A beginner's thought process

Hello Folks,

I am a beginner and trying to get the fundamentals right by playing with the AI first. Today I played as black against the white computer. Just wanted to annotate that game and help others out there to understand it from a novice's perspective and either offer suggestions to improve my game or the throught process.

Hope You find it useful.

suggestions :

- this ai was way under your lvl , play agains human oponent and if u lose a game post it here

Your thought process seems ok, dont play any more computers....the weak AI ones are horrible and wont help you get better...Play humans and keep looking at your thought process...Youd be better ooff posting losses or draws.

x2 on that, play humans.  machines can actually hurt your skill.  :)

Thank you guys for the valuable inputs. Will follow them if it means it will help me learn and improve the game.

Play live chess 15-20 minute or longer

or play 'online' and use like 3-5 minutes per move. (start 10 games or so)

dont play computers dont play unrated...

Post some more games of losses with your thought process.

Resign when you are a piece down and use the extra time to examine your thinking.

You are on the right track and will improve very fast!

Oh and google 'ruben fine 10 rules of the opening' print it out and follow it

When you say,"resign when a piece down", did you intend it to develop a attitude to not lose a piece as much as possible or I resign even if its a valid sacrifice for a greater game control.

You can totally play computers as part of an improvement strategy at your level.  It is not ideal because computers at low levels dont play remotely like beginning humans, and you are not as likely to learn the basics and positional play.  Still, its a fine way to practice your tactics on your own schedule, and you can even learn positional stuff if humans help go over the games with you.  You played at too low of a setting to be meaningful, but crank it up a bit and you can learn something.  Also check out chesstempo.com to do tactics problems, unless your a paid member here.      

at this level losing a piece does not immediately spell end of game as on higher levels so in this instance i would not resign, especially considering at this level that your opponent is also likely to make a mistake and you could win that piece back. a tough call i guess. i think you can learn a lot by playing a piece down, but what i think pawnm0ver wants you to do is not waste time trying to save a lost game and instead move on to a new game where you avoid the mistake you made last game.

 I dont think the word "sacrifice" should even be in one's vocabulary until they hit 13 or 1400.  For example, your knight sacrifice more or less just gave back a piece without providing you with any meaningful assistance in getting to his king.  Of course, you were up so much material at that point that it was totally irrelevant, but its just not a great habit to get into.  Had you passed on it, maybe you would have seen the "skewer" to win the white rook for nothing.    

I mean if you realize you are simply down a piece or two pawns, the best thing to do if you are training to get better is resign, and start a new game. Of course if you were playing a 'real' game (FIDE, USCF, OTB, $$$ etc..) thenI would say fight on until the bitter end!

But, if you seriously want to maximize your training time and not waste it....you will resign when you are down 2 or 3 units of material with zero compensation. Youre better off at that point spending the time going over the game to see how you got into the mess, than playing it out in hopes your opponent blunders.

You shouldnt be making speculative sacrifices probably....I mean if you see a CLEAR queen sacrifice that leads to a forced mate, sure. If you see a CLEAR rook sacrifice that leads to you winning back a rook plus material sure...But I would just concentrate on safe, solid chess and going back over each game to see where you went wrong.

Oh and TACTICS TACTICS TACTICS......every day.

Best of luck

Oh and I must disagree about playing computers...If you only have X amount of time to play chess, say an hour per day...Wasting any time playing a game against a low rated / weak AI computer is not a good use of time. You would be better off playing endgames against a strong computer or using any number of tactics programs (tactics trainer here, chess tempo, CT ART , chess mentor ec...) to work your tactics instead of playing a toaster.

Here is a rated game(30minute) which I played as white with a human player rated more than me. Played the obscure & unorthodox blackmar-diemer gambit opening instead of well known openings to force the opponent to play unprepared. I did make some mistakes and blunders. I am sure people here can help me correct & improve my thought process especially in timed games,which has its own pressure.

Suggestions and criticisms even if they are harsh, are appreciated and will be taken in the right spirit.

Thanks in advance.

 

FML!!!For some reason, the chrome browser tab crashed exactly when I clicked to post the comment and looks like the game didnt get posted.All my annotations are lost now. :( Anyway, here is the game. Have no time or patience to re-write them again. Will save them next time onwards before posting. Btw, game ended in draw and I had opened with blackmar-diemer gambit.

The HUGE BLUNDER at move 40 where I moved the rook to f8 was a big misclick. I wanted to move it to f7. This is where I knew I either lost the game or it was heading to a draw.

I don't think you should allow a queen trade with such a large development advantage; after 12 Kf2 your immediate threat is Bb3 winning the queen.  He pretty much has to play 12... Nb6 then, but his time lag will still probably tell against him.

Fortunately for you, your opponent seemed given to pawn moves rather than piece moves.  You could win a pawn with 17 Ng3, and 20 Nxf5 is good too.  There is also 22 Bxf5.  25 Bxf6 wins a piece.

Obviously you got very fortunate indeed at the end. 

I'd say that just about made up for his blunder on the 38th move. 

 You have a good starting knowledge of the game.  What I would recommend now (as well as for your opponent) is to learn how to force checkmate with king/queen, as well as with king/rook (also known as the "basic mates").

For example, at move #57, your opponent (black) moved...Rg2.  Then you moved 58. Bb1.  Black could have simply pushed his pawn to 58....b2.  And threaten to queen that pawn.  He was probably "afraid" that you were going to take that pawn with your bishop (and subsequently capturing your bishop with his rook) since he probably didn't know how to force checkmate with just his king and rook.

When he was able to finally queen his pawn (after trading his rook for your bishop), he stalemated you as well, when it shouldn't have been the case.

I definitely suggest reading/studying how to checkmate when you only have queen or rook left.  You don't want to have the game end in a draw when you should have clearly won it by being up a rook or queen.   If you already know how to perform those mates, then disregard this message.  :)

Do a simple search on YouTube and you should find tutorials on how to execute the basic mating patterns. :)

Good luck!

This has been an interesting topic to me for a while.  What criteria do different levels of players use to find good moves?

After we first learn, nearly all legal moves are equally plausible in any given position.  The only way we really distinguish between moves is if the move immediately threatens something.  In a practical sense this is useful not only because our peers will lack tactical patterns and blunder checking skills, but it also gives us as beginners a chance to practice basic visualization and tactical skills.

However in a purely objective sense, direct threats are more or less useless as a primary factor in considering the strength of a move.  So what do strong players base their evaluations on?  The answer is a bit like chess itself... simple to state but it's full implications are beyond any of us to master.

The most fundamental unit of strength in a position is mobility.  Mobility even defines the basic unit count (1 for a pawn, 5 for a rook, 9 for a queen etc).  And to immobilize the king means you've won the game.  A close second is the idea of activity, which is weather or not a piece has a useful function.  Mobility may be thought of as the means by which you're able to get a piece to preform a useful function (attack a weakness or defend one of your own weaknesses are useful functions).

As a newer player many fineries of the game are useless to even discuss.  Instead, playing many practice games where you try to build fundamental skills like visualization and blunder checking are what's useful.  The reason I even mention mobility is as you slowly add to your knowledge of the game the idea that all advantageous are intimately related to mobility is useful to keep in mind.

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And finally, to tie this into your games, I often see you attacking a piece when it does you no good.  You have to assume your opponent will not let you have any cheap shots :)   Instead try to put your pieces on  useful squares.  In general bishops like long diagonals and to not be hemmed in by friendly pawns, rooks like open or half open files, knight like advanced outposts.  Defending a weakness or attacking a weakness is activity also.

As a side note, some of the most vulnerable weaknesses are also the most immobile :)  That is to say, pawns.

In your 2nd game (check our your move 17)

 After 4.Nxf3  What a great example :)  Notice white is not a full pawn down because his position will enjoy superior mobility/activity for some time.

5. This attacking move does not increase your position's activity.  Especially in a gambit opening you have to really press for a lead in development.  Piece moves have preference (pieces are non-pawns)

It also ignores black's threat, BxN and if you recapture with your queen the d pawn falls.  If you recapture with the pawn your pawns are weak on the kingside.

6.Bb5+  Another attacking move.  Black can force it back.

7.Ba4  I like Bd3 better.  Central squares afford you more mobility (can swing to either side for activity).  Plus it would be nice to challenge black's centralized bishop.

8. You develop a piece with a gain of time, good move.

9. Not a useful square.

11. Leaves d4 undefended and posts the knight on an awkward square.  Bb3 instead kicks the queen and improves your bishop at the same time.

16. 0-0-0  White is now fully developed with his rooks "connected" (they can see each other) and all his other pieces off his back rank and castled.  Good job.

17. Rook on half open file aim through the bishop at the weak f6 pawn, now that's what I'm talking about! :)

The rest falls under ironing out the fundamentals.  Watch for tactics, check your opponent's last move for the threat and so forth.  Hope some of that helps.