I don't understand...chess is hard man

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CharacterizedYeet

chess is hard more like pp hard. sorry

grembo10
bbmaxwell wrote:
grembo10 wrote:

Again, I'll take all criticism, but it seems like I don't make too many blunders or mistakes from the early to middle game. So how am I getting forced into these sharp lines where one mistake loses me the game against players my rating? Is the french defense itself sharp? Maybe I should stay away from sharp openings like KID?


I think it's positional but I'd appreciate hearing what you guys think.

This is going to sound harsh, but the game wasn't sharp, you miscalculated and gave your queen away.

But that's normal. That's fine. We all started in that place. This isn't about openings though. Looking at your game you're missing two things:

 

1) A drive to finish development.

On move 16 you're a piece up, so the simple way to play for a win is to consolidate your position. An experienced player would be focused on bringing out the knight and bishop and castling.

 

2) General board awareness.

On move 5 you add an attacker to his d4 pawn. White doesn't defend it. So on move 6 you can capture on d4 and win a pawn for free... but you don't.

On move 11 you say you didn't notice the bishop could capture the pawn.

On move 19 and 20 you say you didn't see the bishop cover c1 (it was a clever idea for a tactic though).

---

So yeah, that's what will gain you 100s of rating points practically overnight. Challenge yourself to follow the opening principles and to complete development quickly.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

And play a lot of games and solve tactics to improve your ability to visualize and develop good calculation habits. Dan Heisman says some good things about this when he talks about what he calls "hope chess." In short the 3 types of moves to focus on during calculation are checks, captures, and threats.

 

Thanks for the response! Your assessment is correct. I overthink a lot and try to force things that don't need to be forced, or simply throw away pieces. I should definitely focus on fixing these problems before trying to understand more complicated stuff.

grembo10
nklristic wrote:

Don't study openings, your opponent will not really know the main lines anyway. You should just stick to the opening principles. At your level, everything you need to know about the openings can be found here:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/surviving-the-opening-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

If you need a general guide on how to improve, here you go, it still helps me:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

So, longer time controls (30 minutes is ok) analyzing your games, practicing puzzles and generally learning about chess in some way (for now I did it by watching youtube content) can get you to intermediate level, perhaps even beyond.

For sure. I think I may be getting a little too in my head and trying to complicate things when I can just play solidly, get all my pieces into the attack morphy style, and wait for my opponents to make a mistake.

grembo10
TestPatzer wrote:

1) Keep going. From your explanations, it's clear that you have a decent understanding of the game. You just need more time and experience.

2) Your tactics need work. This is true of all of us. But you self-destructed when things got tactical. Tactics are incredibly important. It's what separates Carlsen from the rest. He's able to find tactics that the other SuperGMs miss.

3) Finishing development is a key principle of good chess. You neglected your kingside development, while you went on the attack. This means that you're trying to win with only some of your army. It's like going into battle while leaving half your soldiers behind.

Keep striving to learn and improve. I can tell you that, if you keep at it, in a few years from now you'll be 1600+. Maybe even 2200+. All depends on whether or not you keep going. (FYI I was once a 900 player. Now I'm 2200+. It's entirely doable.)

I appreciate the support. It means a lot to get analysis of my play from good players. I guess instead of playing an opening line that hinders development, I should focus on just developing pieces and using tactics to formulate an attack. Thanks for the advice!

grembo10
Laskersnephew wrote:

Your problem is this game has nothing to do with "positional strategy," or the opening. You turned a totally winning position into a dead lost one with one move, because you didn't look and count. When you played 19...Qe2, I assume you simply overlooked that the Bf4 was protecting the Rc1. And since your whole combination was based on taking that rook with check, your game went down in flames.  You lost--from a completely winning position--because of a one-move mistake, It is pointless to look to "positional strategy" or the nuances of the French Defense. You have to figure out how you came to make that blunder, and what you should do to cut down on the number of these blunders

This. I think sometimes I get tunnel vision and only focus on one part of the board and try to complicate things when I should just develop pieces and keep it simple. Thanks for the advice!

grembo10
catmaster0 wrote:
grembo10 wrote:

Again, I'll take all criticism, but it seems like I don't make too many blunders or mistakes from the early to middle game. So how am I getting forced into these sharp lines where one mistake loses me the game against players my rating? Is the french defense itself sharp? Maybe I should stay away from sharp openings like KID?


I think it's positional but I'd appreciate hearing what you guys think.

There were small things people have mentioned, but the point is you gave away your queen for free. It doesn't matter if you didn't make very many mistakes before or not, blundering the queen loses games. That has nothing to do with what opening you picked. At some point you will be chances to screw up, and if you make a particular big one, you can throw the game. 

The small things they mentioned will indeed help you climb up the ladder, but these small struggles only work out to your lead if you can keep yourself from making a huge mistake to throw it all away. 

The biggest thing you need to fix is to stop giving away stuff. I did a quick skim over your games and I see this is a major issue for you.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5741868461 You gave away your rook move 33.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5741868461 You traded your knight for a pawn move 21. They made a nifty discovered attack out of it, but the basic idea was they attacked your knight and instead of saving it you took a pawn, the pawn move that enabled the discovered attack didn't do anything else. You then gave away your bishop for 2 pawns moves 22-23. You traded a rook for a pawn move 28. 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/5741464709 You gave away your queen move 8. I'm not sure why you wanted it on that square even if you hadn't just placed it in a square for them to take it. 

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/5740686703 They left you a free pawn move 7, and it's still there move 8. You then gave away your queen move 10.

You can make those nuanced moves, gain a small lead in development or gobble up a pawn, but a swift blunder of a queen, or a rook, etc. can easily undo that. These holes can cost you far more games than tiny errors that put you a little behind will. You want to get stronger at both, but fix the blunders first, your opening is not nearly as important as this is right now.

Keep it simple stupid. Thanks for bringing up all those bad game lol. Still, it's very educational and apparent to me that a lot of my losses stem from just carelessness and not seeing my opponents threats a couple of moves in the future. Something to study more INSTEAD of opening lines and variations for sure.

2Kf21-0

Chess is not so hard, You can probably get to 2600 in a few weeks

2Kf21-0

Just learn 70 moves into the ruy lopex and najdorf and donate to chess.com an you will be there in no time

Laskersnephew
2Kf21-0 wrote:

Chess is not so hard, You can probably get to 2600 in a few weeks

I'm not sure this is totally sincere

 

Anonymous_Dragon

2000 is quite a big goal...you should aim for 1600-1700 first

IMKeto
grembo10 wrote:
nklristic wrote:

Don't study openings, your opponent will not really know the main lines anyway. You should just stick to the opening principles. At your level, everything you need to know about the openings can be found here:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/surviving-the-opening-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

If you need a general guide on how to improve, here you go, it still helps me:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

So, longer time controls (30 minutes is ok) analyzing your games, practicing puzzles and generally learning about chess in some way (for now I did it by watching youtube content) can get you to intermediate level, perhaps even beyond.

For sure. I think I may be getting a little too in my head and trying to complicate things when I can just play solidly, get all my pieces into the attack morphy style, and wait for my opponents to make a mistake.

The best piece of advice i can give you is this.  PLEASE stop using term you don't understand. 

You don't understand how to complicate things.

You don't understand how to play solidly.

You don't know how to attack.

You aren't taking advantage of your opponents mistakes.

I don't mean to sound harsh. but this seems to be a thing.  Players without the chess basics wanting to sound all GM and such.

Stick with the basics, and grow from there.

FunwithFractions

I'm mainly a blitz player myself, and not even a particularly good one, but my advice is this: when you're ahead on material, it's usually stronger long-term to just focus on developing your board and not blundering than trying to press an attack with just three or four pieces.

Andre_Harding

My advice to the OP: keep doing what you're doing. Chess is hard for most of us when we're starting out. You started the game very well for the most part -- keep up your studying!

Yes, you should improve your tactics, but don't neglect your study of openings and strategy. Don't let anyone tell you not to study these aspects of the game. Right now you're blundering ... OK, soon you will blunder less often. Don't beat yourself up too much.

Most amateurs aren't willing to put in the TIME and WORK to get better, and I really feel that seeing someone study seriously like you do makes them feel insecure.

Let others believe that openings are not important and not worthy of study. Keep grinding.

Good luck!