First Real Game

Hi all and thank you for allowing me to be a part of the Chess.Com Community.  I learned the basics of chess when I was 15, but now as a 28 year old, I am picking it back up and trying to learn how to play all over again.  I picked up Patrick Wolff's Idiot's guide to chess and am about halfway through. 

I downloaded and played Crafty at 30% strength and here is how the game went. 

Cormier-Crafty (30%)  Result 1-0....not because I am anywhere close to good, (as you will painfully see...) but because Crafty just blundered more than I did.

** I did the annotations in the editor, but none of them stayed ...what did I do wrong?

Blunders galore I am sure, any insight is always welcome and appreciated.  Hope you have a great day.

I dont like the name of that book :) try to skip it

I would suggest that u try to concetrate on 2 basic things :

1. Basic tactic ( fork , pin , good vs bad exchange )

U are already doing ok , for example 9.d4 nice fork , but then on 23. Nxc5 was not needed u could just move bishop back

2. Basic opening principles

U have way too many bad moves in the opening

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Ur comments :

4. ye too early , u could play d3 if u wanted to kick knight

7. Bb5 is not protecting that peon he is on diferent diagonal

24. Ye in most of the cases it's good exchange

Thank you very much for your time and comments.  I am humbly grateful. 

Check out this site: http://www.thechesswebsite.com/ they have quite a bit of YouTube vids you might find helpful.

Thanks, I have just sub'd to OnlineChessLessons and kingscrusher (over 2,000 vids) on the Tube.  Hopefully they will make me suck just a little less.

he is good but mb too good at this point for u and he didnt make so many begginer videos, mb some of the older videos about some chess openings, or annotated master games could be of some use , try the web site that kmiller42 posted 

I'm not exactly a pro, but I can give you some tips that helped me get better.

1. Try not to move pieces twice during the opening (2. e5) - concentrate on getting all of your other pieces developed. One piece is not going to do much all alone.

2. Try to control the centre of the board. You can do this with either your pawns, minor pieces, or both. In this game, you try too much to counter your opponent's moves rather than strengthing your position (e.g. 6. Ba3 - Bb3 would have better, setting up d4 to threaten the knight and add a defender to e5).

3. While we're on the subject of 6. Ba3 - try to keep your bishops in open positions. Your bishop gets stuck here, when he could be doing more work for you.

4. Don't be too agressive too early (3. Bb5). As above, better to develop a strong position from which you can attack with multiple pieces.

5. You are correct regarding 4. Qe2. Develop your minor pieces before your Queen; she'll be more powerful later on if you can thin the enemy ranks before putting her into battle (apologies for the confusing analogy).

6. I too would recommend http://www.thechesswebsite.com/

Hope these help you out.

Again, quite thankful for all the help and time you all have spent on this post.  :)

That is a good site, but the puzzles are strange in that they don't tell you if you are right or wrong.  The guy running it said that you got a puzzle right if your score is -10,000.  What?  He can't just put something that says, Correct?

Thank you so much.  Rybka seems to be very popular around here.  Crafty has an analyize feature, but I don't seem to be smart enough to understand how to use it. 

Well, I'm not too familiar with Crafty, but computer analysis features are limited as to how much they can teach you. They will give you the best move, but sometimes the "why" is not too obvious.

While it is not good to devote a lot of time to memorizing opening lines, you still need to have a basic repertoire and understand basic opening principles (which you didn't show in your example game).

""A good opening means that the game is half won." Gaining an advantage early is not only of obvious practical value but is also significant psychologically. Knowing you stand well should give you confidence during the action to come; and conversely, the opponent, realizing that he stands badl, may not be able to pull himself together to face the ensuing middlegame. Thus, an opening advantage can well lead to an easy win in the middlegame."

That is an excerpt from:

How to Play Good Opening Moves by Edmar Mednis

Which Teary loved himself. Not a lot of deep lines and memorization, but rather just good general principles to follow.