Any tips for a slow beginner?

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Checkers

Sure. It’s 2 am rn - I’ll prob get back to you in 12 hrs happy.png

Anatoly1934
catmaster0 wrote:
drobilka wrote:

post, and annotate a rapid game you lost/had a hard time winning in the forum. after class, ill respond back to you, like i did with wornaki.

I played several games today until I found one that would be worth putting up, this was a close game I won, in part from time and in part a material lead coming out as my pieces finally got moving. I did not know what my opponent's opening was. The Italian is my main (more like my only), opening but I don't play gambits. Chess.com called it an Evan's gambit, which I will now look into to see how my defense could be improved. Let me know your thoughts on my gameplay and my annotations. I'm new to annotating my games, that's something I'll need to develop as well. This is my pre-engine annotation, I'll also look at what the chess.com analysis feature thought of the game afterwards now, but just wanted to get my original thoughts down before doing so. 

 

 

Sorry, you are playing not beautifully.

Very drab game.

catmaster0
Anatoly1934 wrote:
catmaster0 wrote:
drobilka wrote:

post, and annotate a rapid game you lost/had a hard time winning in the forum. after class, ill respond back to you, like i did with wornaki.

I played several games today until I found one that would be worth putting up, this was a close game I won, in part from time and in part a material lead coming out as my pieces finally got moving. I did not know what my opponent's opening was. The Italian is my main (more like my only), opening but I don't play gambits. Chess.com called it an Evan's gambit, which I will now look into to see how my defense could be improved. Let me know your thoughts on my gameplay and my annotations. I'm new to annotating my games, that's something I'll need to develop as well. This is my pre-engine annotation, I'll also look at what the chess.com analysis feature thought of the game afterwards now, but just wanted to get my original thoughts down before doing so. 

 

 

Sorry, you are playing not beautifully.

Very drab game.

I found it to be an exciting game on my end, but that isn't really the point. The requirements were a game I lost or barely won. Both players got into time trouble in a 15-10 setting where time is pretty much never an issue, meaning it was very difficult for both of us. I posted the link to the game to show the timers if needed for reference. I didn't even acknowledge a basic thing like how my ninth move opened a check that gave them an additional attacker on the fifth rank at any moment. I'm sure there is more, giving a lot of opportunities to find things to improve upon. I've given it some extra review afterwards, but it was late in the day for me as well, so I'll probably have to give it another run today.

Checkers
 
Here's my analysis of your game @catmaster0. Lmk if you have questions.
Checkers
Anatoly1934 wrote:
catmaster0 wrote:
drobilka wrote:

post, and annotate a rapid game you lost/had a hard time winning in the forum. after class, ill respond back to you, like i did with wornaki.

I played several games today until I found one that would be worth putting up, this was a close game I won, in part from time and in part a material lead coming out as my pieces finally got moving. I did not know what my opponent's opening was. The Italian is my main (more like my only), opening but I don't play gambits. Chess.com called it an Evan's gambit, which I will now look into to see how my defense could be improved. Let me know your thoughts on my gameplay and my annotations. I'm new to annotating my games, that's something I'll need to develop as well. This is my pre-engine annotation, I'll also look at what the chess.com analysis feature thought of the game afterwards now, but just wanted to get my original thoughts down before doing so. 

 

 

Sorry, you are playing not beautifully.

Very drab game.

Hmm, I'm interested in what you mean by this.

Checkers
drobilka wrote:
 
Here's my analysis of your game @catmaster0. Lmk if you have questions.

I have some recommendations for materials to study as well, if you would like. I also have some example games I think would be beneficial for you to study.

catmaster0
drobilka wrote:
drobilka wrote:
 
Here's my analysis of your game @catmaster0. Lmk if you have questions.

I have some recommendations for materials to study as well, if you would like. I also have some example games I think would be beneficial for you to study.

Sure. I'm going over your own notes atm, will have a post on that soon too. 

Anonymous_Dragon

I will be posting my game if possible...

Checkers
Anonymous_Dragon wrote:

I will be posting my game if possible...

dsuyfkjyneyudsjhgzevtwabysjnk

catmaster0
Not sure why my previous link didn't show the clocks, oh well.
Thanks for the input! You caught a lot of things I missed. I've put a reply explaining where my thoughts were, I do have a plan to castle queenside, but I'm soon defending against threats/perceived threats and have no clue what my opponent's plan is meant to be, though I felt I had a good read on several of their moves. Given several were errors, seems my opponent had similar misconceptions about the situation to my own. I definitely overlooked their major ideas, and I was lucky my opponent didn't know how to punish me with them. Let me know if you see any other holes from looking at this reply. I know there are major blind spots and concepts I do not understand, some of which are probably at/below my rating level, and I need to find them and fix them. 

 

catmaster0

Accidently clicked puzzle when I meant to click flip board, so my initial comment space was blank, smh. I corrected it, so if it didn't seem to look right before, I should have fixed it now.

Checkers
catmaster0 wrote:

Accidently clicked puzzle when I meant to click flip board, so my initial comment space was blank, smh. I corrected it, so if it didn't seem to look right before, I should have fixed it now.

Sure, no problem. I looked over your annotations briefly:

  • One thing you need to work on is candidate moves. For both you and your opponent. Candidate moves are essentially all moves that you are considering playing/your opponent might play. Example - on your move 5, you could have 5 ...Ba5, 5 ...Be7 and 5 ...Bc5 as your candidate moves. The other moves are possible, but they aren't really worth looking into. Obviously, the example I just gave it very basic, but you could have used it during other parts of the game (like when you didn't realize he could recapture with the pawn). In your annotations, I don't see any possible variations, rather you only post abstract ideas, without a clean variation demonstrating the execution. This causes you to focus on things like, "attacking f2" when it's not important, which leads to misevaluations of the position, and often, a lack of a sense of danger.
  • You mentioned you had a plan, but you have a tendency to get distracted and not execute it. This is again because you are looking at abstract ideas, and not looking at the actual possible variations themselves (calculation). You get distracted by insignificant threats.
  • Regarding the moment on move 9, you say that Bb2, "looked brutal" - again, this is because you're getting caught up on non-existent threats, but the move also just looks slow; it's not playing the centre, and it's not really making an immediate threat. Same with other moments in the game - you need to train your intuition to recognize those moments.
  • You need to get better at identifying the critical moments - moments you should spend more time on. in addition, some of your moves just look wrong (and you mention how you weren't sure about them). If your move isn't good, and you're the defending side, you should invest some time trying to find a better one.

I'll add more comments/material recommendations when I finish breakfast.

Checkers
sushi-volcano wrote:

i think some of us just have an aptitude for chess, don't be discouraged if you find that you aren't as fast as a learner

 

i mean, I've been studying only since January and I'm 1700 rapid. I don't like to think that I'm faster but yeah

One main problem i see with beginners is that they tend to play moves that will result in gratification if their opponent falls into their trap. Those moves aren't actually good moves themselves, and just ruin the position. So, one main takeaway is to stop playing moves that revolve around luck. 

What's your CFC rating? I might have played you before. (I'm from Canada too)

wornaki
sushi-volcano wrote:

i think some of us just have an aptitude for chess, don't be discouraged if you find that you aren't as fast as a learner

 

i mean, I've been studying only since January and I'm 1700 rapid. I don't like to think that I'm faster but yeah

One main problem i see with beginners is that they tend to play moves that will result in gratification if their opponent falls into their trap. Those moves aren't actually good moves themselves, and just ruin the position. So, one main takeaway is to stop playing moves that revolve around luck. 

 

It's got to be interesting and somewhat gratifying to be naturally talented at chess... But you're right, that's not usually the case for most beginners.

I think the main reason why beginners may want to play traps is because they play other beginners. if you start by playing stronger players, you rarely go for that because you quickly learn it's not a useful strategy.

The problem I see with beginners playing other beginners is that as one, I get incomprehensible moves that throw me off. With stronger players, I may miss one or two moves (usually they get the game won because of moves like those, but not exclusively because of these). With beginners I rarely see many of the moves they play, which means I have to spend a lot of time calculating stuff I wouldn't normally do. I guess it's "easier" to play up...

Checkers
sushi-volcano wrote:
drobilka wrote:
sushi-volcano wrote:

i think some of us just have an aptitude for chess, don't be discouraged if you find that you aren't as fast as a learner

 

i mean, I've been studying only since January and I'm 1700 rapid. I don't like to think that I'm faster but yeah

One main problem i see with beginners is that they tend to play moves that will result in gratification if their opponent falls into their trap. Those moves aren't actually good moves themselves, and just ruin the position. So, one main takeaway is to stop playing moves that revolve around luck. 

What's your CFC rating? I might have played you before. (I'm from Canada too)

Oh, I don't have one yet   Because of COVID there aren't many opportunities to play OTB. 

Ah, ok. There are online tournaments you can play in to get a CFC rapid rating, if you are interested. Our national championships are also coming up soon - it's all online happy.png

1c6O-1

Do more puzzles and play more rapid games happy.png

Checkers
sushi-volcano wrote:
drobilka wrote:
sushi-volcano wrote:
drobilka wrote:
sushi-volcano wrote:

i think some of us just have an aptitude for chess, don't be discouraged if you find that you aren't as fast as a learner

 

i mean, I've been studying only since January and I'm 1700 rapid. I don't like to think that I'm faster but yeah

One main problem i see with beginners is that they tend to play moves that will result in gratification if their opponent falls into their trap. Those moves aren't actually good moves themselves, and just ruin the position. So, one main takeaway is to stop playing moves that revolve around luck. 

What's your CFC rating? I might have played you before. (I'm from Canada too)

Oh, I don't have one yet   Because of COVID there aren't many opportunities to play OTB. 

Ah, ok. There are online tournaments you can play in to get a CFC rapid rating, if you are interested. Our national championships are also coming up soon - it's all online 

Ooh, thanks! It's nice to talk to a fellow Canadian

No problem! happy.png Hope this helps, and good luck!

Checkers
sushi-volcano wrote:
drobilka wrote:
sushi-volcano wrote:
drobilka wrote:
sushi-volcano wrote:
drobilka wrote:
sushi-volcano wrote:

i think some of us just have an aptitude for chess, don't be discouraged if you find that you aren't as fast as a learner

 

i mean, I've been studying only since January and I'm 1700 rapid. I don't like to think that I'm faster but yeah

One main problem i see with beginners is that they tend to play moves that will result in gratification if their opponent falls into their trap. Those moves aren't actually good moves themselves, and just ruin the position. So, one main takeaway is to stop playing moves that revolve around luck. 

What's your CFC rating? I might have played you before. (I'm from Canada too)

Oh, I don't have one yet   Because of COVID there aren't many opportunities to play OTB. 

Ah, ok. There are online tournaments you can play in to get a CFC rapid rating, if you are interested. Our national championships are also coming up soon - it's all online 

Ooh, thanks! It's nice to talk to a fellow Canadian

No problem!  Hope this helps, and good luck!

It's completely fine if you don't have any competition experience at all right? All  i need to do is purchase the CFC membership and fill out the forms and stuff?

Yup, you just need a membership happy.png 

A lot of people have started playing during COVID, so not having tournament experience shouldn't be a problem. You also will probably need to download Zoom on two devices, as most tournaments from now on require two cameras: front, and side.

Anatoly1934
drobilka wrote:
Anatoly1934 wrote:
catmaster0 wrote:
drobilka wrote:

post, and annotate a rapid game you lost/had a hard time winning in the forum. after class, ill respond back to you, like i did with wornaki.

I played several games today until I found one that would be worth putting up, this was a close game I won, in part from time and in part a material lead coming out as my pieces finally got moving. I did not know what my opponent's opening was. The Italian is my main (more like my only), opening but I don't play gambits. Chess.com called it an Evan's gambit, which I will now look into to see how my defense could be improved. Let me know your thoughts on my gameplay and my annotations. I'm new to annotating my games, that's something I'll need to develop as well. This is my pre-engine annotation, I'll also look at what the chess.com analysis feature thought of the game afterwards now, but just wanted to get my original thoughts down before doing so. 

 

 

Sorry, you are playing not beautifully.

Very drab game.

Hmm, I'm interested in what you mean by this.

Hi drobilka. )

It's not easy to explain.

This is what I can call a "beautiful game" - https://www.chess.com/live/game/5622110867

It's when you play Chess with pleasure and be relaxed. )... sacrifying your pieces and so on...

 

 

Anatoly1934

drobilka, here in Russia they say that it was GM Mihael Tal who was showing the most beautiful playing.