Why do I keep losing with this London system?
I blundered many times in the end of the middle game, but my main concern is the early middle game.... How do I punish these early pawn storms?
Know your opening basic. this is in general not only applicable in the london system:
(1) develop your pieces.
(2) control the center.
(3) king safety. .(Castle)
now evaluate this game again using this principles, and you yourself can answer your question why you lose :) Goodluck with your chess
You lost in the middlegame, not because of your opening. The opening is reasonable and it shouldn't be blamed for the loss.
I play the London system almost exclusively, used to play e4. Mainly because I am very old (55) and can't remember variations. In this game when black blocked his c pawn with Nc6, you should have played for c4.In the London, in general, white should play c4 as in a normal queens pawn opening when Black does not play c5 (when he plays Nc6 or c6). Had you played c4 then you would have counter pressure in the center/queen's side. You should have played h4 instead of h3 and looked to retreat the Bishop then play Ne5. Otherwise the opening was reasonable, the reason you lost was tactics/strategy in the middlegame (black could have taken your queen with check when you counterattacked his queen btw).....A general (not specific) knowledge of QG, Slav and other Queen's pawn openings is really helpful to understand the London, because you often get a Carlsbad pawn structure or caro-slav in reverse.
Some people did not understand my question. I am aware that an opening does not guarantee me a win or a draw.
Thank you stumpy58! Very helpful advice. I was thinking of playing for c4 but did not want to go into unknown territory and wanted to focus on the king side. I will have that in mind the next time.
I blundered many times in the end of the middle game, but my main concern is the early middle game.... How do I punish these early pawn storms?
Considering your general play you play the opening excellent. Your problem is missing basic tactics. Maybe the first really bad move you make is 16. g3? which I don't understand at all altough your advantage at that point is already so big that even g3 maintains by far the better position
. Instead 16. Nxg5 taking a pawn and threatening Qf3 among others looks simple.
I think you were fine in the opening. One thing I noticed was 7 of your first 13 moves were bishop moves. Obviously, they were getting kicked, but that's a bad sign. Develop your knights sooner. Nf3 is typically move #2, but it should certainly come before c3. There was no reason to delay the move once your opponent played e6 and eliminated Bg4. Basically the answer to dealing with an early pawnstorm is don't waste tempi. Another thing that could have been an issue is the early Nc6 from your opponent, threatening Nb4. You prematurely placed your bishop on Bd3, where it could be attacked by that move. In other words, don't rush your bishops out there without any protection.
Finish development and open the position. You never castled. This is terrible. Castle kingside is not scary when he's not developed. It doesn't matter that his pawns are coming.
But ok, you were scared, so castle queenside. You can't not castle.
Other than finishing development first and opening the position later, watch for tactics and take free pieces like 16.Nxg5.
Some people did not understand my question. I am aware that an opening does not guarantee me a win or a draw.
Thank you stumpy58! Very helpful advice. I was thinking of playing for c4 but did not want to go into unknown territory and wanted to focus on the king side. I will have that in mind the next time.
Stumpy58's advice was way too advanced for you. Your next game you will play c4, not castle, and lose a bunch of pieces to tactics and you'll be right back here "why did I lose?!?"
jlery's advice was much better. And Shakalli's advice after the quoted post.
Allow me to jump on the "develop your pieces and don't dance your bishops around the board" bandwagon.
Truth be told, neither of you played that game well. You hung a queen and he didn't notice. This was a blitz game, correct? A good rule is always have more pieces active than your opponent. There are exceptions, of course, primarily as black, but either way, if you're not using your pieces they might as well not be there.
Allow me to jump on the "develop your pieces and don't dance your bishops around the board" bandwagon.
I don't think this advice - altough sound in general - is very relevant for this game as most of those bishop moves were well motivated. Certainly black didn't benefit as his position was rather awfull around move 15 or so.
You didn't lose this game in the opening. You lost this game in the tactics. Spend some time with the tactics trainer or chesstempo.com. Even if you had played the opening perfectly, you would have still losed this game based on the tactics.
It seems that your mistake is at move 19th Ef5, Ed5 that forks both kinghts seems better, if QxN, PxN followed by 0-0-0 leves the Black king wide open, a Knight pinned, etc, etc, seems like you should be able to convert the point; for instance PxP, BxP and black is clearly better
u should not play a boring system like London with your ELO, just play e4 and enjoy the game.
With whatever opening you use, my suggestion is that you go to the databases and check out games that were actually played with that opening and see what the master players did in the middlegame and what types of endgames resulted. I always play solitaire chess using games that started with the openings I am interested in.
