How are you suppose to play Middle Game?

from move (one) you are playing too control then occupy the central squares. that is the battleplan! no matter what opening you play go through the center. that fight is the (middlegame!) post a knight at your opponents (e5) that cannot be removed the attack will play itself! you must always play with a plan (even a bad one!)

But this is what I am talking about, why was I losing the middle game. Can't you just explain the moves that caused me to have disadvantage in the middle game?

I know I made a mistake in the end that cost me the game, but like you said, a better opponent would have killed me in middle game, and I am trying to figure out WHYYYY.... But so far, I have not been able to figure it out, other than "u shouldn't have made him get double pawn", but I have always been told in the past double pawns for opponent are good for you... So everything is contradictory to me now...

Reading Logical Chess by Chernev has improved my middlegame - I recommend reading it.

Well, I'm not exactly the best person to advise you on middlegame since I suck there too. :P But to address your question on doubled pawns, as a few people before me have pointed out, doubling your opponent's pawns is generally good - but in this case, it comes at the cost of opening the g-file for his rooks to attack your kingside. So while making him double his pawns was an advantage for you; it was offset by the much larger disadvantage of opening the g-file for his rooks (and then you let him undouble pawns later, but as seen in your annotations you've already noticed that probably wasn't such a good idea). Many moves in a chess game let you gain one kind of advantage in exchange for letting your opponent get a different kind of advantage; the key is being able to judge when the tradeoff is and isn't worth it (as well as being able to capitalize on your advantages and negate your opponent's). In this case the doubled pawns were not enough compensation for the opening of the g-file. (Random note: Also, in some specific endgames doubled pawns can actually be an advantage as they allow the player to attack a square twice when the pawns advance. But anyway, such endgames are less common than those where doubled pawns are weak, so it's less important. Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here.)

As for other possible improvements...well, to go into specific moves, we should just listen to the NM's advice on this one and go with 9. ...d5. :P I'm sure I don't see all the benefits inherent in this move, but at least it certainly looks fine for Black. As tonydal also pointed out, you actually already had some problems in the late opening. Once you let him play 15. Nf5 you were in quite an uncomfortable position (and by extension, 14. ...h6 was probably not such a good move...quite apart from allowing 15.Nf5; generally moving the pawns in front of your king is risky unless you really have to do it to avoid an attack. In this case it doesn't seem to do that much, so it might have been premature and grants potential for a Greek gift sacrifice (Bxh6) by your opponent later on). I'm not sure at the moment what other improvements are possible.

Anyway, tl;dr: I give likely-dubious advice and talk too much for a mediocre chess player.

On the bright side, you've managed to get to 1466 on here without realizing that opening a file that allows your opponent attacking opportunities (especially when that file is aimed at your king) isn't a wise thing to do.  Cleaning up things like that in your chess would likely boost you quite a bit. 

Someone else already pointed out the Legal's Mate possibility in the second game, and later on your opponent missed mate in 1(19. Kf1 Qh1#), so it's not like they're playing blunder-free chess even though it may feel that way sometimes.

I'll recommend a few books, too:

Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur by Euwe and Meiden (A good book that demonstrates what not to do and how to punish your opponent's mistakes.  The mistakes are more blatant than they're likely to be in games between two masters which I think makes understanding what's going on a little easier)

The Art of the Checkmate by Renaud and Kahn (Coincidentally, the first mating pattern examined in this book is Legal's Mate.  The book is mainly about mating patterns, but entire games leading up to the patterns are included, and the games tend to be attacking games and playing through them might energize your chess since it seems to me that your play tends to be somewhat passive/reactive.)

Better Chess for Average Players by Harding (also focuses on typical play of less than brilliant players and how to fix their problems)

The Amateur's Mind by Silman (the thinking of sub-master players at various skill levels is critiqued by Silman as games emphasizing various concepts are played through)

Logical Chess by Chernev was also a good suggestion.

Read some Chess books.  You seem to have your mind made up that nobody is good enough to teach you so maybe you should teach yourself.

Focus on tactics.

www.chesstactics.org is a great free resource.

Also read up on endgames.

I didn't say that... I asked why I should pay for a coach when I have no guarantee that the coach will improve my game--how can I tell if he/she is a good coach or not?

I'm sure there are lots of great coaches out there that can teach me. However, finding the great coach is hard to find. Why waste money on someone you have no guarantees of? It's bad investment...

I have been teaching myself for many years, that is why I have been seeking advice on forums and such. There are very few methods of improvement in chess, it's a difficult game, you can't simply practice your way to the top.

I've never heard of anyone reaching 1800+ without a coach or strong player as a guide. Only the rare few geniuses that became masters on their own. I've known players who claimed they were never taught, but they turned out to be cheaters and today have banned profiles...

Nah, it's very possible and not at all rare to reach 1800 + without a coach, and it doesn't take a genius. (2000+ might be more difficult but still possible.) You do probably need to read a little though, and using the Internet helps.

I do benefit from all the study tools this site can offer, but then everybody has a different way of learning. You didn't get a simple answer to your question in this thread, because I believe the question you ask can not be answered in couple messages. Certain things can be pointed out, and you can focus on those things to get the answer you need though.

In your first game you comment  "Opening completed, and now what the hell am I doing?" at move 7 . This indicates you were moving your pieces to follow the "develop your pieces first" advice without really knowing what purpose those pieces serve at the squares you move them. 

Imagine the opening as a stage you build the foundation of the game you want to play in the middle game. All those opening principles there to help you to achieve your plan, but first you need to have a plan, and second you need to understand how those principles are helping you. Otherwise your games may always follow the "whoever blunders less wins" motto, but counting on the opponents blunders is not a path to improvement in chess.

The following are not my words, but I believe it has a very good point : "In order to play accurately, you must be able to answer "why" for every move you make" . 

Focusing on these point may help your middle game as well. 

It's very easy for experts to criticise my game, what's not easy is explaining the why, you mentioned I'd have a good game with move d5, didn't explain why. You said I didn't make it out of the opening, you didn't explain why.

I'm sure you're right that I was lost in both before the middle game, but can you explain why I was lost or what I was suppose to be doing?

I'm also thankful you showed me Legall's mate that I didn't even see, but are mates what I should be looking for in middle game?

Alright, so you've told me that castling on open file was bad in the first game, and in the first game, I should have done 9...d5, and then somehow the knight will fly to d5? Are we looking at the same game? Can you show a diagram because maybe you made a typo... The knight cannot do 10.Nxd5 because neither knight reaches it.

And then later you say I should have castled short anyway, and that I should have given him the Bxf3 double pawn, well isn't that the same as before? Your advice seems contradictory, again my king is on a semi-open file.

And btw, this is not abstraction, it's specifics. Abstraction part is the part where you say "important that your pieces reach strong squares here", but I know that, and I always put bishops on large diagonals and put my pieces aggressively, but that doesn't always give me the best advantage. Reaching strong squares is one thing, defining what is a strong square is another. How do I tell what is strong and what isn't? How do I tell which pawns to advance that will give me a better position? You need to break down your middle-game "plans" / "attacks" into their basic elements and abstract them in order for anyone to understand when to do what type of moves in certain situations. I know it seems like a difficult task because of the 1000s of moves.

But similar to how "don't move same pieces twice in opening" or "don't keep your king on an opponent's open file" or "develop all pieces" are inductive conclusions that I can apply to all my other games. Sure right now, if the same exact situation arrives, I will play d5, but what is the principle or structure that white / black must have in order for me to know that advancing to d5 at this spot is better than when he has a different structure etc.

Like you said, I look lost even in late opening, well, what is it that makes YOU not lost when you are in late opening? You said strong square domination, well you have to give examples of this, to me, my opening was perfectly fine, my pieces had maximum vision and threat, what was I suppose to do???

It's probably because that you are at such high of a level, that you cannot explain the many intuitive moves that you make after layers and layers of lessons you learned over the years, but perhaps someone can turn that into a general conclusion that can be used for future games...

When you make d5 in some new game, at that point, did you make a calculative decision? As in "if I do d5, he will take, and then I will take, and I have better position...", or is it strategic, "if I do d5, I will have gained more squares, or forced the pawn structure of white to be bad"... or is it "I must do d5, because that is a variation that works well..."

My thinking is much different than yours, and I simply don't understand your reasoning/logic...

eXecute, "ed" is short for "exd5". So the "Nxd5" part is Black's move, not White's; so there's a Black knight perfectly placed on f6 to take on d5. (I find it a bit odd that you just put in a random bishop move in your diagram, but ah well.)

Also, you said that some of the advice sounds contradictory, but I think that's because you're trying to find some "golden rules" that will always work in chess. Just about any rule for good chess play is invalid under some circumstances. Of course, some of them are applicable under more situations then others, e.g. "develop pieces quickly in the opening" nearly always holds true. But as I have pointed out earlier, sometimes you will need to make a move that breaks one rule in order to follow another. There are no hard and fast rules that you can blindly follow to win (Except maybe "Rule 1: Win at all costs"); instead you have to judge when the position needs one kind of advantage and when it needs a different kind.

So to take a specific example which you seem to have some confusion about, look at your Bxf3 move. In your original game, the advantage you gained was to double your opponent's pawns; but the disadvantage you suffered was to open the g-file for your opponent. For that particular position, the disadvantage outweighed the advantage (especially as you fixed his doubled pawns later), leaving you in a poor position. But (I'm just parroting tonydal's advice here) if you'd first played 9. ...d5 forcing the exchange of pawns and then played Bxf3 later at some suitable time, you'd have obtained the advantage of forcing double pawns on your opponent (and this time they're isolated, too!), at the cost of the half-open g-file. In that position after the pawn exchanges, your pieces are much more active and it is easier to stop attacking attempts by your opponent along the g-file. So in this case, after 9. ...d5, the advantages of Bxf3 could outweigh the disadvantages.

Will you give me free lesson?

"I've never heard of anyone reaching 1800+ without a coach or strong player as a guide. Only the rare few geniuses that became masters on their own. I've known players who claimed they were never taught, but they turned out to be cheaters and today have banned profiles..."

Well I think I have some chances of reaching master in the long term, but although that's a great accomplishment I still don't think that makes me a genius, even with no coaching.

I think that if your approach is that 1. you have persuaded yourself that it is impossible to reach any decent level without coaching and 2. you are determined not to take coaching, the odds are that you are not going to reach any decent level.

It seems he's just trying to find any excuse to keep moaning about how hard it is to improve instead of just knuckling down and doing some hard study. 

eXecute --

If you want a guarantee buy a washing machine. You are absolutely right there is no magic way to improve. Completely true.... improvement at chess typically requires a lot of time and self-correction. It's a lot like a musicial instrument... teachers help but you do the work yourself. No you should not pay for a chess coach for any reason other than the fact that you would ENJOY getting personal 1 to 1 feedback from someone more knowledgeable -- 99.99% of the people in the world lack the talent to justify having a chess coach for any other reason than indulging a pleasure (and a fine reason that is, too). 

Here's my chess advice regarding your questions -- I wish I could get a guarantee that you'll appreciate it and not flame me for my efforts, but there's no guarantees are there?

I looked at your first game -- you played an even game with your opponent -- each of you failing to capitalize on opportunities.  You arrived at an ending where you had an advantage and good endgame play from you would have made life VERY difficult for your opponent. Instead you played impatiently and walked into a mate in one. The first thing you should do to improve your chess is conquer your impatience. Impatience is evident in the attitude in your posts and in your chess games as well. 

Secondly... you seem to want to make a general principle out of every little thing. That's not going to work. Get some good middlegame books and study -- I recommend J. Silman's books but there are others. None are perfect, all require a critical interrogative intelligence from the reader to be of real use. The general idea of middlegame play is very simple: Middle game positions can be "read" for good typical plans. You learn to play the moves the position calls for. Of course this is much easier said than done... but it's a fascinating part of the game to study IMO. Good luck.

Whether you get better or not at chess is a thing of absolutely no consequence... why have you been acting crazy? 

@tyze, and others, yes I have figured out what   10. ed Nxd5 meant, but at the time, I thought ed was a typo, and that he meant 10. Nxd5, and I had a hard time visualizing, I'm not a master, and can't make assumptions like this so easily, I always have to look at diagrams. Plus it was based on the assumption that, the white player, refuses to retreat, and instead sacrfices a pawn by taking the d5 pawn with his e pawn.

But thank you for explaining all that. Sure there are golden rules for every game, and yes, sometimes they have multiple subset of exceptions. Learning the rule, doesn't limit you from learning exceptions, so I don't see why asking for a golden rule is a bad thing. "Semi-Open file is bad opposite the king, unless your pieces are extremely active"

@azure9, well it's better than not knowing any theory and continuing to practice. At least the person has learned/memorized some opening theory. He will learn to understand the opening in the future, just because he doesn't understand it now, doesn't mean learning openings are bad. It would help if you knew what kind of development to do afterwards.

@RainbowRising, when I first PMed you a week ago, I said I would like to have a free lesson. You asked me if I was after the free lesson or willing to pay further. That would be like someone offering a trial version of their program, but at first saying you have to sign a contract to buy the full version afterwards. Then why call it a trial or free lesson? You didn't even tell me the price??? So I said I was after the free lesson... Subsequently you have never given me that free lesson, but at least you played 1-2 games with me, thanks...

If you were really confident about your free lesson, you would give it knowing that I wouldn't even acquire your services, because you are so confident in the free lesson that you know I will come back for more and pay you...

@Elubas, perhaps it does make you a genius, perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps it means you have a toooon of time to study while others have lengthy jobs and don't have time to read books to study. Perhaps it means you are just above-average smart, maybe not genius but, smart enough to reach master level?

@nuclear Perhaps you are just looking for an excuse to insult someone for trying to learn. I have been studying for years, reading articles for a long time, doing tactics trainer constantly, playing out GM games a lot, doing computer analysis a lot, doing chess mentor a lot, watching videos on youtube... I'm sure there are a lot of people who study a lot but don't have much improvement.

@JG27, thank you for the good advice... Yes, there is no guarantee that I won't flame you, but I've never flamed anyone on this forum without provocation, so if you didn't provoke me, there is no probability I will flame you, is there? Common sense...

Yes, I am impatient, that's why all those games are 5 minutes long. If I had a ton of time, I'd constantly play 30 min games, or open up 1000s of online chess games at once (i only have 4 currently). The reason I walked into the mate-in-1, is because I had like 10 seconds left and I thought I could mate him quickly.

Yes you CAN make general rules about a lot of games. Just because there are a ton of rules and exceptions, doesn't mean you can't make any. I'm sure you have them in your head yourself when you pick moves in a game, you just can't express them. These general rules, are the basis of Inductive and Deductive teaching. You can't teach anyone without such general rules. Some people, teach by, throwing out examples, and eventually the student will create general rules in his head and learn, but the teacher has done HALF the job. If the teacher had used deductive or inductive teaching, the teacher would throw examples, then explain the general rules too (induction), or he would have talked about the general rules, and then supported it by examples (deductive). This is the basic lesson of teaching and learning...

I'll be sure to take your advice on the book...

And I'm not acting crazy, why are you imagining things about me? Can you point to specific examples?  I have been very appreciative of everyone's advice and have simply asked for more questions, requested general rules, I don't see how this is crazy...

No, trial software is for people, who want to try the product, before they buy. If they don't like the trial software, they DON'T BUY... As in yes, the company risks giving out free software for no return. There will be a ton of people using the trial, but only a fraction who decide to actually buy the product. However, the if the company is really proud of their trial software, they won't be worried, because people will find it so helpful, that they will purchase.

It's the same with your case. As a coach, you offer free lessons, and if they take the free lesson, they have a right to not hire you. You have wasted time, yes... But a fraction will, and since lessons are paid more by-lesson, or by-time, you make a lot of money, even if only a fraction accept your offer and hire you.

Much like wasting time by giving an interview to various company's before they hire you, you have to dedicate some time to acquiring customers even if in the end some of them turn out to be "Scroungers" as you said.

However, for a reasonable price, and I find your free lesson is very helpful, I might accept, why not? I may not hire you for a year, but I could purchase quite a few lessons...