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

no emotional weakness. Tactical. Please comment. Thanks. 

thanks! I'm glad I won too! I didn't see the Bf3 until after that crazy queen exchange, which in retrospect was an unnecessary risk. Still, I'm glad I won. There's another tomorrow at 11AM ET. 

I have to get more experience at winning, and playing won games. I'm going to try to do some of that soon. Practics playing the winning side of won games. 

fantastic instruction aronchuck, just fantastic. Yes, I knew yhou didn't give that variation, I was just trying to put in whole lines so that they could be played through on the viewer, but I think I have to put brackets in the variation in order to be able to play it out on the viewer. 

Thanks for clarifying about the crappy jpb for the rook protecting an a pawn when it can be doing something much stronger. 

and that instruction about pawns on the open files and blockading them, thanks, one more thing I didn't know anything about. 

I have a question. So when you think of a line like the one you posted, this one:

11. dxc5 Bxc5 12. Qc2 would be a much better idea and give you free play.  You put pressure down the c-file on his backward c-pawn  Follow up with a3 and b4 quickly to FIX the weakness.  Then play Bb2 on a nice long diagonal, Na4-c5 and Rc1.

is that how you think? You think of your moves, your long sequences ,your fantasy manouver, and then you falsify to see if its possible, by putting in the possible responses?

everybody who is following this thread should read the above post by aronchuck and review the three questions that we are using. They are

1. what is my opponent's plan/idea/threat

2. Where are the weaknesses

3. How can I improve the placement of one of my pieces.

4. Falsify (i.e. check for proof that your opponent can refute your move). If you find a refuation, rinse and repeat.

Hello everyone, here is my analysis of one of SBS's recent games. It has already been commented, I hope to be the first to analyze a game someday :P.

thank you jojojopo. I enjoyed reading your annotation! And welcome back. We miss you when you're not here!

today's game. My opponent found some good tactics, that I totally missed. I moved pieces to wrong places a few times. Here is the game. It actually felt like an improvement. 

@ Somebodysson

Interesting game, pins are again thematic to the result, also Bishop developement. As far as improvement goes I think you have raised you baseline quite a bit, the mistakes are more subtle. Next we need that Queen sacrifice & smothered Mate

thank you queen takes knight. That Q takes was my first and imediately obvious mistake, and I regretted not taking exd even before the next move. When you write 'something must be done about this, now!' to break the pinnable situation, can you suggest variations, alternate to what 'i did. I agree with everything you write in your note, they read like a play by play of the game, and suggestions for alternate moves would help, if you have the time. thanks. 

Ok, I can do that, usually aronchuck has already done it so I tend to concentrate on identifying & commenting on the critical points rather than repeat all his work but I'll run through a few of the better lines to deal with it tomorrow.

thank you aronchuck. I will study this in greater detail. I appreciate your notes. One thing that definitely occurs for me, for e.g. 11. Bxc6 is I imagine threats when there is none. So in that position I thought my bishop was under attack and was inadequately defended, and so I thought I had to take the knight, otherwise I would lose the bishop outright. I need to look more deeply at such situations...it occurs over and over again, and it is also key to my resolving tension unnecessariy; I resolve the tention because I fear that not to do so will mena losing material, where a more sober look at the situation will reveal that resolving the tension does just that, it resolves the tension, it does NOT save material.

Also for that BxN move. Resolving the tension, when there was no danger, and no pressing need to do so. Bringing my knight forward to attack the Black Night would have been sooo much more effective.

You will eventually see me resolve tension less often. I hope I have learned my lesson. Thanks for pushing the point again. 

I have to say, I am uncovering yet another huge weakness. Its falsifying, finding my opponent's best move. Even in tactics puzzles, where there is no game result at stake, I usu. calculate based on my opponent making a owrse move than he can make. Often, in tactics puzzles, this means I fail the puzzle because I've decided that I can't make the move x, because if I make that move my opponent will make y and win. Post puzzle analysis shows that if my opponent made move y he would lose EVEN faster! In other words, I'm failing to find my opponent's best moves. Another thing to focus on. 

Hi Somebodysson and friends, I haven't posted here for ages (I used to be McHeath before I deleted that account and had a short break from Chess), but I've been following the thread with great interest.

We're talking about tension, when to maintain it and when to resolve it ... I find that I'm tending towards the other extreme, i.e. piling on the pressure until it reaches breaking point. Trouble is, I tend to overreach - the position gets so complicated that I overlook other possibilities for the opponent away from the main battlefield, and end up losing a pawn (or worse) when playing a better player. I have an online game at the moment which I'll annotate and post here when it's over - it's the most complicated position I've ever had, tension left, right and above all centre. I'm loving it but I'm a pawn down and very probably losing.

Anyway, to try and say something constructive (which must have been said here dozens of times already) - it all comes down to calculating. I suppose the answer is very simple really - only break the tension if doing so will either gain material (without worsening your position) or improve your own position markedly.

That I suppose is the reason why I've come to appreciate the turn-based games here - 3 days per move to use the analysis board and really try out every possibility, before you move. it forces you to think about patterns and tactics, great stuff!

Anyway, I think you're all doing a great job in advising Somebodysson. And our hero's chess is certainly improving in leaps and bounds, when he concentrates!

 post your game!! When you're ready. We wants a game. Remember, don't put who played which side, and first submit it unannotated. Sounds interesting, your problem (he says, sucking on his pipe, your problem is very interesting...since when have you had this problem...). Maybe I'll learn to NOT resolve tension from you! My guess is that you're reluctant to make exchanges, becuase you're having difficulty visulaizing the position after the exchanges so why go into something you can't see. Just a guess anyway. It will be interesting to see the game. 

Ok, done! I've given it away already though, which side I'm playing, with being a pawn down and so on ...

But you're right about the reluctancy to exchange, being down in material ... I think I just missed the opportunity to exchange a R for N+2P which would have given me chances ... no more now, it's an ongoing game and I hope it goes on for at least 30 moves! (30 played already).

instead of 11.f4    

  I think 11.cxd5 wins  

 cxd5...Bxd5   Nxd5..Qxd5     Be4

or

cxd5...exd5   e6..fxe6   Qh5+

I'm referring to the originators game about 900 pages ago.

I think exchanges are the advanced secret weapon of chess. Just my guess. Going into exchanges willingly, knowing that when the smoke clears you'll have a material, or, even more obscure, a positional advantage...that's advanced stuff.

I think I've graduated from 'make an exchange because that's the same thing as a capture' ...that's where I was when I started this thread. I thought an exchange was a cool smart ballsy thing to do!! Then Yaroslavl and aronchuck reamed me out, Yaroslavl with his talk about pawn structures which went straight over my head, (and which I will get to someday when I study Kmoch)...and aronchuck, much more accessibly, talking about tension, and don't resolve tension until it is clearly in your favor.

wasted_youth...I really look forward to you sharing your 'reluctance to exchange' with us. I think its going to add a great dimension to the discussion around tension and its resolution. 

Just as a side note: When I started playing chess in Summer 2012 (I think that's when it was, anyway...) I've talked about my chess partner as saying that they were 'positional' and I was 'tactical' when I knew we were both 'terrible'. 

Well, there was another thing we discovered in those early days. We'd play openings very carefully, and develop all our pieces, and never take anything, and just move stuff around...we ended up with very cramped positions, and we were unwilling to uncramp them. We came to the (possibly inaccurate and possibly premature) conclusion that we needed to take pieces off, we needed to take risks. We called this kind of play with no exchanges "rowboating". We resolved to not "rowboat" anymore. Sometimes when we'd be playing one of us would look at the other and say "I think we're rowboating". And then we'd start exchanging. 

These were both beginner understandings of things. To 'always not take' is a mistake, and to 'always take' is a mistake. 

I imagine we'll advance our understanding of exchanging on here. 

Not my best analysis, heat wave here & no aircon + other distractions so apologies if it is still lacking detail. What did come out of this was a problem I often used to see when coaching beginners. Many books introduce concepts that beginners take as hard rules to their own detriment.

Avoid isolated Pawns, don't let your Pawns get doubled, every move in the opening should develope a piece etc. These are guidelines, very important ones but they are not set in stone. How many times do we see a beginner fail to make a good move because he is scared of doubling pawns? I have seen a beginner refuse to win a pawn because of this fixation. Although that was an extreme case with very inexperienced player it does reinforce the point.

In this game we see a problem with the Queen in the opening. The DSB remains undeveloped the entire game & this was due in a large part to the position of the Queen after move 6/- where if it was returned to its original square the game would have been entirely different.

Correct application of the 3 Questions of course does eliminate these problems but beware what may be lurking in your brain absorbed from reading books that are speaking in general terms.

It is a good lesson on how far reaching early errors can be.

As usual aronchuck has done a definitive analysis that surpasses mine so take mine as supplemental notes.