How Do You Just Stop Blundering?

It's the easiest thing and I can recognize the exact blunders I make when I play. I'm struggling to break past the 600s but I can't with all these stupid blunders I'm making. Thankfully, I can usually get my win back and at least hold around 630, but if I keep blundering, I'll be lucky to see 650 letalone 700. 

I can see the blunders with every analysis, heck even before analysis, I usually catch them right after I make the move. Then I'm sitting there kicking myself for making it and on occasion I can recover, but usually once the move is made, the game is pretty much lost for me. I have tried taking time before making my moves and even then I'll still swear I see a pretty good move from my position, play it, then boom realize just at that moment that I just blundered like how? 

I appreciate all those who have been helping me and telling me I will see 1000 soon and I play really well usually. You guys rock, and through analyzing every one of my games after and seeing how other 200-600 level players play, I can see where I'm definitely playing at a good level, it's just the small stupid blunders that I pull out of my tush for some reason. 

I've been doing puzzles regularly to help my board vision and tactics, I've been pausing when I tilt, and I've been trying to take more time between moves (although maybe not enough). Any advice on how I can actually just stop blundering. Not looking for tips or blog posts about general tactics or principles. I mean just the blundering. 

Yeah, it's a weird right? And really common -- making a move and immediately realizing it's bad.

The typical advice is things like "sit on your hands."

But I like to think about why it happens and why it's so common. I think it happens because it's a very normal habit to try to find out why a move might be good. The easiest example is if we notice a move is checkmate, then we immediately win the game. So discovering why a move is good (wins a queen, wins a rook, etc) has powerful positive feedback.

As players gain experience, they add trying to find out why a move is bad. When you try to find out why your move is bad, you safeguard yourself against immediately losing... and I think the clarity comes so quickly, because after you make a move, now it's your opponent's turn, so you immediately start thinking about what they can do... and if they can instantly win with a capture, well, you tend to immediately notice because checks and captures are the most obvious moves.

So the long term answer is, try to find the worst aspects of your move by finding all the checks, captures, and threats your opponent can play as a response. I call it "long term" because it essentially doubles the work you have to do on every move. Not only are you looking for reasons to like your move, but now you're also looking for reasons to dislike it. That's why it typically takes players a year or more to develop this habit (and some never develop it).

The short term answer is, try to mimic that moment of relaxation, where you've just made your move and you don't need to calculate anything anymore. Shut your eyes, take a breath, clear your mind, something like this, and (imagining your candidate move as if it's been made) look at the position as if it were your opponent to move. Does anything jump out at you? If you can trigger this moment of clarity before you move, then you wont have to suffer it happening afterwards

@1
"I usually catch them right after I make the move"
++ Here is the trick. After you have decided on your move, do not play it.
Imagine it played on the board and check it is no blunder. Only then play it.

As a matter of fact, you can't stop blundering. 

You can minimize it by trying to understand why your opponent made their last move, don't be carried away with your own plan and overlook your opponent's move. 

Do much puzzles. If you don't fault check you generally get hammered with puzzles, it really helps blunder check. You've got a rating of near a thousand in puzzles(decent) but only spent an hour on them. My ratings much higher however I spend well over a hundred hours , nearer two probably so far. Puzzles train tactics and blunder proofing. Noone learns to do anything by repeating failures. Analyse failed puzzles and quit worrying about your rating. There are tough opponents in the 600's 🙂

Yeah, lol... good question. The answer is noted above... you don't. The better you get the less basic the blunder. That's all. At low levels over-protect and double check your moves and you can win just like that. As you improve, you can play a whole game just trading pieces of equal value and yet losing positionally the whole way, until your position is untenable. The same issue, but on a different level. You don't stop blundering until you're at some kind of master-level. It's interesting. It's awful too.

I had the exact same problem when I started playing chess online. I don't know exactly why at some point I started noticing that my move is a blunder before I would play it (as opposed to after I play it), but I have an idea what might be the cause of it. I filmed myself playing chess and posted it on youtube. When reviewing my videos I noticed that often I would click on a piece and hover over a square where I want to put the piece for several seconds (sometimes even 10 seconds) before I actually drop it. What I am doing in those 10 seconds is checking for one last time whether my move is a blunder or not. Now, in 95% of cases that is not necessary, but in the other 5% of cases that saves me from making a blunder. I didn't start doing this consciously, after playing so many games and making so many blunders I started doing that final pause and final check naturally.

Exactly. Asking yourself "why this move is bad" both before you make a move and for your opponent's last move is an enormously powerful mental tool.

Play good chess players. That’s how I got good. I didn’t even analyze my games afterwards. I learned strategy just by playing someone who was rated 1800 at the time. And I was just a beginner!!! Someone told me, “You must like losing?” Well, with every loss, I learned.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t analyze your losses. Of course, I do believe one shouldn’t do something if they arn’t getting any benefit from it. Of course, one has to analyze correctly to reap any benefit. That being said. I learned to play just by playing a high rated player regularly. Didn’t need to analyze, all my mistakes where properly punished.

Not saying this is the best approach. Perhaps maybe just a little of it.

It took me over 20 years to get to 1600.

If you want a faster way, keep looking. ;)

Dan Heisman said you need to play 45|45, so you have lots of time to think. Sadly, no one listens.

I reached 1900 rapid, 1800 blitz on this website by playing mostly 3+2, 5+0, 5+5 and 10+0, I would actually like to play a 45+45 game once a day or so but it is hard to find an opponent at my level who would want to play such a game. I feel like even 60+0 is not as much time as I would like, but obviously it depends on the game, in some games I need less time and in some games I need more. Anyways, my point is that you can improve by playing fast time controls, you don't need 45+45 in order to reach almost 2000 level on this website.

It's impossible to stop making blunders. Not because your moves aren't logically sound, but because every single move you make here will be picked apart and criticised like a blunder by someone somewhere. Accept that, stop trying to improve, and you'll end up a lot happier. I hope.

Making a move which allows opponent to win material or checkmate you in 1 move, or allows your opponent a combination which wins material or checkmates you is a blunder and that's the type of moves he wants to reduce. He absolutely can do that and he will do that. When it comes to his other moves being criticised, players who are much better than him are trying to help him. Everyone tells players below 1300-1400 that their main weaknesses are 1 move blunders and tactical mistakes. OP knows that these are the kind of moves which don't allow him to progress and beat people who are right now several hundreds of points above him. Without 1-2 move blunders, he would easily be rated 1000.

When it comes to giving advice to people of his strength, the lower rated the player to whom you give advice, the more bad moves you need to ignore and focus on the biggest blunders which are impacting their results the most. I am sorry, but if you are 1400 and ask for how to improve or ask people to analyse your games, I will try to pick apart moves that I think were bad as much as I can, explain why I think they are bad and my thought process, as well as how to avoid such moves in the future, because I want to help you improve.

 

Hey! Abbey! I've tried aimchess and ran into a problem that peeved me, it requires a credit card to get premium I wanted all aimchess had to offer on demand but had to settle for free version.... Anyhoo! Aimchess has a puzzle types called blunder preventer. One gives you a line of moves and one is the blunder the rest are good moves and you have to spot the blunder to achieve the puzzle. Usually I assume that a blunder is a bunch of bad moves that destroy your game but I have learned that no it's not the case, each move must have a logical purpose that can be proven from the results and blunders are wasted moves that did not need to happen - so definitely something to look at.......

So, one of the things I've been trying lately is to do training. I'll take a master game, fast-forward past the opening, and then I'll try to make blunder-free moves for about ten moves. With each blunder, I think about why I made the blunder, and then adjust accordingly.

The reason I use master games is that masters tend to face much tougher resistance and tend to put each other in much more difficult positions. The reasons why I use other games instead of just playing my own games and trying to blunder-proof them are: (a) if I'm just analyzing a game, I can take all the time in the world to blunder-check, (b) if I do make a blunder, I can immediately write down the cause and think about how to adjust (instead of having to play out the game still), and (c) I get less frustrated and upset when I make a blunder while playing over a master game than I do playing one of my personal games. It's a less stressful environment, and the feedback is more immediate.

Also, in general, for sports, the worst time to try to improve your technique is during the game. The best time to improve is in a training setting, where you can focus on a specific aspect of what you're doing.

I've only been trying this for about a week, and I hear that habits take on average 3 months to form, so I guess I may not see concrete improvement for another 3 months. But I figure, it can't make me play any worse doing this type of training. So, maybe, this type of training would work for you as well.

principles, the same basic rules and simply trusting your gut with developing, and king safety

Play long games. Do not make a move unless you consider every single piece. Are all pieces defended? Is there an imminent threat like M1 or M2? Is your King safe? Are you about to lose a hanging piece, or take a trade that calculates in the opponent’s favor? All things to consider on each and every move… even as black on move 1 (Scandinavian).

#12 I don't have a problem with people analysing games and suggesting better moves. I have a problem with entitled morons criticising and taking the piss out of anyone lower than them, as if they have no idea what they're doing. Anyone rated around 300 or above is able to play their moves by determining something positive or strong about them, otherwise you're essentially just playing random moves. Yet nobody ever acknowledges these positives when analysing someone else's game. That is what I cannot stand.

Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a respected  chess coach and chess YouTuber who helps beginners out : 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP5SPSG_sWSYPjqJYMNwL_Q

 

Send me one of your games and I'll be happy to analyze the game for free on my YouTube channel on Sunday livestream from 1-2PM PST.  Ask me questions in real time!  

 

To avoid blundering, consider all checks and captures on your side and also your opponent’s side. Always as, “If I move here, where is my opponent going to move?”. Do this for every single move!  

 

I hope this helps out.  

Alright buddy. Turns out you need to get good at the game. I am unbeatable, so just take advice from me.

One thing that might help you is to play solitaire chess.  Everyman Chess has a couple books: "Multiple Choice Chess" (you can get them as a bundle).  The idea is you are reviewing master level games and trying to find moves they played.