Computers are not great at teaching positional chess. Sure, sometimes you can figure out something of a positional nature by going over things with the engine, but generally speaking, they mostly help out with spotting tactics. Since there does not seem to be any assistance from another human being in your game plan, I don't think your current plan will take you very far unless you supplement it with chess books. Or maybe you could get by with posting games with your analysis here. Both would be better. There are a good number of players that regularly help, including some NMs at times.
General question about analyzing my own games
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Good evening everyone,
Over the past few months, I have been dedicating additional time to analyzing my chess games, and want to make sure that I am building good habits as I do so. My process has been to first go through my game without a computer engine running, and try to find mistakes that myself or my opponent make. I will then calculate an alternate line that I think should/could have been played instead (using my own chess knowledge, which is admittedly limited). I have not been using computer engines in my analysis much up to this point, but I have downloaded a free program that uses the Rybka engine.
My main question is - is this a good method for me (~1400 rating on this site, no official OTB rating) to be using to improve my chess? I know some people balance computer and self analysis, but I am worried that this may be a bad habit to rely on computers to tell me what is best (especially at my level). However, should I be running my game through an engine first, and allow it to identify the best moves (knowing that these may not be "human" moves, especially in an endgame situation)?
I lack any formal training aside from one month in the Prodigy Program here, so any/all advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance for any responses,
John