We need more amateurs to post their annotated games.

Hey weaponking. I took a look at one of your games briefly in my blog. Please check it out. I hope you enjoy it! (http://blog.chess.com/zkman/daily-2)

Zach

No problem, learnateverygame.  I'm glad you liked them! 

fresh game played today :

Okay, here's my two cents on your latest game, learnateverygame.

6...gxf6? - Everything up until here seemed pretty normal.  I agree that this move looked a little dubious, but keep in mind...now he has extra control of e5 and that open g file might be of use to him later.  If anything, it makes you think twice about castling kingside.  Also an option now is a later f5 and f7-f6, keeping control of e5 and now fighting for e4.

12. Bd6!? - This could actually run into an unexpected surprise: 12...Ne5!!.  The idea is to expose your bishop on d6 to an attack from Black's queen.  Funnily enough, this restores the material balance to nearly normal.  13. dxe5 meets 13...Bxd6 - 14. exd6+, Kf8.  13. Rxe5 meets the simple 12...Qxd6.  13. Nxe5 also meets 12...Qxd6.  13. Bxe5 allows Black a move to free his bishop with 13...Kf8.  If you simply leave the knight alone, Black can play 13...Nxf3+.  Always expect the unexpected.  Sometimes, you'll be surprised at how awkward valid escapes can be!

I hope my comments help.  I wasn't using a computer when I thought up these variations, so someone who has a decent one feel free to check me against it.

From here on out, it's pretty much just an exercise in mopping up.  Nice going!

Does any of you in this thread have read The Improving Annotator by Dan Hiesman ? Any good, has it help you to do the annotating here ?

wow I didn't see Ne5 at all ! I think that he was feeling the pressure and can't find the best move, in which sometimes I do fail to find one 

@kco well I annotate by heart , but if it is an important game, I will go over it slowly, to find is there something I could uncover.

The problem is that amateurs (like me, for example) post their games but their games are not considered worthy of analysis by strong players. I posted a game and no one commented a single move of it. So it's useless; fortunately, chess engines still exist.

This is my first game of a local 7 round tournament that I'm taking part these days.It happened to be a win,but I promise I'll post my future losses as well.There's only the rating of my opponent since I have started to play in official tournaments recently and I'm still unrated.My comments are not the result of an analysis,but my thoughts during the game.

Here is my donation. I was last active about 2 years ago. This is a G/30. I lost this game, but I liked the way I handled most of the game.

@who that was a nice game :)

I think your opponent can take advantage of the isolated pawn (a4), but if he catches up in development, that pawn is going to fall in the long run, but hey, I know that your opponent loses, because he thinks he was playing an unrated player.

When I had my first international tournament, I was playing in U2000 section, there are lots of 1400-1600 there, and I scored pretty well against them 

good luck with the tournament !

@cornedbeef : at least you survived playing an IM, last time I played against FM in rapid, I didn't do so good.

-0,88 and you have the advantage , with your e pawn ready to promote, for me, I would play 35.... Qf2,prepping e3, as his pawn islands I think are too vulnerable to attack, and your pawn island is ok, if you had more time, you had real chances to win against IM !

The games that I played yesterday.. Most of them are lost because of time pressure and lack of concentration lol.

Every game is worth analyzing. In chess, there are no two identical games (at least in most of the cases), so every new one is a challenge to both play and analyze.

But the main purpose of this topic is to show the player's (author's) thoughts, both during the game and from consequent analysis. In this way, when someone looks at the game, he'll be able to see the reasoning behind the moves, and chances are he'll be able to get more involved into the game. From then on, if he likes some idea or spots a better option somewhere, he's likely to write that as feedback to the author's analysis.

But the main purpose is to practice self-annotating, and thereby practice positional evaluation and variations calculation - in other words, practice your own chess reasoning. That's what a computer won't be able to help with, neither will another player be. The purpose of self-annotating is to gain experience, to spot your mistakes, to check whether what you thought was a good idea will post-mortem turn out to be really as good as it seemed to be. In other words, getting a more thorough look at a particular game, and at your chess skills in general, than a game time control allows you to.

(By the way, I had a look at the thread but I couldn't find your game. Maybe you have posted in another forum. I believe if you annotate a game and post it here, at least one other user will reply. If noone replies though, as there are so many games and it's hard to reply to all, you'll at least have the benefit of doing the analysis, and that's not less important than getting a feedback. At the moment you have your game annotated and prepare to click the "Submit" button, you should have already gained some knowledge or experience, and you should be able to sense that yourself at that point, no matter whether someone will later reply or not.)

Although I lost this game lol, I think I did quite well defending (although I lost it a bit towards the end), since it took 68 moves for him to checkmate me. What stopped me getting a draw is allowing my bishop to be separated from the king (you'll see what I mean).

@hrb : your game is alright, and you need to polish up your tactical and calculation skills lol, as all of us will and have to.

@epi : that game is a nice one, you could see how GMs play in caro kann, maybe you could see some ideas that give you an edge, as your favourite is caro.

yes there's one thing i've noticed i'm crap at seeing several moves ahead and calculating the different variations. i've been wondering recently if i should just give up :facepalm: :D 

In the opening, you could have used less moves to develop your pieces. As you said, 3...Be6 is not very good because the bishop has nothing to attack from there while it blocks the e pawn, and you could have played 3...Bg4 as you suggested, you could have also played 3...dxe4. White missed 5.c4, that could have won a tempo on the bishop. On moves 5 and 7 you move your queen twice, while your king's bishop is still not developed. At move 8 White has developed all of his minor pieces and has castled, that's why he had an advantage.

But the bishop for knight exchanges he made spoiled it, as he lost tempi to exchange well placed pieces, and allowed you to increase your center control with ...gxf6, getting a semi-open g file and development options for your bishop along the f8-h6 diagonal. He could have played 9.c4 for example, and he would have had a much better game. 12.c5 was also not a very good move, because it weakened White's light squares.

You could have continued with 12...Bh6, as the bishop would have been much more active on the h6-c1 diagonal. Then you could have played ...Rhg8 to get the g file, and you would have had a good attack on White's kingside.

15...f5 weakened d5 and g5, that's why you could have omitted it. You could have played 15...e5 to attack White's d4 pawn and free d6 for the queen.

After 16.Neg5 (which is a mistake, as it loses tempi for White) you could have continued 16...f6 17.Nh6 d5, and have a good position (17.Nxh7 would have led to 17...Rh8, winning the knight; 17.Nf7 is met with 17...Rd7). But you misplayed the following few moves tactically (including, for example, 22...Rxc5 instead of 22...R5d4; 26...Re4 instead of 26...Kc6, and some of the following moves), so White gained material advantage and had a fine game.

As a whole, maybe your weakness in this game was really the short-term calculation, as you made some moves that let White immediately gain advantage, while you skipped other good moves that would have done the opposite And also the not quick enough development and central pressure in the opening, and some not so good development choices for your pieces.

I also play similar pawn structures, that's why I got interested in the opening. The idea of 7...e6 is really a bit strange for Black, maybe there's some refutation. After 10...h6 it's a common position though, so both lines may turn out to be transposable.

You and your opponent played well in the opening and had good middlegame plans. You - for kingside play based on the e5 square, your opponent - for queenside activity. You played very well strategically, and when Black made a mistake with 21...Rxd7 you got a won game, and what's not less important, you managed to turn it into a win.

You had very good central control, you activated and used all of your pieces, and did that before Black has fully developed.

After move 14, you had castled and had one more piece developed. Maybe Black should have avoided 15...Nxe5 in favor of 15...Be7, or 16...Ng4 in favor of 16...Be7. He let you have the d file before he has castled, so you afterwards got the 7th rank too.

Because of that, you practically had a material advantage even more than the won pawn, and you got a very good position too with a pawn on the 6th rank and a rook on the 7th. You had a good plan and executed it well. You played very accurately for the whole game, so you deservedly won

Hey Glex.  Check my post up there if you haven't already.

thanks glex, and you're right, i'm really not good at the short term calculation stuff. not really sure how i can improve this?