Well KhabaLox you were probably lost on move 5, after d4??, then you gave up a piece on f7 for nothing, then you gave up another piece and the rest was easy... Please don't take my comments as insulting, but you asked for the criticism. on move 4 e5 was completely waste of tempo. Instead of e5, you should have played d4.
Two games for analysis
Sort:
What should have been white's 14th move?Ne2 certainly was a mistake.I guess expanding pawns by moving a3 and b4 would have been a better idea.What do you guyz think?
Here is the second game. I don't have the time now to add my notes, but will come back and edit the diagram when I do.
Game 1, on move 12, I would have played Bf1. White is already lost...
Game 2 is the same as game 1. Up until move 11, black were slightly worse. 11... b6 is just suicidal. Why not just ..cd 12. cd dc 13. B:c4 and Nb6? Ok so you played 11... b6, he took the pawn with cd. Now you realized that you are lost, so now you need to complecate the position as much as possible. Things like tempos and undeveloped pieces don't matter now. So i would play ed and try to play Rb8 with the hope he will let you play Bb7. On move 13 he just let you off the hook with cd?. He obviously should have taken with de. Then you hung the piece and it was all over :)
odessian Thanks a lot for your comments.
In the first game, you said that I gave up a piece for nothign on f7. What would have been the better way out of the jam? Here are a couple options, but I'm not sure which is best. Obviously taking on f7 was bad in that it opened up his rook and got his queen over to the king side to participate in the attack.
As Jitesh asked, what else should I have done on move 14?
Game 2: Here is your variation at move 11.
I guess I really need to pay close attention to the initiative gained and lost within these multicapture sequences. I thought playing the more defensive b6 would be ok, but obviously it wasn't. Perhaps part of my problem is intimidation. I think I play worse against higher rated opponents (eg hanging the piece) simply because I am too afraid to make a mistake.
I think there is a good news/bad news situation here. The good news is that there are some easy to fix things in your game that will have you playing better very quickly. The bad news is that you are ignoring them and focusing on entirely the wrong things.
Starting with game 1.
As has been mentioned 5. d4 is essentially a losing move. You noted in your comments that it was a blunder. You lose materially to a 2 move tactic.
In your comment to 16. Nxf7 you suggest that perhaps you should have played 16. Nh3 and accepted bad pawns for material equality. But Nh3 doesn't save your piece because black is still about to trap your bishop with e4. This is another case where you are missing a 2 move tactic.
18. Qc2 is another blunder. Here you lose a piece to a 2 move tactic.
The short version of the story is that you need to be able to consistently see 2-3 moves ahead. This takes practice. Practice considering every move your opponent could make, look at what it threatens and where he will go next. Do easy tactics problems, lots of them. You have to ingrain this stuff in your brain, so you see it automatically.
I haven't looked through game 2 as carefully, just up until 11. Qb3 which threatens to take a pawn on d5 because it's attacked twice and you don't defend it. So the same problem as the last game, you're losing material to a 2 move sequence.
Blunders aren't things that just happen and you can shrug them off. They are the root of what keeps you from playing better chess. If you want to play better, you have to focus on eliminating blunders.
What you don't need to be focusing on is how to find a good move in a losing position. There simply aren't any good moves for white at move 14 in game 1.
Loomis,thanks for wonderful comments.
Loomis wrote:
In your comment to 16. Nxf7 you suggest that perhaps you should have played 16. Nh3 and accepted bad pawns for material equality. But Nh3 doesn't save your piece because black is still about to trap your bishop with e4. This is another case where you are missing a 2 move tactic.
I think that was just a mis-type. I knew I would lose a piece as soon as he played 14...e5. I saw the fork coming, and that there was no way to save the piece. I think I just got confused when playing through some of the variations to 16.Nxf7
But you hit the nail on the head. I am not taking enough into consideration opponents' possible moves. I have seen this in other games of mine as well. I have started making more use of the tactics trainer (just upgraded to the gold account), so hopefully that will help. I've hit a wall around 1600-1650 though.
I agree, Nf7 or Nh3 is fairly irrelavant because you are lost. Does it matter if position's evaluation is -3.5 or 3.45? What important is how did you end up with this position? All of us can improve our games, so don't be too hard on yourself. We can play all our lives and still not master it. However, as loomis said, there are some things that you can fix and signicantly improve your game. When i was rated 1400-1600, I was blundering a lot! (I still do). And my coach advised me a) write the move down first and then make it on the board and go through a little mental routine before i make a move. The routine is the 4 questions you have to ask yourself:
1) Why is he making this move? What is it that he wants to achieve? (Aha, he wants to play this and this and trap my bishop (for example)
2) What can i do to counter his initiative, his plan?... aha, I can do this and that
3) Is there anything else he is threatening/wants to achieve?
4) Are there any alternative options i can do.
try that, it will help
3) What can i do
paul211 wrote:
3. Play every move of the game on an OTB board,
This is an interesting idea. I have a feeling that playing games here (with access to the analysis board) is weakening my OTB play because I have a crutch to aid in visualization.
I picked up Sillman's Reassess Your Chess Workbork a while ago, and his advice includes to start every move by first listing all the imbalances (material, space, tempo, development, pawn structure, etc.). I'm trying to do that more and more, so we'll see if it helps.
I recently played two games against paul211. He kindly agreed to give me pointers throughout the game, and we decided it would be best to post the completed games here for a more in depth analysis by each of us. Of course, everyone else is encouraged to chime in with their thoughts. Here is the first game (I am white). The second will be posted shortly (we are nearly finished - I will probably resign in a move or two).