Beginner Blunder Avoidance.

play longer time controls and practice tactics 

If you analyze with Fritz, prepare to be appalled.  I always find that both I and my opponents made so many stupid, really obvious, mistakes it makes me want to cry.  I mean like, I thought I had a good win here, but if my opponent had only played *this* I have to move my queen to one square where he then plays *this* skewereing her majesty to the king.  Or, even worse things.  Every, single, game.  But, it is good for you too look at it.

I'm prepared to be shown up so that I can learn. The initial rating given and the one I now have do not represent my real rating. I think it was luck that allowed me to win, trying to follow principles that I have learned from Chess.com videos. I'm sure that my rating will reflect the real me after I have played a few more games :)

Here is a game you played.

I think reviewing your games is one very important key to getting better.

Lets talk about move 1 & 2.

At move 1 you occupied the center with a pawn.

It is a very nice move.

Your opponent responded with 1...e6

Which is called the French Defense.

At move 2 you had a big decision to make.

You could play 2.d4 which would occupy the center again.

You will than have 2 very powerful pawns in the center.

Instead of the move 2.d4 you chose to play 2.Nf3.

The move 2.Nf3 isn't a bad move.

However, I think it is good to reflect on your move.

What was you thinking when playing the move 2.Nf3?

Did you consider other canadiate moves such as 2.d4?

Did you plan on playing 2.Nf3 for a special reason?

Sometimes in chess you will run into positions like this were you can play several different moves.

All of which are reasonable moves.

The reason you play one move over another may have to do with your own personal preference or your own natural ability.

I think asking these questions each move you make and your opponent make is very useful.

You certainly weren't lucky to beat that guy. You were much better than he was. 11.Ra1 is a very puzzling move. You missed a couple of tactics but that's to be expected. Move 11 really confused me though.

P.S. There is a chat tab in the correspondence games. A lot of people struggle with it at first, but it is there. We can talk to each other during our games.

When its your turn to move, think about this little algorithm: 1. Ask yourself "What is the threat?'' or ''What is my opponent planning to do?" 2. Ask "Can i ignore his threat/idea?" 3. If you believe you can' t ignore your opponents threat, then again, ask yourself "What can i do about this threat/idea?" 4. After asking yourself these questions, think of a plan and what move are you going to make. 5. Finally, and most importantly, ask yourself "How can my opponent react to the move im going to make?" Im sure that asking these questions will certaintly reduce your blunder rate dramatically. Good luck!

Yeh, he did confuse me as well and my Move Ra1 was to bring my rook back so that it was safe, I know that Rxb8 would probably have been better but I was nervous about blundering or getting my rook trapped on black's back rank. Taking my a pawn after I took his b pawn hung his rook and was pretty obvious. All I did was try to develop my pieces as he moved and tried to react to any percieved threat as I did so. As you can see near the end I had a huge advantage but still couldn't put him away quickly (which I should have done).

I did try to use chat with him but got no reply. I'll use the chat during the correspondence games if I am unsure. I'll say why I made the move etc, so that you can see my thought process. I have no problem being told I made a bad move and why, it all helps my learning process ;)

Excellent advice and funnily enough I believe that the advice I was given by everyone on this thread did actually slow me down and make me examine the board during in my first live game here. I was very surprised by some of the moves of my opponent though which threw me a bit as I started to worry that he may have a strategy that I couldn't see coming.

My thought process for the move Nf3 was preparation for moving d2 - d4. Basically I wanted to protect that square. Once on d4 I would have the option take (Nxd4) after e5xd4 as per a Scotch game but I wanted to develop more slowly and go for a 4 knights type opening, developing my pieces to try and control the center.

baloney unrated games dont count---its like everyone recieving a first place trophy. it would be like playing poker with no money-there has to be a small risk and reward.

Cadaha, I think the best thing I can suggest, is to pick a couple of opening systems from both white, and black, and use them to the almost exclusion of all others. This has a few desired effects. One, you learn the opening, and many of its variations. Then, you can compare games, and figure out why lines won or lost as you start to build up a larger field of games to analyze.

From white, a few common openings: The Roy Lopez, The Queen's Gambit (probably the most common opening used today across all levels of play), and maybe the King's Indian would be great places to start. The King's I suggest, because of the King's Indian defense from black, employs much of the same ideas, so you could learn a great defense as well and double up on your training.

For black: By far one of the most common is the Sicilian (Of which I personally dislike because this has been studied to the point of people memorizing the first 60+ moves of perfect play), The French (which is a positional defense and tends to move slowly), and the King's Indian Defense.

I am not saying these are all the games you should study, as you want to know the concepts of most openings, but endeavoring to utilize the same ideas, was what has given me the best results in studies.

Finally, once you decide how you like to play, ie: aggressive, positional, etc... then you can focus on opening systems, that fit your style of play.

Anyways, should you have more questions, comments, or just wish to converse, feel free to message me.

Thank you Armand, I appreciate the advice and will do as you say.  I like an e4 opening but in a lot of the computer games I've (lost most I think) the d4 (Queen's) was popular as well as the scicilian reply to the e4 opening. If I can get my head around those two first then I should at least be able to get into the middle game a bit more comfortably. :)

By stateing your thought process you can than begin to understand how to improve your throught process!

Very good!

The idea you had with 2.Nf3 was to help prepare d2-d4.

You wanted to protect the square!

However, Your queen on d1 can already protect the d4 square.

If you play the pawn move d2-d4 the queen would be defending the square!

Do you see how going over each move like this and looking at the position again can help you see errors or things you initally didn't see?

Another example of thinking out your though process!

Very good!

You played 11.Ra1 because you was nervous about your rook getting trapped!

I have played chess for about 2 years now and I will tell you one thing!

I have had the same nervous feeling hundreds of times!

When your in the game it is different than when you analysis outside of the game.

Your inital thought in the game is based off of alot of different things.

When you are outside of the game you than have the chance to go through your thought process to see if you was inital correct or not!

Now in the below diagram.

I showed an example:

Lets say you took the knight!

If white responded by hitting your rook with his queen.

You can now see you had some nice emergency escape's!

The point of reviewing is to help you open up your mind to more information!

By gathering more information you can than use this information in similar positions!

Thank you, appreciate the advice :)

I have still lost a few more but, I'm reading, watching videos and attempting to solve tactics puzzles. Hopefully I'll start to see small improvements as I play more and begin to notice patterns that I didn't before.

Getting a feel for playing online now and enjoying it immensely. One quick question if possible. Are there any online chess clubs that I could join that run similar to a bricks and mortar one, that maybe has video lecctures, meetings and good players to learn from, maybe have their own small tournaments etc?