800 question.

Hey all, I am around an 800. I notice that a lot of the games i play, my opponents are super aggressive and will exchange or pressure with little concern of position or pawn structure. As such I'm having a hard time advancing as most videos of openings or strategies are in complicated positions where players fight over key squares rather than exchange or gambit/pressure. I've been studying tactics but i am having a hard time forcing a tactic/combinations. Its one thing to pin a queen, its another thing all together to recognize a move that will draw a queen into a fork or pin. I have a couple of questions.

Are there any quiet / non sharp openings that punish over aggressive players? (For white and Black) I feel like once  I get to around a 1000, that I'll be able to play more positional chess and be able to prepare better. 

Also is there any way to search for games between 1000-1200 ranked players against 800-900 ranked players to see how better players are beating players around my ranking so i can learn from them?

Thanks! 

the giuoco pianissimo

your best bet is to make sure your pieces are defended
worrying about “punishing” usually leads to disaster

tactics and combinations will only arise when there are weak points in opponents position- his king isnt safe (many times if you get castled early you can get a rook lined up against his king while he is prancing around board and tactical opportunities might flow from this), undefended pieces, poor alignment (pieces on same diagonal, file, rank, which can be exploited etc)

do not try to force the issue

one thing to do is try to blunt what your opponent is trying to do; one thing i really try to do is hinder where my opponents knights can move in my territory

if you can make it out of opening in tact then scan opponents position for undefended or underdefended weak points and then make small plans to gang up on these areas

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the best thing you can do is to go over your own games afterwards and see for yourself what happened- how to better exploit or defend or whatever

at our level openings in and of themselves are not necessarily important whereas getting developed, getting king safe, protecting pieces/pawns, pressuring opponents pieces and pawns, and thwarting opponents plans will get us places

when i was in the swamp of the sub 1000 my biggest accomplishment was successfully defending pretty much all variants of scholars mate- a lot of these whippersnappers will get really aggressive and if you remain calm and play smart you can usually build your way out of it; one of my struggles early on was thinking every opponent had some kind of secret trappy line that i didnt know about but, eventually, i realized that just by playing principled and addressing the current position after each move i would get a decent game

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fwiw i play 1d4 and almost always 2c4 as white; i play 1...c6 vs 1.e4; and i play 1...d5 vs 1d4 and 2...c6 vs 2.c4; and just deal with things as they happen (through learning lines in these openings i have exposure to some classical theory but it never pans out at our level- most games are out of book by move 3 so i just make sure i go over the game afterwards to get ideas and feelings of the resulting positions)
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remember, we all have to go through these trials of fire on our own and we will fail terribly a lot of the time; take it as a right of passage and learning opportunity
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also (i did not look at what time controls you play) try to play games at as long a time control as you can- navigating these waters mandates serious pondering and evaluation and shorter times just dont allow this

Thank you for your reply. I literally just had a game where my opponent played a Scandinavian with 3... Qe5+. Lol what the heck!!! I ended up losing after being up 10.0 at one point because I screwed up and literally missed a hanging piece because of all the pressure he was applying. But i think im starting to realize that you should attack loud (agressive pieces) early on with pawns when possible, rather than developing good pieces to bad places.   

Don’t bother with quiet openings they will just mask your deficiencies. It’s likely that your opponents are just playing garbage that can be easily dealt with. In fact it sounds like your opponents are playing in a way that should be positively encouraged.

You should stop playing Blitz and focus on Rapid (30min) games, that is the way to improve. I do the same mistake but if you really want to improve you need to take your time and think about what you are doing. 

I would have to agree that the punishing attitude is not very good as there often is no immediate punishment. I would say that if you play in a principled manner the opponent will punish himself as long as you:

-develop properly

-don't make tactical errors

-don't weaken your own position

The first item on the list is that you should develop all your pieces and play with all of yor pieces as an attack can never be succesfull if the defenders outnumber the attackers.

To not make tactical mistakes is impossible but they can be minimised. I would recomend the tactics trainer in learning mode as there is no time pressure. Analyse every tactic after your attempt to understand it better and make sure you got all the lines correct if you solved it.

The final item on the list is probably the one that is the most dificult. Firstly i need to list how the position can be weakened

-bad pawn moves

-unsuccessfull attacks

-killing your own pieces

The first item on this list is very important as it deals with what you thought was good. To attack agrresivley placed pieces with pawns. This is a very dangerous practice as the pawns can't move backward so if you misplace the pawn it's a permanet weakness but if you missplace a piece it can often be rerouted to a better square. I would say pawn moves should be done to do one of the following

-give your pieces acces to good squares( 1.e4 follows this priciple as it controlls squares in the center 1.h4 does not as it only controlls sqares wich are not likely to be usefull)

-open files for your rooks

-deprive your opponent's pieces of good squares without allowing them new, better squares.

An unsuccessfull attack will always be met by a deadly counterattack and attacks should only be made if the attacking pieces outnumber the defenders.

You can kill your own pieces by 

- placing them on very poor squares

-blocking them with pawn moves

This must be avoided.

 

 

learn how to deal with

a) scholars mate

b) damiano defence

c) fried liver attack

 

You are not the only person to advocate this sort of thing, and I have a theory about it: It seems to me that it has become increasingly common for beginners to be told, "... Train yourself ... to make sure your pieces are protected, ….".

https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-start-out-in-chess

Now I understand that it is commonly considered to be reasonable to give beginners general principles, with the expectation that they can learn about exceptions later. However, in this case, it seems to me that the supposed principle is so spectacularly wrong, that the pretty much inevitable result will be that the trusting beginner will be acquiring seriously bad habits right from the start. Don't just about all openings involve moving pieces into unprotected positions? (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4, for example.) How can any game start sensibly if played by a beginner who feels constrained by this protection idea? I grant that the beginner runs a risk of blundering an unprotected piece, but taking that risk is a part of normal chess. True progress comes from experiencing such blunders and gradually acquiring the habit of being alert for accidental losses. It works against that process (and works against normal chess strategy) if one tries to avoid the problem by always keeping everything protected. From time to time, one may catch an adventurous opponent in a mistake, but, even then, it will be the opponent who has the beneficial learning experience. The protection player will lose more and more often to the player who is working on learning to be active with the pieces.

I hope that I do not give the impression of being harsh. I think this is becoming an increasingly common sort of mistake, caused by this overly casual advice to beginners. From time to time, one sees some sort of qualification such as:

"... Of course, sometimes leaving things undefended is okay …"

https://www.chess.com/article/view/beware-of-undefended-pieces

However, the protection idea seems to me to be so seriously wrong that it is better not to mention it in the first place. Indeed, one wonders how it got started. I have a theory about that, too. I do not know if GM John Nunn was the first to tell readers, "If you have two or more undefended pieces, then a fork or double attack may be in the offing", but he is widely read, and it strikes me as possible that others may have seen such comments and given in to the temptation to simplify such advice and turn it into the protection idea.