Beginner Trying To Learn Fundamentals

Hi everyone,

I took up chess quite seriously a couple of years ago, and studied lines and variations of things like the Italian Game, Ruy Lopez, French Defence etc, but somewhere along the way I realised I wasn't playing chess but playing a game of 'remember the move' and so felt my games were robotic and exercises in memory as I had no understanding of what the moves I remembered were actually aimed at doing.

So I hit the reset button just this week and decided I'd join chess.com to relearn things from the vary basics upwards, and only consult lines/variations of tactics when they fit in with the goals I have set for my opening:

1. Claim/Defend the Centre 2. Develop my pieces 2.a Knights before Bishops 3. Defend my king via Castling 4. Take things from there

Ive played several games so far, and would love help analysising each of them, but I'll only post one at a time to see how I'm doing.

Any and all help would be really appreciated, as I said I'm trying to unlearn thinking about fancy lines and just learn basic ideas; I'll try and describe my thinking with each move to show were I am at as a player.:

GAME 1 White (Won via Disconnect, but a loss)

What should of been a loss by me as White, won on disconnect, but take it as a loss when analysising.

I feel after I lost my Castle on A1, I could have still hung in there as its only beginner level and opponents aren't invulnerable, but the following sequence I think should have been handled better, what do you guys think?

Anyway, I'd love some constructive criticism and feedback, thanks in advance everyone who contributes or even just checks out this post :)

Dude how did you put that game like that with notes? I'm not that good and learning to but opening sequence I like, then you retreat your queen, made a four weak pawn moves.. Try to move your pieces more and pawns less in my opinion. Cool tactical moves at the end there, but losing the bishop killed any chance of holding that position. Develop pieces more, watch out for unprotected pieces, try to limo our pawn thrusts because it can come back later as a weak pawn set up you can't change unlike your pieces. Peace!

I really appreciate your feedback Corum, I am surprised that 9.Qd1 wasn't as horrible as I thought when I looked back through the game.

I definately see that 10.b3 does look unnatural, and also appreciate you showing me that in order to challenge the Black Knight on e5, that f4 would have been a nicer move and would have likely saved the eventual discovered attack on my Rook.

My middle/late game is very actually stricken by a poverty of ideas or conepts to work around of at this stage in my understanding of chess.

I feel like I have my opening priciples that I can stick to, challenge the centre, develop pieces, try and avoid moving a piece twice , castle before going past move 10. etc.

However once the middle game kicks in I have few ideas, concepts to fall back on and hold onto if I am unsure what moves my opponent is making. As I said, I used to learn lines/named tactics and it meant when opponents made moves like in the above game 3.Nge7 and  4. h6 I froze and couldn't understand why they weren't playing according to established patterns.

Now I can take a deep breath, think of my core goals for my opening and assess the situation and react accordingly and achieve positions a few moves down the line that I am very comfortable with, regardless of my opponent.

However with the transition to middle and then late game, I have zero ideas or concepts to hold onto and so I tend to have games were I succeed really well or fail miserably, but not of off the back of ideas of what my aims are in that part of the game, but actually to be honest, through luck, as I fail to be able to work towards a goal and just hope they fall into my lap so to speak.

Man, you aren't a beginner. I'd consider myself a OK player, and your 200 points above me. 

go to this link:http://www.chess.com/blog/CaptainPike/post-a-game

while you are posting, you can annotate it.

Thank you for the kind words, but my current number, to my mind is a little too high for my current skill and I'll probably be a little more comfortable getting matched against less high numbered opponents so I don't feel as nervous whilst playing.

My current number is just reflective of a few lucky games, for example that game I posted I got the points, despite really losing, because my opponent disconnected which was unfortunate as he deserved the win.

I'm working little by little to free myself of some awful bad habits I developed in my first attempts at chess when I payed no attention to how and why I did anything, and simply moved off of lines in games I read and tactics I learned which made me a poor player.

But I really appreciate the compliment.

 When you go to the box where you write posts, in the top row, to the left of the Bold and Italics Icons there is a little board Icon, click it and it lets you post the way I did.

Hope that helps.

GAME 2 - My Most Complete (I Feel) Game to Date

Hey everyone, I just completed (and won), what I feel is the most complete game I've played since beginning to learn chess all over again, however it wasn't all smooth sailing, and a move sequence starting around 20. and concluding roughly at 30. which I idenified as coming but was unable to counter to the fullest was a key sequence I feel.

What upped my game I feel was the this video that explained the middle game to me so I had a bit more of a grasp of what to be aiming for in that phase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEoAY3Ot-6Q

As always, any and all feedback on the game would be massively appreciated.

EDIT

BTW a friendly shout out to my opponent GeorgeMidnight who I thought played really strongly throughout and who gave me a tough but fun game that I also think I learned from.

Well played.

I've been looking at some of your other games.  I've noticed we both have the same problem.  We tend to often not consider what our opponent is going to do in response to our move and just make a quick thoughtless move or just react.  In one game your opponent attacked your knight with his queen but you wern't looking at that and instead just reacted by attacking the queen with a pawn without even considering why he moved his queen to that square.  I shouldn't be saying anything because I did something similar to what you did and completely lost a game that I could have been a nice endgame type game with a stronger opponent.  I'm just saying you have to make it a habit, regardless of how fast the time control is, to answer the question, "Why did he move that piece there?"  Your relying on your intuition and not bothering to check your opponent moves out sometimes.  Of course it only happens sometimes because only sometimes there is something, call it intuition, or periferal vision, or whatever, doesn't catch.

If you really are serious about getting better at chess I highly recommond you visit a site by Dan Heisman, just google his name and you will find the site.  There is a lot of free information there.  I'd also recommond you get a book written by him called chess improvement.  In that book he tells you what you need to improve on in order to become a better chess player, and guides you though a list of books you should read in a certain order.  He then later piece by piece explains an algorithm you can use to make your best possible chess move every move.  It's a "skill" you have to develop over time, but he tells you the procedure you need to go through everytime you make a move in chess, he just gives you one piece of the puzzle little by little until you have it all by the end of the book.

I see your time controls are 15|10

Dan Heisman recommends you play 45|45, or something of that nature.  Yeah that's a long time to be playing one game but this skill requires a lot of time thinking to be able to do.  This process he teaches you can only be used in long games because you just don't have enough time to do it in speed chess.  It's special.  You can get good at speed chess by playing a thousand long games.  Just play through the games and when you play speed chess you will notice you do not have to think as much to make your moves anymore because after going through the games as much as you did for as long as you did all those years of playing those games you simply learned what to do in certain positions because you've seen them before and remember most of it because you thought so much about it.

Yeah I don't see that I think it's because I'm on a smartphone. I'd comment on your other game but without showing the game like you do I think my comments would be to confusing.

In response to your great feedback DayBreak57, I wanted to first thank you for it, and then respond (I tried quoting but it didn't work very well for some reason, so have had to retype these responses again like this.)

1. You're absolutely spot on with your point about my needing to pause and look at how and why my opponents make certain moves. I think in every single one of my games I always make 1 or more blunders off of a failure to stop and look at what a move has either caused my opponent to do, or set him up to do in a few moves time.

So I 100% agree and I think just pausing and really looking at an opponents move and seeing what squares he is attacking/defending/can move to/can reinforce in the next few moves, and take in how and why he did what he did would really help with that and also kick my game up a notch.

2. It is weird you mention my using the 15/10 game bracket, after writing some notes to myself for 'middle game goals and ideas' I wanted to play a game with less intensity and a bit more time so I could incorporate them. I just posted it, and described that it felt like my 'most complete game'.

Crucially at one point I initially thought my King had been forked in such a way that I lost my Queen. BUT, I looked at the position for honestly 5-7 minutes and saw a way out I ended up taking. I never would have done that in the 15/10 game mode. So going forward I completely agree slower games would be better. Why play two or three games in a row in a night, when I can play one game to a better standard and and learn more as a result?

3. I will definately check out that material you recommended, check out hi site, and might see if that book is available for kindle for some light reading before bed :)

Fundamentals should be fun 4 da mentals. Get it ? no ? dang!

Indeed. Honestly, I've never felt my play wasn't equal to my rating. Guess I just blame it on the particular site I'm playing at! Heh.

Seriously though, self-evaluation is always great but always realize it will change as you gain more knowledge, experience. What you thought was a "good" or "bad" move before may turn out to be the opposite upon later assessment.

To be honest with you, rote and memorization is extremely important in your formative years. Studying mating patterns , positional axioms, elementary endgame, combos & tactics will serve you well. Especially Openings. There is a reason why certain lines/moves must be played precisely n accurate or you will lose your way going into the middleware. Trust me. Don't knock yourself for poor play at this stage of development. Not everyone has natural talent, resources. But if you love playing the game, winning or losing, your rating or your opponents shouldn't be a motivation or deterrent.

Playing's the thing, my Friend.

I am sorry but I can't be silent when I see people calling the Cozio Defence a mistake.

3...Nge7 is the Cozio Defence which is respected.

Granted it is not used alot.

Compared to a lot of other popular lines.

However, It is still a playable line with excellent chances.

How can people disparage a line they know nothing about!

Your lack of knowledge in the Cozio Defence upsets me.

The idea of the Cozio Defence is to maintain a grip on the dark center squares.

d4 + e5 squares to be specific.

The knight move to e7 allows black the chance to maintain a knight on c6 which add's direct pressure to the d4 + e5 squares.

Even if white was to play the move Bxc6 black would recapture with the knight on e7 to maintain the pressure on those squares.

As for black's dark bishop on f8 people keep talking about!

The bishop on f8 has a wonderful future!

Black is planning to play g6 in this line and put the bishop on g7 to yet again add support to d4 + e5.

After 4.0-0 Your opponent could of played a mouse slip with the move 4...h6.

Perhaps your opponent was planning to play 4...g6 and played h6 by mistake.

The move 4...g6 is the most played move in that position.

The second most played is 4...d6

Both moves help support blacks theme of controlling d4 or e5.

Black pieces are working in harmony!

Its fine people on this forum feel like dismissing the Cozio Defence.

Wait until they face a strong player playing the Cozio defence!

Than when they lose they will wonder how this mistake line crushed them.

This forum is a slap in the face to all Cozio Defence players in the world.

I demand a retraction!

5 people talking bad about this line and they don't even know the name of the line.

I'll try to give you my analysis on the game against GeorgeMidnight.

Hey everyone I had another really interesting game that I'd love feedback on. So far all the lessons I have been learning, both from feedback here and doing some reading in general has payed off really well I think.

This game felt great because I feel like I played pretty well, but also I didn't make any blunders that made me uncomfortable, I felt cool, calm and collected throughout, and whilst some of my moves probably weren't optimal I think I did well enough to avoid losing pieces because of any lapses in thought.

Some changes that have helped are:

1. Switching the time to 30mins and deciding I'm only going to play one game a day (unless there is a silly resign/abandon on move 8 or something).

2. Taking a moment to just look at what an opponent does when he moves a piece and trying to think what he could get off of the back of it.

3. Finally learning how to approach the mid-game with some goals of either restricting space for my opponent or taking advantage of imbalanced setups at this stage to attack if possible.

4. Just a feeling of a bit more confidence in my game and feeling that if something unusual comes up I can just return to the goals I set myself for the opening/middle game and can just make a move that both tries to address my oppoents move and/or achieve those goals I've layed out (King safety, develop pieces, avoid double moves in opening if possible etc.)

Anyway, here is the game, which was excellent throughout, but I am annoyed it had to be abandoned as my opponent left (perhaps got disconnected), by the end I was up a pawn and a piece and I think I was well on my way to a win, but my endgame is pretty weak so a blunder or mistake at that point was very, very possible.

Anyway, all feedback would be welcome and appreciated alot.

Thanks!

 GAME 3 

Not at all!

It's great to see those missed attacking opportunities, so I really appreciate the help analysising post-game. Obviously because I made those moves 'in game', unless there is an obvious blunder, it can often be hard for me to see alternatives, as otherwise my thinking wouldn't have led me to the moves I chose in the first place.

So those alternative moves and reflection on my game really help me loads. I already think my game has gotten better since joining and feedback like yours will only keep that momentum going.

The move order your opponent played was so stupid.

Your opponent has no idea why he is playing those moves.

TheRedBaron20 remember there is a purpose for every single move you and your opponent make!

Which is to say when you see opponents playing terrible don't get flustered it is obvious they have no idea what they are doing.

It looks like your opponent did a terrible attempt of tranposing into some sort of Spanish Game,Open Variation

or

Ruy Lopez, Open Variation

which ever you like to call it.

However, the moves played sure do leave a bad taste and are wrong.

Your opponent is contradicting himself the whole game.

Its its its crazy!

If your opponent wanted to take the e4 pawn he should of took it at move 4 in that position.

3...Nf6 is the Berlin Defense.

Which means if you play 4.0-0

Black can play 4...Nxe4  and after a few forcing moves the position enters into what is known as the Berlin Wall Endgame

Which is said to be very tough nut to crack.

The black king often ends up in the center but white has some trouble cracking that position since black position is pretty compact.

After 3...Nf6  which is the Berlin Defense I often play 4.d3 which has been played by elite players such as Carlsen.

It prevents the Berlin Wall Endgame.

If your opponent wanted to take the e4 pawn he should of took it at that moment since the Berlin Wall is not that bad for black or white.

The position is said to give white a small edge but white side players can't seem to make that small edge win.

Games often end in draws has high draw rate which black players should not mind.

After your move 4.0-0 

black played the move 4...a6  trying to tranpose into the main line it seems.

If black wanted to play a6 they should of played it at move 3...a6

Which is the mainline.

3...a6 = Mainline or morphy defense

3...Nf6 = Berlin Defense

The move 3...a6 puts the question to the bishop.

The bishop often drops back to a4 after it does black than plays 4...Nf6.

White often plays 5.0-0

After 5.0-0

The move 5...Nxe4 is not considered that great any more.

White often gets an slight advantage.

If black plays 5...Nxe4 than it enters into the Open variation of the Spanish.

The best move for white I believe is the move 6.d4 which regains the loss pawn.

The move 6.Re1 is another alternative move.

The position's look like the below position.

In your game against that guy the move 7.d4 would of tranposed into the Open variation.

However, 7.d4 would of not been the best move in that specific position.

I will explain why little later.

If your opponent wanted to play the Spanish Game, Open Variation he should of used the correct move orders.

Because by playing 3...Nf6 you could of answered with 4.d3.

If your opponent wanted to take on e4

Than he should of took on e4 at move 4 with the idea of entering the Berlin Wall Endgame.

Which I believe is a million times better than the Open Variation.

If your opponent wanted to play an early b5 move he should of played the Arch Angel Defense or mainline.

So many problem's in these 7 moves.

After hearing everything I have said and all my ranting you asked the question at move 7 which is better Re1 or Qe2?

The killer move is 7.Re1 and the reason why is complicated in itself.

It deals with the fact black played the move b5 to early which caused your bishop to move and blacks lack of king safety.

Have you ever seen the movie inception? A dream with in a dream!

This game is like failception!  A inserted move with in an insert move!

Your opponent kept inserting moves instead of playing the right move.

At move 4 you played 0-0 castle and your opponent should of took the e4 pawn at that moment entering the Berlin Wall endgame. If he wanted the bloody pawn he should of took it than.

but no he inserts the move a6!

At move 5 you played Ba4 and your opponent should of took the e4 pawn again. If that is what he wanted is the e4 pawn. He would of entered into the Spanish Game, Open Variation which is not that great but its playable.

but no he inserts the move b5!

At move 6 you played Bb3 and now your bishop is a monster.

Black should cut his losses and abandon all hopes of ever taking e4.

To take e4 now would open lines to the exposed black king.

Black could of play a move like Be7 trying to get into the main line's

or

Even Bb7 the Arch Angel defense!

but no he inserts the move Nxe4!

Normally in the regular Open Spanish Games, you can play d4 like I showed you in the above diagram.

Your position would be very nice for sure.

7.d4 would tranpose into the Open Spanish game were black is got some issues.

But because of these stupid inserted moves you have a stronger move than d4.

7.d4 would still be a reasonable move.

However, because of the way black played it you have stronger continuation to play

7.Re1 is a killer move!

White has over half a pawn advantage.

Black's domino effect has cost him!

At move 8 your opponent blunders even worse the position is like +2 for white.

The game is over now!

It is a slaugther!

Blacks best defense is c6.

It is more than pinning the knight becuase the black king is still in the middle of the board.

If black is not careful you have deadly queen moves Qd5 or Qh5 hitting f7 with the help of the bishop on b3.

c6 helps stop any Qd5 moves which would double attack the rook on a8 and threat a mate on f7.

It helps support a Nd5 move as well to try and shield the black king.

However, It will lose with good play from white.

I doubt your opponent would of found the move c6 which makes his light square bishop a prisoner behind his pawns.

The Spanish Game is sometimes called the Ruy Lopez.

Ruy Lopez was a Spanish Priest during the time of the Spanish inquisition

Which has lead some people playing black to call the line the Spanish Torture.

It shows no mercy to mistakes.