Bullet Points on Individual Chess Skills

In an effort to find our faults and improve our games why don't we list the core fundamentals of our games and duscuss them. We can learn things we didn't know from each other or point out problems in each others plans.

I'll go first.

Opening System: I don't have a broad opening system. I know and understand the first few moves of my few chosen openings and the reasons for them. I accept them as the best and then I play from there using what I believe to be the best moves given my current set of circumstances.

White: I always open with e4. I plan to play against the popular defenses against e4. I get into Spanish and Italian games alot and play against center counter, sicilian, and french defenses alot as well. I have noticed that not many people use caro-kann.

Black:

VS e4 - Sicilian, either classical, Najdorf, or Dragon, or wing it depending but always c6.

VS d4 - Nf6 either Nimzo or Queens Indian

VS C4 - Nf6 trying to transpose into Nimzo or Queens Indian like defense.

VS NF3 - Nf6 trying to play the lines of the Niumzo or Queens Indian. Sometimes I answer with d5 to block the center depending on the player.

VS all others I wing it making it up as I go along depending on the situation and what I think is best.

Middle Game:

1. Strategy: to achieve positional advantage of a safe king and a controlled center while throwing my opponents pieces into disarray. I then fight for a material advantage and try to trade down to an end game where I can promote a pawn get a queen and win.

2. Alternate Strategy: If during the process I can achieve a solid checkmate via tactics and deception I will divert from my overall strategy listed above and pursue that new objective oppourtunistically. If the possibility of a decisive blow in the middle game exists then I play for the position to do that as opposed to material and will go for the throat. It is better to be in a position to win than ahead in material in this situation as the overall strategy for the game has changed.

Tactics: Fork, Pin, Skewers, Discovery, Deflection, Decoy, Windmill, In between moves, X-Rays.

Principles:

1. Keep King safe.

2. Control the center.

3. Find open files for Rooks.

4. Maintain good pawn structure to make it to the end game alive with hope of promoting.

5. Create and control open diagonals.

6. Post pieces in the enemy camp to destroy their range of motion. Anchor them with a pawn if at all possible.

7. If there is no immediate clear objective in site other than the overall strategy of the game as listed above, Place pieces where they are defended yet control the most squares and cause the most problems for enemy movement. This usualy results in having pieces well positioned when a decisive tactical oppourtunity arises.

8. Before each move: Look for check oppourtunities that allow for piece killing and potential game wins or losses. Look at each candidate move. Find the one that you feel is best and see if it will cause any disaster, see if you can anticipate the opponents next move, bet your hand and then pull the trigger and see what happens. I find that the opponents move is only obvious some of the time. Many times it's virtually impossible to tell what they will do so I just play the position each turn and don't build elaborate plans on calculating opponents moves that rarely happen the way I plan them.

9. Bishops are better than knights in open games. Knights are better than bishops in closed games.

10. Rooks are game winners most of the time because they can control whole files and get doubled on the 7th rank. With a queen roaming around and two rooks on the 7th rank you are virtually guaranteed decisive power. 

End Game: Try to get a material advantage and promote a pawn to a queen to win. My principle here is to not self destruct and kill my game. I use the king as a weapon in the end game.

98% of all of my losses come from shear blunders like hanging a piece or missing a tactic or a checkmate (either for or against). I am the unchallenged king of self destruction. I don't know how to fix this. I wish someone would tell me.

So, that's all I can really think of now and that being said I hope that some higher rated player will give me some constructive criticism and some lower rated player will find something helpful here. Maybe we can use this thread to improve.

Tell us about your game.

Who's next?

There so much stuff I wouldn't really know how to organize it to present it... Honestly what you read in books makes a good list, things about development, space, pawn structure etc.  A lot of it you mentioned in your post.

I think many player's "core fundamentals" will be the same... still it's hard for me to generalize because there are exceptions to things.

What is it that makes you so much better than me? I know that I would never win against you. What are the keys for me to be able to play like you do?

I mean are there certain key steps or breakthrough wow moments you had that improved your game to the expert level?

Currently my focus is on learning how pawn structure dictates planning for the middle game. 

I always play 1.e4 but am learning the white side of some d4 openings as I intend to start playing d4 at least occasionally.

After 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 I prefer to play a Ruy Lopez, altough I have toyed with the idea of learning the Italian Game as well because again, i'd like to mix it up from time to time.

Additionally, I have begun to study the Scotch a little bit as I run into players who'll respond to 1. e4 with 1...Nc6.  So typically play continues 2. d4 e5 with the opponent wanting me to play 3. d5.  Instead I play 3. Nf3 and head into a Scotch Game.

As for playing Black...historically I play the Najdorf or the KID.  However, for the past few days I have been learning the Orthodox lines in the QGD with an eye towards learning a double d pawn structure.

I've also toyed with the idea of learning Black side of the French Defense since as White I typically play the Tarrasch, and even though I have a good record against it I always feel that I get a slightly worse postition.  I feel that learning the Black side of the French would help me play it better on the White side as well as teaching me yet another common pawn structure.

Lately any endgame studying has been king and pawn endings.  I really need to master them so I can form the correct basis for learning other endings.

As for tactics, I spend perhaps 2-3 hours per week either reading tactics books or using the tactics trainer here or chesstempo.com

You're so flattering, I feel like a world beater :D ... the truth is though I'm rated ~1770 USCF and although I hope I'm on the way up, I'm currently far from expert ;)

First off, if we had met when I had been playing about a year, you would likely beat me every time.  So the biggest difference is experience.  I have read a few books and have lost many thousands of games.

Ok, wow moments, surely I can remember a few of those... hmm.

A lot of them have to do with how much I'm willing to outright ignore, or just "let it be" on the board   But it's hard to relate that in a useful way to someone when it's my experience or board vision telling me I'm able to ignore something.  Related is the skill that tells players certain benefits of moves that aren't directly threatening a capture.  Beginners aren't dumb for "see a check, give a check" mentality.  All moves are equally plausible if you've just learned the rules, and so direct threats like check are the only way beginners have to value one move over another... and as we learn more the more benefits we're able to recognize.

But anyway I'll try to relate a few :)

An early one was when I realized if a pawn threatens a pawn I should be aware of 4 possibilities (instead of assuming a capture or re-capture like many beginners do).  I can capture, advance, protect, or... ignore!  It's useful to ignore any kind of threat if you notice that you'll be fine if you allow the "threat" to happen.

Sometime later I tried to ask myself before the final decision on the move  "do I like this move no matter what my opponent does."  They may totally ignore it, or they may try to punish it directly, but in at least those two cases, I had to be OK with the move.  This included checking all possible captures and checks (direct punishment) as well as if they just improved a piece on the other side of the board (ignoring).

Similarly after my opponent moved I would first ask "can I directly punish that move?" and then "can I totally ignore that move and continue with something I want"

Sometimes I would still get confused and one day I found it helped when I asked myself "what's the threat"  This sounds really simple, but many times us amateurs get caught up in an idea that's really attractive... something that would definitely be the solution to a tactic problem like giving our opponent a double check, (or maybe just capturing a "free" pawn) and yet the variations aren't working for us. 

Instead of playing it anyway because it looks cool or threatening, I would bring myself back down to earth by asking what is the minimum I have to be prepared for from my opponent... Basically by reminding yourself that you can afford to play many moves, you're able to consider all your options.  In this case you're ignoring your own threat (looks cool, but you don't see that it helps you).

This also helps you be patient when you have the opponent all tied up, but no direct win.  Instead of getting flustered about how "great" your position is and yet there's not mate, simply realize they have no threat and be content to keep improving pieces... "turning the screws" they call it :)

Anyway hope there was something in there that was useful to you.

Hmm, to sum it up, I'd say learning to notice a threat (your own or your opponents), but at the same time be willing to "ignore" it (not let it dictate or even force your next move) helps you use what you do know about chess more fully or at least helps eliminate bias in the decision making thought process.

Pattern recognition and experience are key to improvement. If there were a secret that the higher level players had just stumbled upon, everyone would be strong. 

I'm willing to bet that waffle has put more time into chess than you and I combined. Albeit he may have excellent advice, we won't truly be able to understand it like he does, simply because the principles he knows were beaten into him (through experiences, losses, analysis, etc). 

The best thing you can do for yourself right now, if you truly want to improve, is to create a solid and consistent study plan that focuses on improving your largest weaknesses, as well as strengthening your tactical vision. And play several games, too!

For example, studying master games an hour a day followed by tactics training on this or some other site, every day, would inevitably raise your rating. However, when I began, I found studying modern master games impossible, and classic masters... well... near impossible. First, you may want to begin with heavily annotated master games, for example, by the likes of Chernev. His "Logical Chess Move by Move" did wonders for my analytical skills, and opened the door for future studies.

you didn't face a real pro -only caro cann players are real pro's

http://chessthinkingsystems.blogspot.com

players of the pasts chess styles/systems

i probably have the tal style thinking system as most people are probably taught that.

 Thanks! I'll focus on that area and try to discipline myself.

 Playing e4 I've noticed that rarely does anyone answer with the caro-kahn. I've tried to prepare for it but just noticed much to my surprise that it is rarely used against me. Maybe that means other e4 players rarely face it as well and I should add it to my black arsenal?

Currently I play the sicilian and everyone is quite familiar with it

 Great site! Added to the favorites. I haven't read a collection of thinking systems before.