what the #$%^was he playing and how did he win?

hehe, the million dollar question Jagalvak. But, since that stuff isn't chess, I'll refrain from answering. Let's focus on the chess, and by targetting the chess, and targetting the importance of targetting in chess, I'll get better, and the o'ther considerations will fade into the background. 

For example, (I"m not very good at keeping secrets, I see...I just said I wouldn't tell you, but now I am)...in the game I won last week, when I saw that my opponent blundered and I got the piece advantage, I became very very uncomfortable. I thought "oh, I'm going to give him a bad evening. He's going to be upset. I shouldn't beat him". Then, since I had Jaglavak and Yaroslavl on each of my shoulders, I decided that I couldn't let such considerations interfere with the won game. I owed it to Yaroslavl and Jaglavak to win this won game. I felt I coudn't face them losing this game with a whole piece advantage. 

So I had to find some way to deal with my feelings of, shall we say guilt, for lack of a better word, at the prospect of winning the game.

So I had to find something. I owed it to Yaroslavl and Jaglavak. So I remembered the week before at the chess club, during the tournament game, this guy was talking loud to his opponent after their game, at the tournament table. (You're not supposed to talk about the game at the tournament tables. You're supposed to go to the side tables to discuss the game in order to not interfere with the tournament games). So I tolerated his noise for a  minute, then I looked over to him and said "come on. We're playing here. Shhh". He became quiet.

I also noticed, that day and a week earlier, that this particular person played very fast, and the week before, I had noticed at one point his opponent had used up forty minutes and he had used 2 minutes.

So I remembered all of this stuff, and I thought "He's playing slow this game. He's taking his time. But I'm going to punish him for last week and the week before. This guy doesn't deseerve to win this game. I'm going to go ahead and win it. He was noisy last week. He was too fast two weeks earlier. I'm going to go ahead and beat him".

And I proceeded to calculate hard in a position that was certainly not familiar to me, but that I was determined to not mess up. And I won more and more material without keeping track of the material balance. At one point, I moved, and then looked down, just collecting my breathing and my nervousness, and then I heard a sound, and I looked up, and he had laid his king on its side. I was surprised. It took me a moment to realize he was resigning. I looked at the board, not comprehending his resignation, and realized for the first time that I was ahead something like three minor pieces. Then I understood his resignation. 

Such are the things that go through my head.

Yesterday, I felt I had outplayed my opponent in the opening. It was pretty clear to me that my opponent was reacting to my moves, not the opposite. 

The feeling of being in control was unfamiliar to me. Frankly, it was uncomfortable. I felt that it wasn't NICE to force my opponent into such an uncomfortable situation. On my opponent's 3. Bd3, using the bishop to protect the e pawn, which would only get kicked by my Nf6, I knew my opponent was already out of book. And I felt, shall we say, guilty. That I was making my opponent uncomfortable, and that's not nice. 

Frankly, I am more familiar with losing, than with winning. It is more familiar, and more comfortable. I am more comfortable congratulating my opponent when they win, than I am with them congratulating me when I win.

When I started playing chess Summer of 2012, the person I played with hated losing, and became in a bad mood when they lost. When I lost I didn't become in a bad mood, and if I was unahppy about losing I wouldn't show it.  It was a source of pride to me. I hated the feeling of having to deal with my friend's bad mood after I had won.  I was more comfortable with me being the loser, and then have a good time with my friend. 

That is all going to change. That's for sure. I am not going anywhere with chess, except better and better, more and more wins, more and more understanding. These psychological barriers are peanuts compared to the barriers that better and better opponents will throw my way. I will become ruthless at the chessboard, and I will have no mercy for my opponents. And I will be a nice guy off the board. I will learn to distinguish between nice guy off the board, and ruthless killer on the board. Although I doubt my chess style will be like Tal's, I have him as a model of a super nice guy who everyone liked, and who everyone feared at the chessboard. That's what I want to become. When Yaroslavl wrote the other day "siege warfare. blockade, attack. And execute. Execute. I looked at that word over and over. I am executing pieces, not people. That is one of my struggles. Understanding that I Execute pieces, not people. 

There. I hope that helps Jaglavak. I really hadn't intended to say any of this on here, but you asked, and my policy is that if someone asks, unless I have a strong reason to not answer, I will answer truthfully. If I have a strong reason to not answer, I will truthfully say that I don't want to answer. 

Somebodysson wrote:

That is all going to change. That's for sure. I am not going anywhere with chess, except better and better, more and more wins, more and more understanding. These psychological barriers are peanuts compared to the barriers that better and better opponents will throw my way. I will become ruthless at the chessboard, and I will have no mercy for my opponents. And I will be a nice guy off the board. I will learn to distinguish between nice guy off the board, and ruthless killer on the board. Although I doubt my chess style will be like Tal's, I have him as a model of a super nice guy who everyone liked, and who everyone feared at the chessboard. That's what I want to become. When Yaroslavl wrote the other day "siege warfare. blockade, attack. And execute. Execute. I looked at that word over and over. I am executing pieces, not people. That is one of my struggles. Understanding that I Execute pieces, not people.

                              _____________________________

What all chess players want to be is a strong player.  A strong chess player is a "professional gunslinger".  All the rest are just tourists.

hehe, nice. 

hehe, interesting set of choices. In truth, I don't have enough experience to be able to answer that accurately yet. In Summer 2012 when I played lots of chess with my new friend, and bought the plastic chess set and Chernev Logical which started me on this path hurtling unflinchingly toward oblivion on 64 squares, when my friend blundered in a won game I didn't get much pleasure from it. I would tell them they blundered, and to take it back, and we'd play it out without the blunder. 

I got much more pleasure from games where I felt I played well, regardless of the outcome.  The tantrum of my opponent when I won hurt me, and got in the way of my being able to enjoy my victories. Since then I have branched out with my chess, and now play people who are most sportsmanly with their play, their losses and wins. Also, I now play people who will respect good play, and who will benefit from losing to me; whereas formerly I felt that if I won too often I would lose my chess buddy, and would have no one to play with. 

Jaglavak, much of this thread has focused on the 'Targeting' aspect and there is little mention of the word 'Mobility' at all. My understanding of mobility is the art of getting your pieces to the right squares to put pressure on the target - is this correct? I was wondering whether you could expand on this topic a bit further, with reference to Somebodysson's games so that we can see the relevance in a practical sense. Cheers.

Respecting this, I've read a few coaches saying that it is important to constantly look at master games when you are beginning since you subconciously absorb the patterns that emerge, so that when you are faced with similar positions you get a feeling of what you should do (Silman did this on one of his articles not long ago). I truly believe that this argument has a point. You said yourself that you knew a player that was so serious that memorized an entire book of tactical patterns and that his work allowed him to climb to another level. Of course having a database of moves in you head isn't very helpful if you have no idea what you are doing or what was beign threatened and the like, but I personally have gone on a few of master games following the three questions that you recommend and not allowing myself to continue to the next move without being able to understand what was happening at the moment, taking a lot of time when there are complex (and not-so-complex) combinations that require a lot of thinking for me to understand them without someone explaining them to me, but those simple three steps have helped me to understand the chess beign played a lot more. Now I guess that I have to go over a lot of classical games on the positions that I play and try to understand them.

I think he already explained this, but the explanation is intertwined with other concepts. As I understand from the examples explained (see the comment he made on one of the consequences capturing with hxg being that the rook pawn doubles it's mobility, or how he pointed out that the black knights on the last game had the mobility of pawns), Mobility means potential for reaching targets (capturing or just threatening them) or switching between different targets. Based on probability alone, it is easy to guess that a knight on e5 is more likely to be able to maneuver and attack a target (possibly more than one at the same time) than a knight at h8, but of course that will depend on the given position and the role the knight (or any piece) can play in the game (a knight on h8 delivering mate is better than any other knight, no matter what potential the other knight may have). As I understand it, Jaglavak is saying that, should no target exist (or, more probably, could be reached) then it is important to improve the mobility of the pieces so that they can reach and find targets in order to do something (you don't want them as scenography).

He can explain himself better though, but perhaps this will help you in the meantime.

I plan to. My goal in the next game is to test out the thinking process, more than anything else. I will report on the thinking process; the game itself will play second fiddle to the thinking process. To the best of my ability. You already know that my emotions are pretty strong; but I'm also capable of great stubborn-ness, so I plan to stubbornly attempt to test out a thinking process. 

very beautiful, Jaglavak. Just gorgeous. I thank you for this. This, too, is very close to what I know to be true, from my own field. Beautiful. We are an ensemble. Me and the opponent. Gorgeous. I am much more comfortable with this than with ruthlessness. Yet, I must ruthlessly pursue correct pitch, correct time, correct phrasing, and together with the other player(s) create beauty. Simply gorgeous. 

So the fact that you are floundering to find a mve in a positions no longer surprises me. You probbly just need to see a lot more good moves. If I am right, ths has serous impolications for any attempt to use a procedure to find a good moves.  

Consistent with what some of the best chess pedagogy minds out there say too.

Yes, in fact, maybe these thinking processes, too, are merely stories good players tell to sell books. I"m not being facetious, by the way. I think this may be true. In the meantime, a little bit of thought process (what, after all, is going through a list of from 3-8 questions per move anyway? Its not too much to ask.) can likely go a long way for me. Along with a lot of sitting on my hands. That just may be the thought process I need the most. 

By the way, does anyone want to know what good musicians 'think about' when they're playing? I'll tell you. They don't think. They listen. They're too busy listening to think. If they start thinking they start playing badly. Thinking interferes with listening. And listening is key to playing well. 

Probably good chess players do little thinking, and more looking. They've probably trained their eye more than thinking processes.  

What is your prediction? I asked you second, so you have to tell first. First your move, then my move, then your move. 

oh, and btw, I don't have a game scheduled yet. I'm still trying to negotiate a game time in the Slow chess league, and my opponent is difficult to communicate with. So, so far, my next game that is scheduled with certainty is next Monday at chess club. 

But rumor has it I may lurk in the live chess section sometime in the next couple of days to seek a 45/45 time control game just to test out some thought control experiments. No, that doesn't sound right. Thought control experiments? No, umm, thinking process experiments. 

Are we using 'move selection' and 'thinking process' to mean the same thing?

 <my prediction is that you will find that it doesn't help you in some positions. Then we will be left to determine if this is because you lack the background knowledge to employ it correctly>  very likely <or it is not as fundamental in the sense of being teachable to a beginner> if this is different than the preceding, it is further very likely that I will exhibit a misunderstanding of what applying it means. In which case we will have to deepen my understanding of the meaning of the words and concepts. For e.g. in the 2 most recent games, some of my annotations showed that when I thought I had targets, those targets were trivial, and/or I thought they were important targets due to misunderstand positional gobbledygook and/or I thought my opponent had serious threats due to misunderstood positional gobbledygook. 

one thing is for sure. If I employ ANYTHING other than what I am currently employing,  and esp if I employ it consistenly, the result should be different, at least subjectively, if not objectively. It will be objectively different only if a deficiency of background knowledge does not undermine it. 

I will have to employ it from move one, right out of the gate. Even if I think I know ...1.c6 is my answer to 1.e4, and my opponent plays e4, I should start employing the thought procedure before I move ...c6. If I am white I will allow myself the indulgence of moving 1. d4 without any thought, and I will begin employing the thought procedure right after my first move, evaluating any ...1 that Black gives. 

I don't have one scheduled yet. I"m working on getting one scheduled in the SLow chess league, but negotiations are being difficult. Worst case, I play a slow game on Monday at the chess club. But hopefully this by this weekend there will be one online.  

This thread has helped my chess.

Yeah, its giving me a new perspective too, especially as I am risking my life by coaching 2 family members at the moment.

LOL! Queen!

I just read this over, and I realize there is more to say. 

(QueenTakes KNightOOPs, this one is especially for you and your family.)

When I say I find it hard for something to attack, it boils down to a very very slim inventory of tactical patterns. So, I look out at 64 squares, and usually see my opponent's pieces as either all defended, or that attacking one or another of them would entail clear and present danger to my attacking piece.

So, maybe its difficult for you guys to remember those days, but lacking tactical patterns, if you're playing someone who hasn't hung a piece on a one-mover hang, its hard to see where to attack. And, beginners like me don't see squares, we see only pieces. So if the piece isn't obviously hanging, its hard to see it as a target. 

The difficulty seeing what my opponent is attacking is possibly simpler, although related to the above. If the opponent is attacking a piece of mine with a one mover attack, a blatant, overt attack on a piece which is easily defended against by simply moving the piece...then I can see ot. If I look. In the most recent game the loss of my bishop on e5 was due to a lack of familiarity with the pin on my pawn; I thought my bishop was defended by my pawn; because I was blind to the fact my pawn was pinned, until White had made the actual move. 

The question: what are you thinking about when you go to select a non-tactical move? Good question. I feel particularly blind in those situations. and they are many. I feel confused, blind, uncomprehending, useless, and frustrated. I have NO IDEA what to do when there isn't a non tactical move apparent, and given my tiny repertory of tactical patterns, I feel this way alot. So, usually in such situation I push a pawn. Which you have all seen me do many times already. I push a pawn because I can comprehend this, and becuase it LOOKS LIKE I am claiming more space, and pushing my opponent into a corner. That is really the sum total of my 'strategic' understanding. I read somewhere 'time, space, material'. I never understood time, thought I understood material, and was SURE I understood space. By space I understood 'push pawns forward. You will win the game if you push your pawns far enough forward. Eventually your opponent will just hoist a white flag, because his trenches have been overrun.'

Unfortunately, my opponents usu do not hoist a white flag. They are busy getting their snipers ready to pick off my troops, and before I know it my opponent has many more troops than I do, and I have lost the war of attrition, and then the opponent has a field day.

So, all those posters who early on in the thread said 'don't make a pawn move, it weakens your position' and 'don't hang pieces' as if I was planning to weaken my position...I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't see any targets. I could only see defended pieces, connected pawns, on the field, etc, etc, and an emotional field of confusion and bafflement. 

So I did the only thing that made any sense to me, push a pawn. 

I will have to increase my inventory of tactical motifs (there's a word from music, but it's used in exactly the same way) in order to make any headway. And I imagine increasing this inventory is NOT DONE IN A DAY, whatever they say about how Rome was built. 

Who knows. Maybe Silman is ALSO ultimately correct. That when you're busy building up your repertoire of tactical motifs, it makes sense to learn something positional, so that you can have some sense of something. 

The problem, as Jaglavak and I agree, is that half-understandings are probably worse than none. The beginner like me is probably worse off with half understandings. 

So, listen to this, a bit of humor. When I was playing ny chess buddy in Summer of 2012, my chess buddy thought he was a 'positional player'. At least I knew that I had no idea what kind of player I was, and I knew that I won most of the games where I didn't tell my buddy to take back their lousy moves. I also had a sense that at our level to refer to ourselves as 'postional' or 'tactical' was ridiculous. the one thing I was sure of was that we were terrible. I thought that was the only word we could use to describe our style of play. 

So, I still bring that level of honesty, frankness, and ego-less-ness to my game and to my learning. I have no illusions that I am neither a tactical player not a positional one. I am, as Jaglavak accurately put it, a blank slate (except for some terrible half-ideas of positional chess that I wish I could forget...if only so I could see the board more clearly...)

Sombodysson

Your thoughts parrallel what is happening in my family right now, but before I go any further I have a question. How are you doing on time management OTB? You haven't mentioned time trouble but on the other hand are you losing with a lot of time left on the clock? Same goes for when you win.

I keep an eye on the clock, and I don't run into time trouble. I still make impulsive irresponsible moves, with plenty of time left on my clock. It isn't a time trouble issue. It is a discpline of listening to Yaroslavl, Jaglavak, aronchuck, and sitting on my hands. But, and I think this is important, all the time in the world isn't going to make me see what I am blind to. 

I imagine most beginners do not play too slow, but too fast. Time trouble is for people who know something about chess. Beginners don't know much about chess, and so move quickly.

I'm glad what I wrote above gives you some insight into your family. I thought it would.