Seeking Instruction (tutoring)

I would like to reach out to the chess community and see if anybody with solid chess understanding would care to volunteer some of their time. Ideally I would play -unrated- correspondence games on chess.com with this person, and have them go over each game. A comment here or there, from day to day after the game would be great for analysis. Nothing terribly time consuming on your part. The ideal candidate would meet the following requirements, but any help is appreciated!

* 1800+ Chess.com Rating

* Good Positional Understanding

* USCF, FIDE, or ECF Rated a Plus+

For interest in volunteering or questions, please contact me by chess.com mail. Thank you in advance!

If you're a 1200 player, chances are you are not following the basics of opening play and missing huge amounts of tactical opportunites from both sides. Positional play at your level to me would be secondary. Most basic principles found in openings often apply in the middle game as well along with tactics.

At least that was my issue when i started out. Not understanding the opening princples well enough, especially popular ones and falling for to many stupid tactical tricks. Positional chess came when i was about 1500 i suppose. Good end game understanding of mating patterns helps as well. recommond reading "play winning chess" By: GM Yasser Seirawan.

Here is one of your recent games I analysed. You played well in the opening but then blundered a piece away.

I realize most individuals don't start studying positional chess until further down the road. Some cases point to 1800+, but I would like to start gaining an understanding (however small) of positional play from an early stage in order to eventually become a very strong positional player. By no means do I want to sideline tactial growth, as I believe it is fundamental for any sort of development. Ideally I would like to become much like Petrosian. A master of position, and very underrated tactically.

I understand where you are coming from mate. But tactics at your level are going to do you more good then trying to master positional play as such. You need to watch out for tactics and you need to develop a reasonable understanding of openings and their principle point/purpose. Other wise you wont get into a good positional game in the first place and get smashed by tactical players who have better opening game play. The saying you have to grawl before you can run comes to mind.

What are some of the basic principles of chess you more or less know and understand so far?

Oh and the book i recommended has other books that will help u at home as well.

I absolutely agree that tactics should be a main focus of beginning players (and master games), but instead of me putting in 100% tactical and 0% positional, I will be aiming for 75% tactical and 25% positional.

Currently I am studying the Caro-Kann, French Defense, English Opening, and Queen's Pawn Game. I have a general understanding of outposts, pawn structure, open files, half-open files, and weak pawns. My chess influences are the master games of Tigran Petrosian and Mikhail Tal for both my positional and tactical needs.

For the game above:

On move 4 you played Nf6...I personally dont like it much. It leaves the possibility of him simply exchanging it off and doubling your pawns which is seldom a good thing. I think 4..Bf5 followed by 5..e6 was a better way to put pressure on his knight and keep your options open since u could then play knight to f6 without risking doubling your pawns. You will notice it also doesnt block off your bishops, like white has done.

Whites 5th move should be looking to build on his position by continue to develop his pieces. As noted, moves like white played weaken the kings safety (especially while he is stuck in the center) so shouldnt be played without considering those sorts of issues.

Blacks 7th move: QXQ+ to me seems a reasonable idea. The person above suggests it leaves out options for threats against the king. i don't think those options would have accomplished anymore really then you just did (since no immediate mating threats are possible) by taking his ability to castle out of the picture personally. I think by the time you got around to having a chance at the king, his other pieces would have started to come out anyway.

 agree with the person above. Castling or playing e6 was the way to go about it. I always try to follow Paul Morphy's ideas of getting all your men reading before going into battle. Unless of course they play so erroneously you can see a clear plan of attack and take advantage of bad opening play or something like that.

When i looked at move 12 what came to mind was, Nd7 or Nh5 to keep him in pressure while allowing yourself more options, with the idea of Nd7-e5 perhaps. That's just the way i tend to prefer things anyway. But the person above makes some good points about the extra pawn.

You should have taken with the other e pawn instead so you could allow your dark squared bishop into play better.

I will leave it at that for now...

 Have you also considered Capablanca or Karpov?

There must be a bit you are not getting when applying your games. I have noticed you dont pay enough attention to piece development and sometimes dont pay enough attention to the actual threats. It is good to examine how big an issue the threats are. Make sure you have or make a general plan of attack with your opening. They say its better to have a bad plan then none at all.

I actually quite like the move 4. Nf6 because I am quite versed in the Bronstein-Larsen variation. I was hoping he would exchange knights and double my pawns. With a bit more study I may shy away from it in the future, but as of now I know the line fairly well.

Ah yes. I have looked into both Capablanca and Karpov. At some point I will begin to study them as well, but right now I am in no rush as I realize mastery of anything typically takes many years.

Fair enough mate. I just prefer to not double pawns if i can help it. You have to know what you are doing with that sort of play. I hope my general advice has been somewhat useful to you so far. Keep posting your games on here and see how many good players give some pointers.

I don't consider myself all that good, but i have had tournament experience (Got over 1600ACF rating) and have been over 2000 on here, so i figured i could possibly add something here.

Thank you very much for your input! It has been useful.

It was not my intention to showcase games on the forums, but instead get them analysed in private. I suppose this works too.

I'll put my foot out and propose something radical. Study an opening book like Mastering the Chess Openings by John Watson. Not only will you learn the relevant positional play and ideas for the specific systems, you will also learn some of the relevant tactics. Then I'd recommend putting in some tactics training on the side.

I personally believe the importance of opening play is vastly understated by the community. The majority of my problems now are coming from getting bad positions out of the opening. It doesn't matter how great a middle game player you are if your position is already recked by move ten.

A bit of both cant hurt. You can read posts in the comment section of your games i believe? So maybe as i get time, i wil add some comments on how i thought the game went.

I will look into this book. Currently I own Simple Chess by Michael Stean. My System and Chess Praxis by Aron Nimzowitsch were two books I was looking into buying next.

Still looking for a volunteer.

Oh, I agree in much agreement with you on this one.  Also, I think endgames may be slightly overstated at the lower levels, for if material is lost with improper knowledge of the opening or poor middlegame play, one is already material down and at a disadvantage in the endgame.  Yes it is still important and necessary to study; however, I think understanding a good thought process and studying tactics are really what helps one improve in the long run.  

 I would help, but i never know how busy i am going to be half the time. That's why i play so few games and prefer longer time frames per move. I still think a good book and a lot of screw ups, then going over your games will get you what u want eventually anyway. I learned most of my chess that way.

No worries at all!

send me a challenge. I play all the time. after the game we can talk about improvements. I've got nothing better to do anyways ;)