15/10 improvement plan #4

Another 15/10 game where I was white and opened with d4 - still getting to grips with this but managed what I thought was a comfortable win.

However I ran a computer analysis to see my move breakdown only after the game and was annoyed to see 3 mistakes and 2 blunders! There must've been lots I missed so I thought it was worth posting this one up to see what on earth happened....? I don't know which moves were mistakes or blunders as I am trying to analyse on my own without the computer as suggested, just my thoughts as the moves occurred. Any thoughts from the experts appreciated again guys and gals.

I suppose it is like me yelling at one of my piano students saying how can you not see that is an F# not an F natural. With time and experience they will learn. You cannot expect me to see every tactic out there but hopefully by looking at things I have missed I can improve.

(edit* In a separate post I've added my comments after yours, so see that for general game comments).

Last time I commented on a game of yours I focused a lot on strategy. I'll make this one about tactics.

This way of playing may be tedious for you, but with practice it becomes easier until it's second nature. It's also a necessary habit to develop to improve... and that is calculate forcing moves, no matter how suicidal they might seem, basically you're looking for tactics by brute force.

Forcing moves are checks, captures, and threats. Before you begin, identify all the opponent's undefended pieces and ways to check him. Just constantly calculate them until you run out of threats to make. When I was new and developing this habit I'd do this all game long. It's not a bad way to play to develop this habit.

The following are just random forcing move calculations I might have done when I was playing this way.

For example on move 3 I might think what if

What's the best move for white on move 3? I don't know. That's not really the point (although cxd does look good). The point is these are the sorts of calculations you should be doing during the game. Even if you end up not playing these lines you have to look at what forcing moves are in the position.

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Ok now lets look for move 10, what should stand out to you tactically?

poodle_noodle,

Really great post. Enjoyed reading it. Thanks.

Just one reminder about calculating forcing lines: your opponent doesn't have to oblige you by accepting the sacrifice. So, you have to calculate lines where he accepts the sac and lines where he declines the sac.

I add my comments after yours, separated by some hyphens.

PN - this level of analysis is insane! Thank you so much, I am not sure I deserve to have someone look over the game in quite so much detail. It is going to take me a while to go through the tactical thinking but this is exactly what I need - the thought process of what needs to be done in order to improve. 

I will admit that a) I struggle to see the moves advance on the board in my head - is this something that will improve in time the more I do it, or is it something I just won't ever get? b) that I rarely consider sacrifices and see them through completely. Knight takes pawn, pawn takes knight, and dismissed immediately before fully explored, and finally c) I often imagine the opponents reply but very often get it wrong and so end up playing a bad move when at first sight it looked good.

As for the game anaylsis I am glad you thought there were some good moves in there and this wasn't a shocking display of wasted chances. I knew there were some bad moves in there which is precisely the reason I posted the game up because there had to be areas of improvement that weren't obvious to me when looking through the game initially.

2... Bf5 I knew there was something fishy about this move and now it is clear from your comments, the b7 pawn is hanging and can be targeted. Need to consider the implications of where a piece has come from, not just what it is attacking. Thanks

7. a3 - yes this move looks bad now, maybe Qb3 attacking that pawn on b7 or is it too early still for queen activity?

8... Bh5 moving the pinned piece in front of the queen would just never ever occur to me, now I see I need to consider moves like this to improve. If I dismiss them immediately I am only playing "safe" moves.

10. d5 thanks for clarifying WHY this was a bad move

16. Raxd1, yes Rfxd1 appears the better choice now so that Ra1 can occupy the c file -agreed

24. Of course why not exf5 haha!?

Yes the next game I post will be a loss. Recently I seem to have been playing badly and winning or drawing. I am due a loss but playing less games and knowing that I will need to share them here is helping me keep focus for now. I also think I will try a 30 minute game to appease DS!

If you were learning piano by ear then what you say makes sense. If you were supposed to be reading notes off the page then the tuning makes no difference - your fingers would still be playing the correct notes no matter what instrument you played or what tuning the instrument had, good or bad.

You can't have been reading the music properly in the first place, instead playing what sounded right to you which is the wrong way to practise.

I can't just instantly tune my thinking at chess. There is no magic pitch tuning fork here. It will take time.

Oh so it was the timing that was incorrect, not the note reading? Even so I cannot believe this had anything to do with the tuning of the instrument, honestly! It is easy to practise something incorrectly if the teacher isn't there all the time. At least you practised - unlike half of my students!

I don't find that remark funny. I am trying here.

After finishing the game I thought it was a comfortable win because at no stage did I feel under pressure. I won and it felt comfortable. Does that make sense?

I then ran a computer analysis which highlighted my blunders and mistakes so I immediately thought, wow, I must've got away with some moves there and proceeded to analyse the game without the computers help.

Because I am a beginner and trying to learn I thought I would post up the game my comments and see what the experts made of it, seeking some advice and perhaps pointers to missed opportunities.

PN's post was exactly what I was looking for.

I entertain myself making such long posts  but it would be no fun if they weren't helpful, so I'm glad it helps.

When I was new I remember a position like this

And I was trying to figure out if I would lose a pawn if I played d4 here.
I'd visualize d4 Nxd4 Nxd4 but then the position would become unclear, and I'd have to start over.
After 3 or 4 tries, and really focusing, I finally realized it was safe! Phew, that was tough for me at the time 

So yes, it does get easier with practice. One thing I did was with that tactics book I linked to you. Puzzles are rated 1 to 4 stars IIRC (4 being the hardest). Two stars were usually too hard for me, but I'd try to do them anyway. I'd sit down with the book and calculate for 30 minutes just on one puzzle.

Turns out this is not a good way to learn tactics lol, but doing this (or something similar) every day for a few months really improved my calcluation a lot.

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Yeah 7.Qb3 is a double attack (on b7 and g8) looks good.

Yes, it's moving the queen early. Chess is annoying in that there's an exception to every rule, but rules of thumb are more for when you're unsure. Your moves can look totally crazy as long the tactics are working for you, and since Qb3 is a double attack it seems to be working quite well!

As for 9.Ne5, yeah, it's a very shocking move for sure. Only discoverable by being willing to experiment. After you've seen it though, it's in your mental database, and you'll be more likely to see it in the future. I usually have to fail to see something 3 times (in 3 different games), and beat myself up about it, before I finally notice for the first time during a game heh.

There's the old Capablanca rule about how to divide your time between playing games and study. He said the newer the player, the more they should play. Not until mater level should be you doing mostly study.

Makes sense, and modern coaches will say the same. You need to play a lot to get used to how moves affect the board. That LuckyDan is noticing things like "I should not only look at where the piece is attacking but what it left undefended" is an excellent observation, and just the sort of basic technical knowledge playing puts into you.

He's also posting games and annotating practically every move. This is not a lazy player. As a higher rated player you might criticize his tactics, and I agree he shouldn't be ending games with most of his time still on his clock, but I don't think the "you're not studying" criticism is fair.

I just wanted to add one thing to keep in mind.

One of the lines is bad sorry but you get the idea.  The line that is bad is the line where I attack the light squared bishop with my pawn and the only defense to my pawn is my queen which can be attacked by blacks lesser powerful pieces.

 LuckyDan,

These deep analysis and minute reviews are just waste of your time and effort. Just do a basic review(to see why you won or lost). It should take you 10% of the game time. 20 min game requires 2 min review. 

Yeah, I understand. That's what I was saying. You review your games for 2 min without computer and move on to next game. Start using computer for blunder check from 1500.