How do I analyze my games?

You should be able to go to any game you have on chess.com, finished or in progress and click on the moves tab. There you should see a link below the moves that says get PGN. click that and the browser should save a file to your computer. Go into whichever program and open the file from wherever it was saved.

As pointed out though, using a computer to analyze a game should only come after you yourself have sat down and analyzed the game. That is where the improvement comes from that is talked about in books and elsewhere. It improves your calculating and visualization abilities, plus helps you identify weaknesses that you need to work on. The computer can then tell you things that you missed, especially in the tactical realm.

Somehow I managed to get the pgn in file into Shredder (why Shredder?) It was very confusing. I thought there would be a voice (from Heaven perhaps) that would say, "stwils, your move to B6 was terrible because..."  No voice. No real help unless I learn to decipher Shredder.

Right now I do not see how on earth this is going to help me play chess. Perhaps my time would be better spent with the Tactics Trainer or "Play Winning Chess."

Disappointedly,

stwils

Wow, is that really your current rating

Ok if you are really serious about improving your chess game and not your computer's chess game then this is what you do.

Set up the position on a real board in front of you.

Stare at it.

Stare at it some more.

Once your eyebrows starting coming close together then you are getting somewhere.

Now if you still can't figure things out then refer to Scarblac's post.

 If your software notes a much better move (say, 1 pawn value better) in your game than the one you actually played, then you improve by understanding how you went wrong, what the better path was, and if it was tactical then your "tactical vocabulary" gets improved.

Play with the tabs and menus. The one that analyzes your game in terms of numerical evaluations must be there somewhere. Some proggies have a "wordy" analysis feature.

It all adds up the same though. You have to work to improve even if some bits have come easily.

 Don't make fun of my rating. I am in two tournaments and not doing too well.

But please don't judge me or my intellect by my rating. In September I did not even know what a fork or a pin was.

But please don't say "Wow!" at my rating. Hurts my feelings.

stwils

THank you JFercon for your help and for wanting to help me. I will try again tomorrow with your suggestions.

stwils

Jfercan than u so much. Thats what I was wanting.

Humble suggestion:

Go through the game before you fire up the program and do your best to annotate the moves.  Then fire up Fritz and import the pgn file.

Then turn OFF the engine and (in Fritz) under "Engine" hit "Add Kibitzer"  Pick the strongest engine on the menu and start it as a Kibitzer.

This should open a window that gives the lines the Kibitzer engine is looking at -- and you can hit a + key to add as many lines as you like.  I get at least five or so going.  The Kibitzer will show them in order of the evaluation, best at the top.

Now go through the move in the game and watch the Kibitzer's reaction. Good moves will get a green light in that window,   dubious moves will get a yellow light and a negative evaluation, blunders a red light.  A bunch of alternate lines will be avaiable to try.  Compare the Kibitzer's reaction to the moves with your annotations of those moves.  Try out the suggested lines.  Take note of which moves of your got the 'green light' and which didn't and why.

Because the Kibitzer is interactive, as opposed to "infinite analysis" which is not, I think it's a much better learning experience.  Just FWIW.

stwils and baughman,

One of the difficulties is when you save a game as (or to) a PGN file is that you need to know WHERE you have filed it. For now, make a folder called "chess PGN" or something on your desktop (right click on the desktop => New => Folder =>  rename it “chess PGN” or something).

Now, save a few games from your game list in chess.com: On the main chess.com menu bar go:  Learn => Chess Explorer => click on the dropdown box beside “Database:” and choose “My Chess Games”.

The window will show “move      games       white wins/draw/black wins”.

Under “move”, click the number, that is the number of  rated games you have played.

Now you see a list of the rated games that you have played, and to download a few of them to import them to Fritz, check the checkbox beside the first 3 or 4 games, then click the <Download Games> button at the bottom of the page.

If you are using Internet Explorer, the File Download dialog box will come up, click <Save>. Now the “Save As” dialog box will come up, Click the arrow on the “Save In:” dropdown box and choose “Desktop” (near the top of the list). You will now see a list of files, folders and programs on your desktop, Double click on the “chess PGN” folder and click <Save>.

Now your PGN files are in the “chess PGN” folder on your desktop.

Ok, now open Fritz. I only have Fritz 5.5 but perhaps it is similar.

On the menu bar, go: File => Open => Database and Fritz opens up in the last database you were using. Then, on the new menu bar, go: File => Open => Database and the “Open” dialog box opens up. In the “Look in:” dropdown box, click the arrow and click on Desktop. Find your “chess PGN” folder and double click it. Highlight your PGN file and click <Open>. Now a list of your games is showing in Fritz. Double click the game you want to view and run through it with the arrow buttons. Then try the various analysis methods...  I prefer the blunder check analysis, but opinions vary ; / ). You may want to read through the Help in Fritz about the options within each analysis type. I find Fritz 5.5 to be not overly easy to navigate around, the programming is a bit non-intuitive, but it is very good at analysis.