Tips On Improvement

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TheRealRatNet

How can improve my play even more? I feel that I have begun to plateau around 1300. Many of the games I have been winning recently are due to a capitalized blunder, however when there are no obvious mistakes to take advantage of I tend to struggle. I try to develop my position, however I feel that I eventually lose the advantage and ultimately the game. I have attached a game recently played, where I felt that I gained the early the advantage both through content and position but failed to keep my lead and eventually dropped pieces and lost on time (even without the timer I would still have lost due to the upcoming pawn promotion).

Going back to my question, how can I improve and where do I start looking. Feel free to look at some of my other games (Mostly play rapid and blitz).

notmtwain
TheRealRatNet wrote:

How can improve my play even more? I feel that I have begun to plateau around 1300. Many of the games I have been winning recently are due to a capitalized blunder, however when there are no obvious mistakes to take advantage of I tend to struggle. I try to develop my position, however I feel that I eventually lose the advantage and ultimately the game. I have attached a game recently played, where I felt that I gained the early the advantage both through content and position but failed to keep my lead and eventually dropped pieces and lost on time (even without the timer I would still have lost due to the upcoming pawn promotion).

 

Going back to my question, how can I improve and where do I start looking. Feel free to look at some of my other games (Mostly play rapid and blitz).

In a 10 minute game, you should have had enough time to see some of the hanging pieces.

Why didn't you move your knight after 25..a4? You were up a piece. 

The computer reports 6 inaccuracies, 7 mistakes and 5 blunders. Cut out half of those and your rating will rise.

notmtwain

Some reason you didn't realize you should move your queen?

kindaspongey
TheRealRatNet wrote:

How can improve my play even more? I feel that I have begun to plateau around 1300. Many of the games I have been winning recently are due to a capitalized blunder, however when there are no obvious mistakes to take advantage of I tend to struggle. ... 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 Nf6 4 h4 ... (Mostly play rapid and blitz).

I’m no King’s Gambit expert or anything, but why did you play 4 h4 ? I thought that that move was usually used as a reaction to ...g5. Since Black did not play ...g5, it seems to me that 4 Nc3 would have made more sense. I wonder if you are just playing memorized moves without considering whether or not they are appropriate reactions to the choices of your opponent. If so, that will surely have to change. You might want to look at an annotated game collection or two in order to get an improved feel for how to choose moves. Some possibilities:

Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Simple-Attacking-Plans-77p3731.htm
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Also, blitz is often regarded as a poor way to practice. Even rapid is considered to be sort of borderline.

"... Most internet players think that 30 5 is slow, but that is unlikely slow enough to play 'real' chess.  You need a game slow enough so that for most of the game you have time to consider all your candidate moves as well as your opponent’s possible replies that at least include his checks, captures, and serious threats, to make sure you can meet all of them.  For the average OTB player G/90 is about the fastest, which might be roughly 60 10 online, where there is some delay.  But there is no absolute; some people think faster than others and others can play real chess faster because of experience.  Many internet players are reluctant to play slower than 30 5 so you might have to settle for that as a 'slow' game." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627010008/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman12.pdf