Cracking under pressure from aggressive players

Hi everyone.

I'm a relative beginner to chess and am languishing around the 600 mark. I tend to develop well at the beginning of games but crumble as soon as the other player chases me with pawns or gets their queen out early.

In the game I've posted above, the other player seemed a bit careless to me but I didn't know how to take advantage of it, and eventually he cornered my queen and won. Could anyone have a look and give me some pointers about what I should do in these situations/should have done?

I'm going to start off with I do not consider my self a good chess player but I am going to try to give you some pointers.

In my humble opinion you are not suffering from pressure but a lack of technical knowledge. The only reason you lost is because you are playing without a plan. And it is always better to play with a bad plan then with no plan. It seems most of the time you are just aimlessly moving pieces. Look at move 20. Bf7+, it doesn't really do anything, also neither of you saw blacks Nf7. A good move here would have been Nh3 or better yet Ne4. Why?

I mean the game is already lost there I'm just trying to illustrate a point using an example. You need to plan ahead. Have a goal in your head. You're planning on capturing a pawn, improving your position etc. It doesn't always have to be something big.

Again for instance that bishop on 6.be3 and the 7.nd5, be honest you didn't have any idea what you were going to do with them in the future but you didn't want to "appear weak" by moving the knight back.

Also you don't have to hoard your pieces aimlessly. At 8.bd7 you should have exchanged the bishops. You saved him and he didn't do anything the entire game. And probably the best advice in my post is when in complex positions exchange pieces i.e. simplify. That is when the position is intimidating you or you feel under pressure. Exchange pieces sometimes even give away a pawn or two just to give your self room to breath. Example:

It's not about the pressure it's in your head. You are cracking because you don't know what to do because you don't have a plan and he does. Even if it is horrible. You want to improve. Play a longer game and before playing any move ask your self, why? why am I playing this?

Hope I helped cheers friend.  

Notice the theme in that last game.  The theme was if you didn't notice, that black had to waste a lot of tempi trying to put his forces in viable squares due to the awkward knight move he made in the beginning of the game.  Sometimes people play that way, but sometimes, if you know how to take advantage of it, you can launch a quicker attack because your pieces are not cumbered up with poor piece placement like your opponent in this situation.  To become a decent chess player you have to learn to notice things like this.  It's not so much of "How can I take advantage of the way that they are playing?"  But, "What is the best move I can do in this situation?"  The answer here would be to use your extra time to gain an addition pawn to your pawn center, and later with his poor placement of pieces, you can coordinate an attack and get there faster than him.

The previous person told you that your problem is that you do not plan what you are going to do when you play a game of chess, and instead mindlessly move your pieces.

The easiest way to learn how to plan is to see good plans in action by going over master games from a book like Logical Chess Move by Move.

Remember that all chess players must do tactics to sharpen their game.  The best thing for you to do is get a good tactics book and go over the puzzles multiple times till you can do them in your sleep.  For you, I think that the book is Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.  I'm sure you've heard about these books before.  If you haven't yet well there they are.  

You're at a rough spot.  Without training or books, you will be at that rating for a long time.  I was at that rating for years, until I started playing someone who was really good, and I just got better by playing him.  Even though I got better, I didn't get better at a fast pace.  It took me over 15 years to get as good as I am now.  That is what can happen if you don't study books or get lessons from a coach.  The learning curve is just not optimal unless you are shown new ideas.  

You are also going to have to spend a lot of time learning the endgame as well.  I have to do it too.  I'm going over some endgame books myself.  It takes time to become good at chess.

When all you do is play blitz you learn bad habits that will haunt you for the rest of your chess life, until you find a way to get rid of them, and you won't get rid of them, until you start playing games with much longer time controls.  I myself play a lot of blitz.  I have some bad habits.  I used to have more, but they were pointed out to me and I stopped doing some, but I still do some.  Like for example, I often make the first move that comes to my mind, which is a recipe for disaster in a long game.  In a speed game, it's okay because he might not see it or might blunder later or lose with time and you will win anyway.

Ben Finegold has good videos you can watch for free, and also the Saint Louis Chess club has a lot of videos.  The more famous of them I think is John Bartholomew.  You could probably go though those games first before you buy a book like Logical Chess move by move, and you will gain insight on beginner mistakes.  https://www.chessvl.com/ has a thing where you can view all their videos of students from around 1400-1600 rating range and have a 2000 rated player commentate the videos.  In those videos, he gives a lot of good nuggets of wisdom.  If you have the money, definitely worth checking out.  Right now you need to see a lot of games.  So you can learn to develop plans.  And do tactics.  Endgame, and play chess, and analyze your games when you are done, preferably with a stronger chess player.  There are some free courses in that chessvl website too.  You might gain from their crash course, since you said you are about 600 rating.

So, all in all, I am not saying anything new.  Same old stuff.  Play games with long time controls.  Etc, etc, etc.

Play slow time controls (at least 30 min) and make sure that every move makes sense. If your queen is attacked try to find a way to do something about it.

- Try not to waste move at the beginning by moving the same piece twice. 

Now, always focus on the centre. Especially the d-pawn. D file pawn is the queen pawn. Try to mantain the d pawn and exchange e pawn whenever you can to open the file for the rooks. Bring the rooks out first before making unnecessary minor piece moves. Don't trade active pieces with opponents inactive pieces        

- Complete your development. That should be the earliest goal. What do I mean by completing development? I mean is to first : Bring the minor  pieces out. What are minor pieces? Bishops and knights. Then, castle and connect the rooks by bringing out the queen. 

Why should you not move the same piece twice? To develop as quickly as possibe. You need to activate all your pieces and only then go for attack with full power.           

- Go for an attack only when all of your pieces are unleashed

- Don't play too many pawn moves at the beginning.  Play pawns only to control centre.    

Once this development goal is done, then try to slowly bring pieces to more active squares. What are active squares? The squares from which pieces can have more space and attacking potential than before.   

In this position, I think pushing the d pawn or grabbing the c-pawn  would have completely changed the position. It would have been much beneficial for you.   Why?  1. The d5 sqaure is weak. No other contender pawn in other files to attack that square. 2. They are centre pawns. Try not to neglect them. Especially the d-pawn.    

Hello darkness my old friend!!!

Why Bxh6? That Knight on h6 is not that good. Black can recapture with the other Knight and the pawn structure remains intact. However if black captures the DSB, White can recapture with the f pawn and castle kingside which will provide the rook a half open f file. I don't see the urgency of exchanging LSB. It’s best to wait for the position to open up. If the position opens up, then bishops are more useful. If the pawn structure leads to closed position, then you should exchange the bishop depending on its potential in the position. Knights are usually better in closed positions.                 

Can you guys teach me how to become a REALLY GOOD chess player because right now I SUCK

I'll play with you Ancientbot if you can teach me how to play better

Beginner too, i'm not saying it's a good idea, but I tried this and won 3 games with it (I know, not much.) You may want to clear out bottom of board but leave castle, lure them in to the bottom and get as many of the opponent's as possible.

But, i'm a noob. Don't take my word for it.

(or lure to wall, make sure to clear out space above)

Hm...

Thanks for the advice guys i'll try to use it in my next tournament

There is no end to aggressive players. Just today I had to fend off someone wanting an insta-win. There are a lot of ways in chess to be hyper agressive in the opening, and just today I had to burn my clock against an opponent that was hyper aggresive in the opening.

Generally against really aggressive players, your forced to find the best move, but finding that move usually busts the opponent.

My opponent resigned on move 4. By the way. He wasn't busted, but apparently wasn't in the mood for a real game of chess.

I've dealt with really jerky players but I DO tell them to beruhigen.