent could have avoided this trade too, realizing your bishop move actually left your d-pawn unguarded.
Your opponent decides to trade you down, and trades bishops.
Once the smoke clears around move 28, you're a bishop and three pawns down, and your king is still stuck in the corner.
Finally you're mated via a back rank problem you created for yourself on move 20, taking back with an edge pawn that takes away your king's flight sqaure(s).
Always leave your king a flight square.

kindaspongey

Nov 7, 2017

0

#5