Trying to characterise myself at early stage

Hi!

I recently started to play chess (after having played the game as a teenager for some time) more frequently and am at the moment quite hooked.

I mostly play games against the computer (Shredder Classic 4) and sometimes OTB. I haven't taken to playing online chess yet, but most certainly will start this too in near future.

I am from Switzerland, btw, so please forgive my clumsy English;-)

At the moment, I play against Shredder at ELO around 1440. However, I think that Shredder plays somewhat (100 points?) below its stated strength.

I am quite interested in playing styles and often replay games of grandmasters. Here is how I characterise myself at this early stage of my chess "career":

- Patzer, who makes horrible blunders at times
- After having committed said blunder, I often have a hard time to recover, loose hope quickly
- I have quite a bit of trouble to calculate ahead, so most of the time I focus on having a long-term advantage rather than calculate through complicated multi-move tactics
- This is dictated too by the fact that I often play chess alongside handling of other tasks (such as posting in forums;-)), which reduces my concentration and ability to calculate ahead (being weak to start with) further. Anyway, I only play for the fun... 
- Such long-term advantage is for me mostly having a somewhat superior pawn structure (i.e. my opponent having doubled pawns or isolated pawns)
- I prefer open games, where I am able to obtain said advantage in the middle game
- I usually try to exchange queens early (reducing the calculation needs)
- I usually try to exchange rooks in the middle game and try to exchange most of the minor pieces as well
- I somewhat try to achieve an endgame, where I have a superior pawn structure. In the endgame, preferably no heavy and minor pieces are present. If this is not possible, I always like fighting with a knight vs a bishop
- I have some positional ideas in mind when playing, such as doubled rooks on an open file (which I am able to achieve quite often), an impenetrable knight outpost (which I am almost never able to achieve) and to trade off my bad pieces vs active ones of my opponent (i.e. mostly the computer)
- My games almost never feature mates during the middle game

At the moment, I play (as white) always 1. e4. But I plan to learn some 1. d4 openings as well.

I don't like playing the Ruy, as it requires very accurate play and the smallest error throws you off. I prefer the Sicilian, French, Alekhine and Scandi. Caro-Kann is difficult as well. However, I do not know an awful lot of theory.

I absolutely agree with this one grandmaster who quoted that "below ELO x a player does not have a style but weaknesses" and refrain from characterising myself as a "positional" or a "tactical" player. I do, however, observe my biases during a game.

In addition, I know, that one should play what the position tells you to do. However, as I often have quite a hard time reading the position correctly (being a patzer), I need to push my own agenda, which in turn is dictated by my playing bias. This works quite well in my region of strength (which is weak) but a more flexible approach (short term tactics vs long term advantage) needs to be applied in higher areas.

My favourite players are Karpov and Capa, and I would love to be able to play like them, which, of course, will never happen;-)

In what follows, I post some games of myself (mostly against Shredder). Have fun, if you like.

Cheers!

Marty

That's for now!

regards, Marty!