Beginner´s thought of his own game

Hi everyone.

Lets start with the introduction: Im 27 years old and recently started playing chess more "seriously". Its a funny thing how i actually got motivated, i was playing chess titans (yes, the windows vista/7 chess) to past time. It was blacks (cpu) turn and it ate my pawn with his pawn en passant. Now i have knew how the pieces move since i was something like 5 years old but never really knew the rules in detail and i thought it as a bug. I was furious since i thought i was winning that game and it was on the highest difficulty and that move really did turn the tables as it created passed pawn and i had no option to capture it before cpu would be able to promote.

So i lost that game and decided never ever to play again that "cheating" chess titans.  I went online and  ordered Chessmaster: grandmaster edition and started learning the basics again because supposedly it has great tutorial. Found out about the en passant rule and was slightly embarrassed but really got excited about chess and started playing more actively.

Now i have played the game around 6-10 hours a day for around a week including going trough Josh Waitzkin´s tutorials. Now here comes the thoughts, questions and random stuff:

I like to play minimum 40/40 min games, lets me think things trough, plan ahead, read what the opponent might do and so on in peace and without hurry.
I dont enjoy blitz that much and there is simple reason that holds true in those longer games also: I make crippling mistakes.and no i dont mean the ones that will lose you a pawn in 4 moves but the ones that result in instant check mate by opponent or losing queen for nothing and things like this. Usually involving losing a piece for nothing and especially i do these mistakes in end game.

My openings are ok in my opinion (considering my level of play ofc), my middlegame and tacticts are also ok in most cases and i can hold my own against strong opponents and keep my position manageable and material even before the end game.

Now thing is that those mistakes are starting to affect my motivation and newly found passion for the game. I want to get rid of them, i see them instantly after i make them but still i make them for some reason. I also know that making mistakes is part of learning and there is no highway for happiness but after i have played 1 hour against cpu and im winning and flush the game down the toilet with 1 move its not productive anymore.

Now my question is that if my problems involve those easy mistakes and endgame, where should i start my learning process ? What i should start practicing and where should i look for help with my game ? Do you have any tips and tricks ? Every helping bit is greatly appreciated.

Play fewer hours each day, 6-10hrs daily is too many, chill, enjoy your games, relax, one or two openings only, remember besides strategy and tactics is emotion. Most, if not all, learning occurs through practice i.e play the game. Me !, I am a novice and should probably take my own advice.

You'd be amazed at how many "bug in chess titans!!!!!11" videos there are in Youtube...

Anyhow, about endgame. I'd recommend Jeremy Silman's excellent book "Silman's Complete Endgame Course". Also look up and figure out endgame puzzles (there's plenty all over the web). That got me going, give it a spin and see how it goes. :)

Welcome to the wonderful (and addictive) game of chess :)

Computers are tough/impossible to win against now a days, so even though as you're starting out it's important to lose lots of games, losing all of them I'd imagine as pretty discouraging.  Consider playing some games here on chess.com, not the live chess, you can play "turn based" where you have days to make a move.

As for your games against chessmaster, it may not be that you're throwing them away after just one big mistake.  After the game is over don't be afraid to use the take back feature to help analyse the game, go to a position where other possible moves were interesting to you.  In the endgame take back your last big mistake and try to play on... you may find out that the computer had an advantage for many moves (and you'll have learned how to better evaluate that kind of position).  Or just have chessmaster analyse the game, it has that feature.

A Dan Heisman quote goes: "You improve when you 1) learn a new pattern or principle or 2) when you identify a mistake and are able to avoid repeating it - not when you win a bunch of games."

And it sounds like you are learning a lot, so maybe some online games will help you see the results.

Poidokoff: : End game puzzles are hard for me most part because i have yet to realize the basic rules of the end game, for example king-king relationship and how to protect the pawn and how to avoid stalemates, how to use different assets with your active king and most importantly realizing that it really does change the outcome if you move your 3 remaining pieces with different order. Now writing these i obviously show i know some of these things but knowing the rule doesnt mean you can successfully execute your play with it. So the puzzles are hard but yes there are easier ones and i will spend time doing those for now and move to harder when the basics are settled to my frustrated head.
As for the Sillman´s book it seemed very interesting and i will most definately pick it up when my budget allows, i hope it will allow me to understand the basic concept of endgame better.

orangehonda: Thank you of your encouragement i will continue to lose to computer for a while and maybe start online game after a week or so :)
The take back thing doesnt work on ranked game (wich is fabulous in my opinion) but i can copy the PGN of the situation after analyzing (wich i allways do) and paste it to learning mode to try out different variations.
That said im fairly certain my mistakes are the ones that cost me the game becouse my the increase/drop in game chart in that move is usually hundreds to to wrong direction :)

I will probaply paste one pgn game here for you people to see for yourself when suitable one comes around. and yes it will most propably be brutal loss :)

I understand. I think Silman's book (or a similar tome) is just what you need. He explains things pretty thoroughly and will probably provide you with the insights you seek. :)

Welcome to chess.com TweetyLeaf. I'm just a noob when it comes to a chess but I'd like to suggest you to play some correspondence chess with long time controls. That will teach you a lot. Just take your time, stare at those squares for days. At opening phase search internet for best book lines and principles behind them. Later on search for different candidate moves and try to refute them as your opponent would.

There are many good videos on youtube about basic principles and different openings. jrobichess has perhaps best quality chess videos on youtube. I have been reading Silman's Complete Endgame Course lately and I think it's one of those books you must read when studying the game. Studying end games will teach you a lot of how to coordinate your pieces together. Anyway I personally don't think that endgame is first thing to study. Just try to gather some overall knowledge in chess while you are playing those correspondence games and occasionally blitz games.

And remember that not many of us is able to beat computer :)

I believe that Silman's Amateur's mind or How to reassess your chess would be something to read merely than endgame books.

I happen to have the whole trio in my bookshelf and can warmly recommend them to everyone. TweetyLeaf asked about endgames in particular, hence my book recommendation. Indeed, the first chapter of of "how to reassess your chess" is actually about endgames, but my first recommendation goes deeper than that.  But you are right, they're all good books and make for good reading if you're trying to get ahead in the game.

Yep, all of them are great books. As I have heard. ;)

I was just like you about 6 months ago. There's a fairly simple way to avoid making stupid mistakes: study tactics and play a lot. I feel that studying endgames at your level is almost useless, because they're so easy to solve during the match, no hard to find key moves or ideas. Just analyze the endgames in your own games and you should be fine. But really, jsut play a lot. And no computers, they don't really help your tactics. Also, I recommend playing live chess instead of correspondence, experience has taught me that it's better for improving one's chess. 

Also, try chesstempo.com ( hope this is not considered advertising ).

You could also look over some master games ( Logical Chess by Chernev ) and read Dan Heisman's Novice Nooks, they offer advice for improving. 

I'll second that. Another nice source are exeterchessclub's studying materials.

I have finished reading the first Novice nook and will try to limit my reading speed to 1 per day to allow my head to get around the advices and not just speed it trough.
It was a good read and i like his writing style even tho the first article allready throws 8 move trading sequence at you :)

Tarrasch: About the end game and not learning it first i like to think it other way around. One single move matters most in end game this is true. Moving the pawn or the king in certain situations determines who wins. So to put it simply if i wont understand the basic moves that determine so much, then how im gonna be able to become a good player if i instantly learn to "waste" moves?
This thing is even clearer to me when i hear these things like "it is considered 0.25 pawns worth to have the opening move" and "in opening dont move 1 piece more than 1 time."

For me it seems the only logical way of learning chess effectively is to raise your every moves value as high as possible and go from there. After i learn and understand the end game and the moves required there i can use them in midgame and openings because i wont "waste" moves there. It simply makes me better player.
Its rather hard for me to explain what i mean exactly but i believe i "painted good enough picture".

But who am  i to argue about it, i started playing week ago.
I know there is different opinions about what players should learn first but my weakest area is endgame and until i get even somewhat comfy with it i wont be comfy with my game overall.