Help Alison With Her Terrible Moves

I think missing 10.e5 is simply due to being unfamiliar with the Greek gift sacrifice and possibly not knowing how problematic a move like e5 can be even if there is no immediate tactic. I think there's a quick fix for this kind of thing that might help a little. 

Take a look at this short video about weakening squares in chess: http://youtu.be/M_okqyKTD-4

Here is a game collection with tactics you can learn: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1006294

You definitely don't need to look at them all because there are 400 of them. The important thing is to look at the tactics and try to understand why they work. The first games are very short and simple but they're worth a look anyway. 

You might also like the games of Greco: http://www.chessgames.com/player/gioachino_greco.html

All of these games are probably in the other collection but the "notable games" are worth looking at because they are examples he created for students to look at

Yeah and here 10 e5 has very few drawbacks because there isn't even a pawn on d6 to try to anticipate it. Even if there wasn't bxh7+, a lot of white's pieces are opened up. Sometimes pushing e5 makes your pawn chain weak but here the d4 pawn defends e5 very well, and white's pieces have easy access to the d4 pawn so defending that looks easy. White could bring a queen to d3 and bring another rook to d1 if it was really necessary. In that case, h3 I think is excessively cautious -- I mean yeah, we don't want to overextend our pawns, but we can't be paranoid about it either.

Another thing I just thought of just now is that, not only is the space white gets from e5 important (e.g., kicking the knight on f6 away from its excellent defensive post), it's also worth noting that many of black's pieces are stuck on the queenside. The bishop on b6 and knight on c6 will have a hard time defending against an already strong attack. Black is simply outnumbered, and will have to defend against more threats than he can. When that's the case, all it can take sometimes is to soften the enemy king position and then the king is helpless. This kind of situation would get my alarm bells ringing.

A couple of players that might be interesting to look at are Capablanca and/or Korchnoi.

With Capablanca, his 1901 match with Cuban champ Juan Corzo probably is most intriguing. 13 years old and without really much chess book knowledge, if any, Capablanca's improvement in technique from beginning to end of the match is pretty amazing. Game 9, a Dutch Gambit, especially interesting.

I always thought Korchnoi gets a bad rap on his attitude. Generally a nice guy who hates to lose, especially when he feels like he goofed it. Not very uncommon. His play a nice mix of innovation and classical. Puts a lot of problems to his opponent.

Really good was his exploitation of Kside weakness in a Ragozin QGD versus Sosonko (a Ragozin fan I believe) in 1976 and his Kside attack against Caruana in a 2011 Ruy. I think there's also a DVD out there called "My Life is Chess" or something like that if you want to hear from the guy himself.

I will just mention that the analysis given on the Ponziani is not correct.

The analysis "looks good" to someone not knowing the opening but he does not give the correct moves at all.

The Ponziani is better than its reputation.

However, out of 50 different openings, I can find some which may give better practical chances than the Ponziani and these are 1. c4  [English Opening]  1. d4 d5 2. c4  [Queens Gambit]  1. e4  e5  2. Nf3  Nc6  3. Bb5 [Ruy Lopez]  and 1. Nf3.

 However, since all sound openings lead to a draw, picking a sound but unusal opening can be a good idea.

OP:

I haven't bothered reading the other posts on this forum, but I will post my thought regardless.

Your opening wasn't perfect, but it wasn't completely horrible either and was above average for 'a player in your class'.

As for avoiding simple mistakes like you made towards the end, you can try doing lots of chess puzzles and simply spending more time thinking on each move. Maybe play more Online (Correspondence) Chess and use the Analysis Board to help you think ahead more?

I used to have a similar problem; I was overlooking simple ideas like forks but also seeing very complicated ones that won a pawn 15 moves down the track. Maybe go 'back to basics' for a bit of revision?

Hope I could help

Good Luck anyways!

All you need to know really at beginner level is to anticipate the opponents next move, not make blunders, avoid forks and other sort of attacks and you will be OK.

I think thats whats the difference, at higher ELO levels players can think many moves ahead and although I know this I simply can't 'see' more than 1 or 2 moves ahead.

You certainly don't need to study openings and complex games at that level.

Oh and can someone help me out? How could I have checkmated this easy computer quicker?

As always, I'll go in the order received: 

"Check out Paul Morphy....and don't be a chess hipster" - Reasonable advice, and I will definitely be looking at all of those players (especially Tal) at some point in my life. It's just that there are dozens of amazing players and tens of thousands of incredible games, and there's at least an equal amount of chess genius to be found in games that aren't as well known. As for Morphy, he bores me....Yes, I get it, can haz sacrifice, can haz checkmate, and it's really brilliant, but he's in such a rush!

"Slow moves are good but a little bit lazy and they make you miss important things" - agreed. I am guilty of the well-known Buddhist no-no of becoming attached to my ideas, and those attachments give me problems with forest/tree differentiation. It's slightly comforting and slightly worrisome to imagine that I'll still have that problem even as I become stronger....

"Titan's statement which is too specific to adequately summarize" - You always have a lot of great tips. One of the problems I have with tactics is not just resolving them, it's figuring out how to properly set them up and understand the positional environments in which tactics occur. If I had been given my own position as a puzzle, I would have said "OK, it's a puzzle - how do I checkmate or win material from here? Ah, e5, sacrifice, check, everything wins from here, what's for lunch?" But, since it was a game in motion, I thought "It's the opening, I want to develop the queenside, solidify weaknesses, bla bla bla". I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't even look for a tactic there - because I was still trying to find squares for my pieces. Looking at this game has gotten me to realize that I've compartmentalized the elements - giving my brain 'tactics mode' 'positional mode' 'opening mode' and 'endgame mode' which is a hinderance to my vieweing chess holistically. Thanks for the game collection - we're definitely going to go over the pitri dish where tactics grow and try to create the 'inner alarm' that Elubas was talking about. 

"Korchnoi and Capablanca are awesome" - Korchnoi is actually a perfect fit! I've been trying to go chronologically with my 'chess teachers', choosing Reti from the chess revolution of the early 20th century followed by Petrosian at mid century. I wanted to find someone post-Petrosian but pre-Kasparov. Viktor Korchnoi it is!!

"You (mis) memorized the opening" - I've *never* studied the Ruy Lopez (I've looked in to the Berlin from black's perspective....but this is not even close). I know you play c3 at some point to hide the bishop and get the d4 break, usually h3 to keep black's pieces out, Re1, and push on the kingside, but, beyond that, I didn't have any theoretical background. Thanks for the video - I won't switch to 1.e4 any time soon (why blow all of the study I've done on d4 and start over??), but Petrosian said that one could learn every type of position in chess just from the Ruy Lopez variations....which is a pretty bold and beautiful statement.

"Maybe get back to basics before calculating 10 moves deep?" - Noted....two days ago I lost in a game where I calculated a 6 move tactical sequence which left me with an outside passed pawn (in a Berlin ending).....but missed a pawn push halfway through that made the whole idea lose on the spot. 

"Beginners should do beginner things....and where's the better line in this game?" - I don't know how to classify myself....because most beginners haven't been playing as long as I have, haven't read as many books, and haven't studied as much, so I'm not a 'beginner' in terms of experience....but, by ELO (which - let's be honest - is all most people care about) I might as well have just learned how the horsey moves. In terms of your game, I wouldn't really look for an improvement - I mean, the computer hung the queen....you don't have to show Fischer-like mating skill after a blunder like that - you just make sure you don't hang YOUR queen in response. Someone once told me that you should play 'practical chess' when you get a big advantage - stop looking for fantastic (risky) moves and just play moves that DON'T LOSE, because the game will end in your favor if you play anything reasonable.

Thanks for the additional annotations, five - I didn't see your post because we were apparently writing at the same time! You've really helped me understand why backward pawns are backward - it's a term I know, it's something I've read about, but I never really understood why it would be 'bad' to push deeper into your opponent's territory (space is good, right?), but your thoughts on the subject gave me an insight that was a bit out of reach before: That pawns want to be side-by-side - the ideal structure is not necessarily pawn *chains* but pawn *partners* - chains are static, duos help one another go forward. That never clicked until I worked on this game (and that's why this thread exists!!) 

For once, we're going to look at a happy ending for good old Alison Hart. This was a correspondence game with someone rated 100 points or so above me, and I *think* I made an interesting strategic sacrifice.....but it might have been a blunder in disguise - let's take a look: 

So there you go - I made a winning plan, stuck to it, didn't blunder my pieces AND finished the game with an easy comfortable win....perhaps Alison's moves aren't always so terrible? 

Here's a question.  Your idea is to get the bishop pair in a position where you can undouble your pawns 'immediately', but what's the rush?

Did you consider 6.e3 here? The d5 pawn is not going anywhere, you will always be able to take later.  If Black takes on c4, it helps you develop - and also leaves you with the stronger center pawn (d4 vs. e6).  By delaying the trade on d5, you are keeping Black's QB restricted for the time being as well.

Thanks, Green! I think we can chalk up my missing e3 to low-rated player's syndrone: I thought I was getting away with something, so I wanted to put it on the board NOW. Obviously, taking isn't 'bad', but, you're right, there's no reason to take rather than playing a good, sensible 'aid to development' move.

Also, I want to say that the 19.Bg5 variation I gave is totally wrong - it loses on the spot for black after ...Bxd3 20.Qxd3 Nf5?? 21.Bf6+ Kg8 22.Rxf5 gxf5 Qg3+ (where the only legal move is Ng6 - losing the queen). The *correct* variation is Bx Qx Ng8, protecting the f6 square (which my opponent may not have found)

Alison, this is a very nice win. Direct opening play led to a kingside initiative capped off with a nice positional sacrifice. I am not sure if white could win against good defense, but it was definitely not a blunder. I must say, however, that the alternative Bg5 is practically winning. I see you found Rxf5 but moving to g8 loses material also.

Thanks a lot for the analysis, Wolf: looking at things after the game, there's no reason not to play 19.Bg5 - the position is simply crushing. While I was IN the game, however, it didn't feel crushing....it felt like black had somehow solved the piece-activity problems by pointing everything at the f5 square, and the exchange sac line seemed to blot out all of the piece activity and put me in calmer waters. I was pretending to be Petrosian with an exchange sac into a won endgame....but the real Petrosian would have played Bg5!

I'm glad you pointed out the premature nature of the queen trade....I certainly considered NOT exchanging queens because the king is exposed, and, after all, one of the beginner basics is "don't trade queens when you sacrifice material", but, again, it was a fog-of-war moment where I felt like I needed to stick with the plan (promoting pawns!). There's a fine line between believing in your own ideas and being stubborn for no sensible reason. 

Lovely analysis - you pointed out a few things I *did* see but didn't acknowledge, and a few things I *didn't* see and should have. If this keeps up, I might have to make a new thread "Help Alison with her tolerable moves"

Excellent win. As you said, good plan and follow through. Very nice calculation also.

As you noted, the position at 21. Rf1 probably is very critical and White does seem to be better. But a major reason could be the R on f1 cutting off the K from potential passer central.

Without the coverage on the f-file, Blacks King gets to f5 with access to e6 and e-d7 with a possible defensive plan with ...c6 thrown in there somewhere. Black 's plan might also include ...b5 (or maybe ...b5 first then ...c6 depending) and ...Rad8 and it might be harder for White to break through.

Black probably still should've went with the ...c6 ...b5 ...Rad8 setup after 21. Rf1 and wait for a chance that the Rook vacates since you demolished the ...Rae8 ...f6 plan very nicely. Well played game!

Has the OP made progress since this initial post 8 months ago?   Or, does she still love getting forked over and over?

What you did there;  I see it.