Analysing my game and not understanding blunders

Dear all,

I am a chess beginner and new to chess.com. What is the best way to analyse my games in order to improve? When I look at my blunders, I often "disagree" with the computer's suggested best move, which would lead me to lose pieces. Is there an explanation to this?

Thanks!

Post the game in the analysis forum and ask for help analyzing it.

Pro Tip: You will get a MUCH better response if you post your own (not the computer's, but YOUR OWN) analysis of it in the first post. That accomplishes two things: (1) it shows the other posters that you aren't lazy, you are willing to try and analyze the game yourself as well as you can; and (2) it tells the other posters what you were thinking at the time, and which sorts of moves you were looking at.

The computer will give you not just one move but how he expects the game to play from that move.  So you need to let the computer playout 4 or 5 moves for you to understand why it is the best move.  Sometimes positional plays are hard to understand even after 4 or 5 moves but if the computer is losing a piece I'd expect it to be obvious within a few moves why.  I used Lucas chess to review games which ranks the computers move.  Sometimes I'll adopt what LucasChess thinks is the second best move simply because I understand it more.

Thanks for the replies

The first thing I would really suggest is to slow down. I looked at your profile and you are playing a lot of blitz and bullet chess. I am not saying that you can't learn from playing very fast chess. But my suggestion is that you would learn a lot more by playing much slower chess. Play some daily chess - this is where there is one move per day (or even longer); though sometimes you can end up making 4-5 moves per day. 

I just looked at one of your games and you (as black) had reached this position. 

 White had just played 8. Bg5 (attacking your queen). Now, you can do several things but of them is 8. ... Nxg5. You win the piece. White can't take with the knight on f3 because the knight is pinned. But instead you moved 8. ... Rb8. White promptly took your queen and you lost the game 5 moves later. 

To be fair this was a one-minute on the clock game. But whilst you are making errors like this I just don't see what you can usefully learn.

I think this was mentioned above, when reviewing your games, try to understand that the computer's suggested move(s) are based on many moves into the future. You need to try to see what is either being set-up or avoided, remembering that the computer is analyzing both players for each best move. If you are a beginner, you will not likely see the best move for either player and that makes understanding why the computer is suggesting the moves it is.

Also mentioned above, if you are new to the game, slow down, you need time to evaluate positions. In the diagram above, it is clear White's Bishop has your Queen lined up. If you had the time to really exam this position, it is likely you would have at least tried to save the Queen by at least moving it, even if you didn't realize your Knight could capture the attacking piece.

Good luck.

The books by GM Yasser Seirawan are great. Along with Winning Chess Tactics, I'd add Winning Chess Startegies and Winning Chess Endings. If you are a "real beginner" I would switch for Play Winning Chess and Winning Chess Openings.

As well, he has many great videos on You Tube, although I suspect most may be aimed for someone with more experience.

Thank you very much for your help. Indeed, I am terrible at the blitz games and feel like they are not very helpful to progress in the beginning at least, which is why I am focusing on longer games - for now I have been doing mostly 30min each games.

This may be a stupid question, but how can I play standard unlimited time games on chess.com?? I thought I had found this option once but can't find it anymore. This would also allow me to obtain my standard rating. Right now I can only see the options of the blitz/rapid games, or the slow ones which last at least a day and that I don't find very convenient. 

I began chess by reading the book "Chess for dummies" which explains all basic concepts and several openings/middle games/end games techniques, although now I am focusing on gaining experience before studying proper techniques again. I just wish I could properly analyse each game afterwards in order to progress properly. 

Thanks all for your helpful answers!

I don't think there is a mode without time control against humans, as there are people who abandon their games and such games would not end without the time control. Against a computer you can play without time control, but the computer is quite a different opponent from a human one.

You can make a live game slower by choosing the custom time control option and setting them large. Daily games can be quite fast if both players move rather promptly but due to people's schedules, time zones and the number of ongoing games, the games may not be as fast as you may wish. My daily games take anything between three days and a month (in the case my opponent plays only 1-2 moves a day). The good thing about daily games is that you can think the position through thoroughly.

I had a look at some of your games and the number one tip I would give you would be to keep your king safe. You tend to push your kingside pawns forward too much, which exposes your king to attacks and then you are in trouble. In many games there will be a time when to push them but that is usually after most of the pieces have been traded off so that there are not that many mating threats.

Thank you @harriw