Grateful to be able to get to play against someone of your level awesome to have someone give back to the community so other players working on their own game can improve
Vicariously-I (2200) vs g100m (1200) Game Analysis
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Thanks I felt like I had held my own until the move 17 play were I lost my pawn in front of my king and then the major error with the rook was the seal in the coffin
DanlsTheMan wrote:
Re: Kan (ECO: B41-B43)
I run into this often with inexperienced players. It actually helps someone who is use to move orders. It surprised me a couple of times. Then, I learned there is a reason for it.
1.e4 (King Pawn) c5 (B20 Sicilian)
2.Nf3 (B27 Open) e6 (B40) Paulsen should get this named after him
3.Nc3 (Anti-Taimanov prep for Nb5) a6 (attempting to reach Kan) notice he wanted to play Kan at this point very badly?
4.d3 (? Still at B40)
If 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 (B43 Kan is reached)
So, not to bad until d3
Sorry Dan but I am not used to chess terms very much as I just started practicing on this website and consistently very recently is there any way you could put this simplier for me to understand?
g100m wrote:
Grateful to be able to get to play against someone of your level awesome to have someone give back to the community so other players working on their own game can improve
Happy to help!
And Lizz and Dan thank you for your comments 
Ok thanks I’ll be sure to try and find this opening explorer and practice some different things you suggest
Game 2 has been added.
Nov 23, 2018
0
#9
People that are 1100 rating in bliz are actually very good players nowadays. Not in the sense that they are good, when compared to lets say a 2200 rated fide player, however, when considering the amount of knowledge required nowadays to reach an 1100 rating in blitz on chess.com, it's easy for me at least to say that a 1100 rating on blitz is actually a player that knows what he is doing.
I was rated around 1300 on yahoo chess about 10 years ago. Now, I'm rated around 1300 on chess.com. I used to be rated 1600 on chess.com, but because I don't keep up with the times, and I am becoming an old fart day by day, I'd say if I don't start studying soon my rating will continue to decline. A chess player in 1980 didn't have nearly as many resources as a chess player of 2018 has, therefore, the rating pool is a lot harder to climb, because everyone has more knowledge in general, regardless of their rating, save for the complete noobs.
I personally know a 700 rated player on chess.com that I know for sure is getting better. He was lower rated before, and now is climbing to 700. I say in blitz there are slow players and fast players. And, it has nothing to do with intelligence, because just because you move slow, doesn't mean you are thinking slow.... Anyway, if you play blitz obviously the person that plays fast will win all the time regardless of how much better you are than them. So sometimes blitz doesn't account for that fact, some people just take longer to make moves because they are thinking of the wrong things sometimes or get too caught up on the basics, (whether to trade down or not to trade down) etc. I tried to get a couple slow players in my group to tell me what they are thinking so I can isolate their thinking errors and improve their way of thought so they will make faster moves in the future. But they always get offended when I ask them why they made that move, or what they were thinking of. So, I decided to let them play, and have them learn on their own. I myself am a slow thinking, but over the years I've gotten rid of a lot of my "thinking errors" or "time-wasting thought" with a bad side effect. I often miss tactical shots, strategical counterplay, or miss a check capture or threat on my opponent's last move. So learning blitz if you are a slow player isn't always a good thing, because sometimes like in my case you will pick up a bad habit. And just because you make faster moves, doesn't necessarily mean you are making better ones.
I said that because this 700 rated player can easily beat someone else who I believe is a stronger chess player, but takes too long to think, and almost always loses with time in a position the 700 rated player was completely lost in.
I think there are a lot of things one can study in the beginning, however, a lot of it hinges on picking a good opening repertoire. If you pick a bad opening repertoire, one that is hard to learn, or master, that is not conducive of learning as a beginner, then your not going to learn real chess, in my humble opinion. I believe one of these beginners is picking a bad opening repertoire to learn in, but a NM thinks otherwise. Maybe he is right, but I am not so sure. Anyway I write this to tell you that at a certain point you are going to have to play two types of games. Serious games, and games for fun. In serious games you will play learned openings to about the 10th move. In fun games you will either just wing it or play an opening you are just merely exploring like a more modern approach, like the KIA or KID, or hippo, etc. Whatever suits you. A lot of people advise against studying openings at all and just study on middle game and endgame and do tactics tactics tactics. Actually, at the lower levels opening is not important because people play crap anyways and they are not book moves so all your opening knowledge will be useless. However, when you get to at around 1200 in blitz, on chess.com, I'd seriously urge you to think about at least to get a good opening repertoire. I know people say "Nah don't learn openings until you are 2400" or "2000" or "2200"... it's different depending on who is saying it. An obvious troll recently posted "proof" that opening study is useless if you are below GM level, don't listen to that, he is a troll.
Ultimately, you are the one that has to decide what he is going to do. A NM I talk to told me just to study the middle game, end game, and tactics, and leave openings alone. Maybe he is right. You decide what level of play you require to get deep into openings, because the feelings are mixed on that subject, and I do not want to lead you astray. I will say this though. When you get into openings, don't just study the lines, study games of GM's in that opening. You can do this using a database like ChessBase.
Last but not least. According to a book called Fundamental Chess Openings, it's best to learn to play classical chess before you learn to play modern chess. Like with white play d4 or e4 and that's basically it. I see the guy you played against played Nf3 as the first move but that often transposes to d4 or e4 openings like it did in the game you played with him. It's actually the move order of the Reti but I don't think anyone plays the old Reti like it was played by the guy who gave it it's name, rather, they transpose it to either a typical queens gambit, like the line played in your game with him, or, it can be played like a certain pet line a guy I used to play at Starbucks, or like the Catalan, but most people I play don't play c4 to go into the Catalan when playing those moves.
It's like a law or nature or something. If you are a fast player you will often learn more fast thinking algorithms rather than slower thinking ones. If you are a slow player playing only blitz like me you will severly limit your potential, and never really learn blitz. I don't know if you can, but you should try and figure out if you are a fast chess mover or a slow chess mover. I know you may not really believe me when I tell you that there are people that just make slower moves, though, just because they are making slower moves, doesn't mean they are thinking slow, or are dumb, or whatever, they just take longer to think. But I am telling you, I played a good bunch of people over the years, and a certain part of the bunch I noticed played very fast without ever putting much effort into it, while others had a lot harder of a time and usually make slower moves. I am one of those people that made slower moves. Over time, you can learn the patterns you need to be able to make instantaneous moves, but it will take time, and if you only play blitz, it may not improve that much even after 15 years, like in my case. You have to play a mixture of slow and fast games. Play mostly slow chess. Though daily chess is a good practice tool, it is not real chess. In a real chess game you are aware of the whole game from start to finish, and are not "getting back into the game" after a day or two of not seeing it, thus you make different kinds of mistakes in daily chess, mistakes you would have never made in rapid, or longer time controls. In a daily game you have a lot of resources at your disposal that you don't have in an actual game, so use it don't abuse it, like when you look up an opening line while playing it in a daily game, try to memorize it while you are doing it, drill it, etc. Don't just go through the motions like someone like an old fart like me. Make the most out of learning tools by adding to the learning tool, ie do drills on the side to actually remember the openings you are looking up. Drills are important in chess too, not just tactics. Currently, I'm stumped on how to beat a 3500 stockfish after he blundered a whole minor piece. I guess this will help me learn to play against people who turn on stockfish after they blunder in their games...
I'm sure some of this you already know. Remember don't make the same mistake I did. Don't play only blitz. if you do you will see the years pass and wonder why you didn't gain much rating points.
The key things you need to improve in chess (everyone beginning in chess needs to improve on these) are:
King Safety
Piece activity
Thought Process
General Chess Principles
Time management
I'd like to add being able to get good at your board vision and playing a lot of slow games to gain the muscle of checking what your opponent is doing with every move as well as coming up with a list of candidate moves with every one of your moves and not just consider the first move that comes to your head. Also, when you see a candidate move, look for your opponents best reply, or try to see if you can chase away any coming checks, captures, or threats. If there are no tactics in the position, use your strategical knowledge to come up with a candidate move, or find a plan if you do not have one already.
I'm sure people are telling you stuff like this already, but if they missed anything, I hope the rest is here for you to read. To learn more about what you should do to improve as a beginner, I think the best book for any beginner is A Guide to Chess Improvement By Dan Heisman.
Good Analysis. Thanks for the games guys, I enjoyed going through them and reading the comments.
Daybreak57 wrote:
People that are 1100 rating in bliz are actually very good players nowadays. Not in the sense that they are good, when compared to lets say a 2200 rated fide player, however, when considering the amount of knowledge required nowadays to reach an 1100 rating in blitz on chess.com, it's easy for me at least to say that a 1100 rating on blitz is actually a player that knows what he is doing.
I was rated around 1300 on yahoo chess about 10 years ago. Now, I'm rated around 1300 on chess.com. I used to be rated 1600 on chess.com, but because I don't keep up with the times, and I am becoming an old fart day by day, I'd say if I don't start studying soon my rating will continue to decline. A chess player in 1980 didn't have nearly as many resources as a chess player of 2018 has, therefore, the rating pool is a lot harder to climb, because everyone has more knowledge in general, regardless of their rating, save for the complete noobs.
I personally know a 700 rated player on chess.com that I know for sure is getting better. He was lower rated before, and now is climbing to 700. I say in blitz there are slow players and fast players. And, it has nothing to do with intelligence, because just because you move slow, doesn't mean you are thinking slow.... Anyway, if you play blitz obviously the person that plays fast will win all the time regardless of how much better you are than them. So sometimes blitz doesn't account for that fact, some people just take longer to make moves because they are thinking of the wrong things sometimes or get too caught up on the basics, (whether to trade down or not to trade down) etc. I tried to get a couple slow players in my group to tell me what they are thinking so I can isolate their thinking errors and improve their way of thought so they will make faster moves in the future. But they always get offended when I ask them why they made that move, or what they were thinking of. So, I decided to let them play, and have them learn on their own. I myself am a slow thinking, but over the years I've gotten rid of a lot of my "thinking errors" or "time-wasting thought" with a bad side effect. I often miss tactical shots, strategical counterplay, or miss a check capture or threat on my opponent's last move. So learning blitz if you are a slow player isn't always a good thing, because sometimes like in my case you will pick up a bad habit. And just because you make faster moves, doesn't necessarily mean you are making better ones.
I said that because this 700 rated player can easily beat someone else who I believe is a stronger chess player, but takes too long to think, and almost always loses with time in a position the 700 rated player was completely lost in.
I think there are a lot of things one can study in the beginning, however, a lot of it hinges on picking a good opening repertoire. If you pick a bad opening repertoire, one that is hard to learn, or master, that is not conducive of learning as a beginner, then your not going to learn real chess, in my humble opinion. I believe one of these beginners is picking a bad opening repertoire to learn in, but a NM thinks otherwise. Maybe he is right, but I am not so sure. Anyway I write this to tell you that at a certain point you are going to have to play two types of games. Serious games, and games for fun. In serious games you will play learned openings to about the 10th move. In fun games you will either just wing it or play an opening you are just merely exploring like a more modern approach, like the KIA or KID, or hippo, etc. Whatever suits you. A lot of people advise against studying openings at all and just study on middle game and endgame and do tactics tactics tactics. Actually, at the lower levels opening is not important because people play crap anyways and they are not book moves so all your opening knowledge will be useless. However, when you get to at around 1200 in blitz, on chess.com, I'd seriously urge you to think about at least to get a good opening repertoire. I know people say "Nah don't learn openings until you are 2400" or "2000" or "2200"... it's different depending on who is saying it. An obvious troll recently posted "proof" that opening study is useless if you are below GM level, don't listen to that, he is a troll.
Ultimately, you are the one that has to decide what he is going to do. A NM I talk to told me just to study the middle game, end game, and tactics, and leave openings alone. Maybe he is right. You decide what level of play you require to get deep into openings, because the feelings are mixed on that subject, and I do not want to lead you astray. I will say this though. When you get into openings, don't just study the lines, study games of GM's in that opening. You can do this using a database like ChessBase.
Last but not least. According to a book called Fundamental Chess Openings, it's best to learn to play classical chess before you learn to play modern chess. Like with white play d4 or e4 and that's basically it. I see the guy you played against played Nf3 as the first move but that often transposes to d4 or e4 openings like it did in the game you played with him. It's actually the move order of the Reti but I don't think anyone plays the old Reti like it was played by the guy who gave it it's name, rather, they transpose it to either a typical queens gambit, like the line played in your game with him, or, it can be played like a certain pet line a guy I used to play at Starbucks, or like the Catalan, but most people I play don't play c4 to go into the Catalan when playing those moves.
It's like a law or nature or something. If you are a fast player you will often learn more fast thinking algorithms rather than slower thinking ones. If you are a slow player playing only blitz like me you will severly limit your potential, and never really learn blitz. I don't know if you can, but you should try and figure out if you are a fast chess mover or a slow chess mover. I know you may not really believe me when I tell you that there are people that just make slower moves, though, just because they are making slower moves, doesn't mean they are thinking slow, or are dumb, or whatever, they just take longer to think. But I am telling you, I played a good bunch of people over the years, and a certain part of the bunch I noticed played very fast without ever putting much effort into it, while others had a lot harder of a time and usually make slower moves. I am one of those people that made slower moves. Over time, you can learn the patterns you need to be able to make instantaneous moves, but it will take time, and if you only play blitz, it may not improve that much even after 15 years, like in my case. You have to play a mixture of slow and fast games. Play mostly slow chess. Though daily chess is a good practice tool, it is not real chess. In a real chess game you are aware of the whole game from start to finish, and are not "getting back into the game" after a day or two of not seeing it, thus you make different kinds of mistakes in daily chess, mistakes you would have never made in rapid, or longer time controls. In a daily game you have a lot of resources at your disposal that you don't have in an actual game, so use it don't abuse it, like when you look up an opening line while playing it in a daily game, try to memorize it while you are doing it, drill it, etc. Don't just go through the motions like someone like an old fart like me. Make the most out of learning tools by adding to the learning tool, ie do drills on the side to actually remember the openings you are looking up. Drills are important in chess too, not just tactics. Currently, I'm stumped on how to beat a 3500 stockfish after he blundered a whole minor piece. I guess this will help me learn to play against people who turn on stockfish after they blunder in their games...
I'm sure some of this you already know. Remember don't make the same mistake I did. Don't play only blitz. if you do you will see the years pass and wonder why you didn't gain much rating points.
The key things you need to improve in chess (everyone beginning in chess needs to improve on these) are:
King Safety
Piece activity
Thought Process
General Chess Principles
Time management
I'd like to add being able to get good at your board vision and playing a lot of slow games to gain the muscle of checking what your opponent is doing with every move as well as coming up with a list of candidate moves with every one of your moves and not just consider the first move that comes to your head. Also, when you see a candidate move, look for your opponents best reply, or try to see if you can chase away any coming checks, captures, or threats. If there are no tactics in the position, use your strategical knowledge to come up with a candidate move, or find a plan if you do not have one already.
I'm sure people are telling you stuff like this already, but if they missed anything, I hope the rest is here for you to read. To learn more about what you should do to improve as a beginner, I think the best book for any beginner is A Guide to Chess Improvement By Dan Heisman.
Good Analysis. Thanks for the games guys, I enjoyed going through them and reading the comments.
Good effort.
Some people have lousy net connections which makes it hard to get a rating that reflects
their ability. I disagree about 1100 blitz players being ok players. True blitz ratings here are devalued
but nearly everyone under 1300 is a compulsive pawn pusher.
Also patzers hate the pin...a bishop on g4 is always attacked by h3 and surprise surprise g4.
@Daybreak57
That was interesting, thanks.
To be honest I wouldn’t say that 1100 rated players know what they are doing. Even I don’t really know what I’m doing a lot of the time and just have to use my best guess. I think you’re right though about the average player being stronger now than in previous decades because of online resources.
I agree with the idea that studying openings is a waste of time for lower rated players because their opponents won’t be playing theory anyway. It’s much better for lower rated players to just stick to opening principles and focus their study on other areas. Classical chess (e4/e5 and d4/d5) Is best for players who want to improve.
Being a “fast” or a “slow” player really just depends on what you practice. Some players only play blitz so they get good at making ok moves quickly but when they play longer games they aren’t able to come up with long-term plans and ideas. If all you play is slow chess then you’ll probably play good moves in blitz but take too much time to do so. It really just depends on what your goals are. If you want to reach a higher chess understanding then you need to play long games. Playing blitz will help you to make decisions quickly but it’s difficult to improve playing blitz. Playing both blitz and slow games will help you to become a more well rounded player. Most of your time should be spent on long games though if your goal is to improve.
@DanIsTheMan
Right, players should just do what they enjoy and have time for. I don't really like solving chess puzzles or reading books. I much prefer watching chess videos and analyzing games in correspondence chess. Sometimes I'll play blitz & bullet but not very often.
littleLizz wrote:
"Also patzers hate the pin...a bishop on g4 is always attacked by h3 and surprise surprise g4. "
When I was low leveled, that thing happened every single time. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Even when there was no pin, just the bishop moving there, h3 and g4 would almost always come. It starts growing less common at around 1200 and is mostly gone at 1400-1500.
To patzers, it may seem like 1100 players are ok or even pretty good, because they don't blunder super-obvious stuff like a 500 player. Unfortunately, they have little positional concepts and no idea how to put them into practice, and often don't notice things like a kingside attack until it is much too late to do anything about it.
My main problem was pawns. A queen attacking the pawn on b7? Push it! A bishop check? Push the f-pawn! A knight attacking my pawn? You guessed it, push it! I got past that after playing several games with very strong (2200+) players and getting crushed because their pieces swarmed in through the holes left by my pawns, but in general, it's very hard for patzers to let go of stuff like that. That's why they are patzers!
Yeah pushing too many pawns is a big problem for many players. You always have to keep in mind which square(s) you are giving up before you push a pawn.
Wow..very deep thinking processes for both games and I absolutely enjoyed reading Michael's notes. I thought g100m played an excellent first game with traps to the opponent's Queen but incredibly enough, a 2200+ player called Michael Holm saw it and didnt eat the poisoned but undefended Knight (I would have!). I also thought Black looked underdeveloped with all those early Kan pawn movements but Michael acknowledged this and advocated caution. I almost always go the Najdorf way. On hindsight probably best not to move the Queen out too early (Move 13) but yes the c6 square was exposed. In view of prudent, safe play, I also thought the Bishop should not have taken that 2nd rank Knight pawn as it could have been trapped (yes! BobbyFischer got his bishop trapped in a WC game against Boris Spassky in Rekyavik, Finland in 1972!). But playing against Michael is awesome!
ezani wrote:
Wow..very deep thinking processes for both games and I absolutely enjoyed reading Michael's notes. I thought g100m played an excellent first game with traps to the opponent's Queen but incredibly enough, a 2200+ player called Michael Holm saw it and didnt eat the poisoned but undefended Knight (I would have!). I also thought Black looked underdeveloped with all those early Kan pawn movements but Michael acknowledged this and advocated caution. I almost always go the Najdorf way. On hindsight probably best not to move the Queen out too early (Move 13) but yes the c6 square was exposed. In view of prudent, safe play, I also thought the Bishop should not have taken that 2nd rank Knight pawn as it could have been trapped (yes! BobbyFischer got his bishop trapped in a WC game against Boris Spassky in Rekyavik, Finland in 1972!). But playing against Michael is awesome!
Thanks! Yeah the Sicilian Kan is one of those rare openings where it's usually ok to bring the Queen out early and push a lot of pawns. I wouldn't recommend playing like this though. You have to really know what you're doing. I have a lot of experience in this opening and I still sometimes get into trouble against good players. Taking the pawn on g2 with my Bishop was maybe a little risky but I thought it was ok. I wasn't worried about my Bishop getting trapped because I was attacking the Rook which gave me time to retreat.
g100m challenged me to some daily games and asked for my thoughts.
I really thought you played well overall. You dropped some pawns in the beginning but you did a lot of things right after that so you had some compensation.
To recap:
1) Try to spend a little more time on each move to check for blunders. Daily games are a great way to improve because you can spend as much time as you want to really think about your moves.
2) Don't move the pawns around your King if you can help it. After 17. c4 your King became very exposed.
Game 2
To recap:
1) Don't block your central pawns. By playing 2. Nc6 and 6. Be6 you blocked your central pawns and because of this you weren't able to maintain your d5 pawn and you lost control of the center.
2) Don't trade your "good" Bishop for your opponent's "bad" Bishop. This video is one of the best chess videos you will ever watch. Beginner to Chess Master #23 - Good Bishops & Bad Bishops
I would recommend watching every video in this playlist if you are serious about improving. The start of the playlist is here: Beginner to Chess Master
3) Don't move the pawns around your King without a very good reason. By playing 12. f6 you exposed your King.
4) Always ask yourself why your opponent made their last move. Look at all checks, captures & threats. You need to get in the habit of doing this every single move of every single game.