Newton Abbot Handicap Round 6

This is my game from a Handicap game at my club!

My opponent was not that strong and I was two pawns up untill I threw the game away terribly as you will see! And just to let you know his grade is not real; just an estimate given by the club  which is a compulsory measure for our area's league. I unfortunately lost and I would really like it if people could help me out with basic things I did wrong in the game and all my mistakes etc... and then secondly how I sud of converted that two pawn lead into a win! BTW I was black!

The mistake was when you allowed white to get two rooks onto row 7, although the first rook was trouble enough. Having two rooks aligned behind your pawn lines spells trouble, and it was definatly a contributing factor to your loss. In situations where there are 2rooks vs 2rooks and no other pieces save pawns, its better to keep a minimum of one rook guarding your back lines, preferably two.

At about turn 24 you had two pawns on the a and b files to their one pawn. I would recomend that you should have advanced these pawns, keeping your rooks behind them. Even if you had exchanged these two pawns for their one, you still had a one pawn advantage.

Moving 24. Rd7 instead of Rd2 would have guarded your back lines and allowed you to slip one rook behind each of the a/b pawns.

Also, in these circumstances where there are few pieces on the board, exchanging pieces of equal value is greatly to your favour, so a rook rook exhchange would help you. This greatly reduces your opponents ability to disrupt you lines, and then you can (carefully) exchange pieces until you get a pawn and king vs king (preferably a central pawn). From there it should be a win to you.

yes I was trying to exchange rooks a bit but he didnt seem to want to obviously lol! it is quite hard to force an exchange unless you get a check I think but you sound like the expert lol!

thank you very much for that advice on the endgames and placing the rooks behind my two a & b pawns! I think when I played Rd2 instead of Rd7 I was being much too grabby for the pawn on the a-file.

Was their any mistakes or positional errors from Black in the opening?

Openings and the first bit of mid-game are the hardest sections to unpack, but I'll give it a go. Theres so many traps and lines to be aware, but to truly become compitent at openings you need to study chess for a number of years, which i have not! Opening variations are the sections that some grandmasters spend their lives studying!

You responded well by not taking dxc4: this is a risky move for black, I would have responded to whites first move the same as you did. I'm not too sure about your 4.Nbd7 move though, the reason being that this blocks in your white bishop and queen, however, it is a recognised move by high level players, i just feel that it restricts my play somewhat. Having said that you used this move to great effect; you were able to gain a 2 pawn advantage!

Personally i thought your game was solid untill move 24...Try practicing some late game tactical problems on the net, this will help!

ok great, any websites which you can reccomend me to which have some good puzzles of late game tactical problems?

What i did when i first started doing these problems was type in "chess tactical problems", or something similar, into google. There are lots of sites though, some much better then others. The sites that you should use, (untill you are really good at the problems) are those that explain the right solution.

Two good sites are:   

     1) http://www.chesstactics.org/. This site also explains some of the theories of chess in varying detail, from forks to mating paterns. You might want to spend some time just reading the different sections, although some are simplistic. What i really like about the site is its "Chess Quizzer", found on the left of screen. Click on this icon then chose "Random Position" button.

     2) http://www.totalchess.com/. the trial problems on this site are great, with some of the best explinations around; this site is set up by an actual Grandmaster, so quality is hard to beat. The problem is that for full access, you need to pay, so i dont use it. Still, lessons from a grandmaster, hard to ignore; quality quality and quality.

Remember: try each problem BEFORE you look at the solution! And if you dont see the solution strait away, set up a chess board on your desk, and play around with the situation shown; sometimes a real board makes things clearer. Also, try to look at problems from  both players point of veiw. Practice predicting your opponents next move, analysing their possibilites and you will find you game improving. PATIENCE is the key.

ok i dont want to sound rude but I played terribly in that game and I am not such an ameatuer that I need to learn mating patterns... I have studied those sort of things a lot before...and my rating of 944 is a joke and it is that low becuase I hardly played last season.

But thankyou so much for the others, i will be very keen to use them!

Maybe try out the second site first and do the trial problems/lessons, as the GM explains thought processes that are important.

Ok, fair enough, i wasnt sure where you were at.

i think it is always good to do some 'mental exercise' every day, so try chess problems as often as you can, even one at a time. Otherwise, sudoko or crosswords, any thing like that will help to build your mental strength, and this is usefull not only in chess but in life too. Build a familiarity with different circumstances, postitions etc. Hope I've helped.

trust me, u have helped a bucket!

a nice game ! with the rating of 900+

ignore the ratings....next year my rating is going to go up to about 1400!

i agree, ratings are unimportant. The only thing they are usefull for is to find players that at about your level of play. If you know you are better than the rating you have, then your rating is definatly innaccurate. A question of my own now: ive relativly new to this site and; does your rating decrease if you dont play for a while?

no it just stays at whatever it is untill you win or lose another game!

thanx!

no worries....you have helped me loads!