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

A nice game where the advantage swung back & forth until one side prevailed.

The biggest lesson here is also one of the most basic. Don't put a valuable piece in the centre of the board where it can be attacked by minor pieces. We learn that with Queens in the early opening but it also applies to Rooks. Keep in mind the Rook basics, stick them on open or semi open files. If you want to double them if possible keep 1 on the 2nd or 7th rank where they can defend pawns. Don't advance them too early or they will be attacked & lost or at the best driven to a bad square.

Additional to my last post.

I'm using SCID with a Stockfish engine to doublecheck my analysis. I nly use it AFTER my calculations are done. It disagreed with my analysis of the position after 12/-...Rxe5. The way the game played out proved my point so beware of accepting the Computers word as infallible.

@ BReid

Nice game, I played it through quickly & the term Relentless Pressure came to mind. Good example of target awareness for Somebodysson to study. I'll look at it in more detail later today.

I said I would post the notes to my game but nobody has commented yet. Should I go ahead and write them up or wait a little longer?

oh sorry aboyt that Wolf183. Mayb e we're experiencing the limit of our ability to annotate games. I'd say hold off on posting your notes for a few more days, give people more of a chance to post notes to your games. There's a bit of a backlog of games now, and I know I won't be able to give the thread much attention for the next few days, becuase I just got a new job and I'm working a lot for now. And I'm moving in two weeks, so I have packing to do, and my priority is doing tactics puzzles. So I'd say you gave us the head's up, now let us get to your games.

Breid, thanks for posting your game, and for referencing target mindedness. I'd love to notate your game, and I know I won't get to it for a few days. Please hold off on posting yout notes until some of us do. thanks. 

cheers everyone! 

I agree that it was better to take with the bishop but I think the problems start after ...Qe7 (this being the real mistake) because that move prevents the rook from retreating to the backrank, trapping it in the center, making it a target that can be chased. This is not meant to start a discussion, I just think that this is the reason why the engine finds the game playable after that move and why I wouldn't say that taking with the rook was a mistake.

@SBS I agree that there are more games than we can analyse. I think it's more instructive if we focus on a game rather than throwing a lot of games in the bag and letting everyone pick what they want to analyse. This is because one can learn of the work put into a game and then see all the ideas other players had on that same game which more often than not are eye opening. I'll try to post an analysis of one of the games soon!

Ok, lets work on clearing the backlog of unannotated games!

@ jojojopo, You are correct, about the Rook probs after Qe7, its a good lesson on having a retreat for valuable pieces. My initial thought was it is dangerous to put it in the centre with 2 Bishops to hunt it down, dangerous as opposed to a mistake. The mistake was Qe7

I agree jojojopo. Maybe aronchuck's idea of forming a group was good one, but I still want to hold off on it for a bit more. I wish that people would join in discussion of existing games and let us get to 'know' them, and they to know us, before they 'throw games into the bag'.  Frank.y, I was surprised when people started posting games who hadn't contributed to discussion. I even felt that about ToJ. The richness of the conversation went down, and we started getting all kinds of random games coming in to get analyzed, and from people who we didn't know at all, who hadn't followed or indicate in any way that they had followed the rich discussion about target mindedness and aronchuck's questions. That's why I felt so good when the 'anonymous' BReid posted a game referencing target mindedness; it demonstrated some respect for what we've been doing here. Not to imply that others are disrespectful, not at all. But aronchuck, Yaroslavl, Jaglavak, QueenTakesKnightOops, and jojojopo and I have built a conversation that we've all contributed a lot to, and I don't want aronchuck to disappear, or QTKO to disappear, becuase they're being related to as a free game annotating service.

This is much more a conversation than a game annotating service. In fact, this isn't a game annotating service at all.

So let's get back to 1. asking the questions, 2. contributing to the specific conversation we're having about the questions and target-mindedness. And I'll post a game I lost tonight that I think is instructive. I'm working on annotating it for myself before posting it, so I think I'll only get to posting it tomorrow. And there's BReid's game that I want to play through, and jojojopo's and aronchucks that I want to catch up on...so let's not have any more games from anonymous people for while...let's stick to me, jojojopo, QTKO, aronchuck, and the existing backlog. 

Thanks folks. 

Sweet! I love this game. BReid! I want to annotate it. And I want us to look at this game. 

Here's another analysis. I chose Wolf183's game because it is thematic to the last game I analysed & he has been waiting patiently for a while for us to get to his games.

This is a higher level game than some we analyse but it is very instructive to see how a higher player takes advantage of small opportunities. As in the last game I analysed we saw a Major piece attacked & this time actually trapped.

Welcome back aronchuck, how did the tournament go. Any games for us to see once we clear the backlog here?

This game was all about identifying threats, despite a blunder on move 16 Black was in serious trouble regardless. It has some similarities to Wolf183's 1st game where Black failed to identify & counter White plan of attack until it was too late.

For me personally its a situation where I try to look at the board from my opponents point of view & probably one where I would eventually be in time trouble from trying to calculate out escape routes & defence strategies. A technique I found helps in the post mortem is flipping the board at critical points. I can analyse from either side but sometimes you gain perspective from playing your opponents game.

@ aronchuck

I was talking about flipping the board during analysis, probably about the 3rd time through works for me. It just changes the perspective slightly & it doesn't work every time. I get fit by using heavier pieces & moving them faster

aronchuck, I find your notes very very very helpful. Very instructive. Your explanation of the bishop exchange was crystal clear. The error of the Bd6 too, was apparent to me just be playing over the game right after it ended.

I've completed the first four chapters of Hays. Its excellent. I'm about to start the fifth, double attack chapter. I go back and review a chapter when I finish it, do it again, to repeat and reinforce. Its a bit easier the second time, but certainly not immediate. I'm defintiely getting better at them.

Something happens otb though. I get excited and impulsive, or I get scared. That terrible f5 was from being scared. The Bd6 too, was a miscalculation. I find your variations very very instructive. I see some of them otb, but I discount them because they don't 'look' right, they don't 'look' like good moves...good resulting positions, and when I see your evaluations of the resulting positions I see that I discount better positions in favor of worse ones. The evaluation of the resulting position just has to get better, and I need to get better at being skeptical of my own skepticism. Plus I have to get my emotions in check so that I can more soberly evaluate, and I must be open to creatively evaluate visualized postions. I'm sure that some of that is experience. 

I'll get to look at the other notes tonight. Thanks aronchuck and qtko. Thanks everyone. 

@ Somebodysson

I have had the feeling that you were due to make another jump forward for a while now. Now I have an idea what is holding you back. You say you get excited, impulsive or scared. You are not alone there, some ppl suffer from OTB nerves other don't. I was one of the lucky ones, exams, tournaments, public speaking etc never had much effect on me, but I know ppl who are effected from a mild dose of nerves to total paralysing fear. I could suggest a couple of Valium dissolved in a glass of Scotch  but while you would be totally relaxed you would also be too comatose to think. I dealt a bit with some of the junior club players suffering from nerves so I'll see if I can come up with a few ideas. Any other thoughts you have on your OTB thinking process might help, I'm sure some of the others here will have some ideas for help too.

thank you qtko and aronchuck for your responses. Frankly, qtko, I have thought of the scotch thing, and  1. it can't work at the actual chess club, and 2. I thought it might clod my judgment even worse! aronchuck, thank you for affirming that you have had the same challenges. I think what its going to take is more practice at asking the questions, and more diligience in applying the questions, because what really happens is the emotions interfere with the asking and applying the three questions. so that needs more practice. I have even found myself in the grip of emotions, and saying to myself 'now what were those questions again?. 

I will work on visualizing the positions all the way through. Thanks. 

Interesting comments aronchuck, emotions are our worst enemy, I got past mine through an inherent ability to focus on the task at hand & I've no idea how I did it, but after some initial butterflies I was totally focused, sure if something happened in a high pressure game I did experience the usual stuff but I could always refocus, I'm still working mentally back through the early days & the work i did with others, we had a few very basic techniques but before I offer any serious suggestions I want to kick it around with my wife who is studying Psychology. If this is the problem that is holding Somebodysson back OTB it deserves at least some time on it. When I explained it to my wife I told her that a bad emotional response can knock 500 points off your rating in the blink of an eye & I can't think of a better metaphore than that.

If only Valium & Scotch didn't effect a persons ability to calculate & make good judgments it would be an easy solution.

Here's a good Scotch for all of you guys.