Common Chess Mistakes

what would you say are the most common mistakes chess players make... specially while training.

ex:

• not saving their played games
• not analyzing their games
• not having an organized/established repertoire
• constantly switching openings...

I'm guilty of all of them.

But let me explain

• Chess.com saves most of my games, and unless I've totally lost due to some inexplicable strategic reason, then I'd definitely review them, but most of my losses are losing a minor piece or one-move-fatal-mistakes.
• See above
• I don't know how?! There are no guidelines for this. I just play some openings I like, and not sure how to study them other then looking at "popular moves" on game explorer.
• A few months ago I switched from Queen's Gambit to Italian Game. It's allowed me to play better I think. I realized later on that QG was making things very slow and untactical, leading to more losses because my strategic thinking is not that great I suppose.

But I think more common than any of these, mistakes, are the following:

• Not enough tactics training, calculation is a muscle, you got to keep training it.
• Not thinking of opponent's best response, just guessing that the opponent will make this one move in response is not good enough.
• Premature attack. Sometimes it's better to sit back.
• Leaving too many pieces hanging.

eXecute, and Fiveofswords... good points and thanks for that feedback... i appreciate it, i am trying to hear more of these mistakes we make, specially while training :)

My biggest mistake, for 30 years, is that I constantly forget that my opponent gets to move too, and that he might actually have a decent plan.

I guess I'll have this affliction till I die :(

rooperi and JimSardonic, thanks :)

This is something that I also desperately need to fix.

if you guys haven't seen that video of the girl playing a chess championship thanks to her boyfriend where in the final game she plays like shes playing checkers (jumping over the pieces) he-he ... well its a must, your comments remind me of this :D

Love it

THAT - is one funny video...

Five- your opening decisions seem high-level. average memory what a disease yes?! 

there are good books out there with what youve chosen, if you need suggestions let me know.

For myself, the one area of study that would improve my game greatly would be to find another player with whom to review my games.  Often two people looking at the same game can arrive at insight that neither can arrive at together.  Also there is something to be said for being able to defend the reasons why you make a move that you do.

I'm too lazy to analyze my games, I don't study the book on all of the responses to e4.

You seem to be on to something with that. There is an old rule that says just that- every move on the chess board needs to have a porpose\reason it's one of those hard-to-follow basics that we all struggle with.

theres a training method inolving layering analysis to the games. you start off analyzing from scratch, hand it off to a friend, then to the computer, then to a coach/gm.

Sadly I can't afford a coach nor gm so I started posting my annotated games on my blog in hopes for input from wise people (read good players).I hope it will take off some day ^^. Might be a good idea for others like me (poor ppl) above in the thread.

Back to the original question though:

I think alot of people simply ignore their weaknesses instead of working on them. People are bad at certain areas for a reason. I doubt anyone that loves the endgame will be a bad endgame player because he will read up on it. On the other hand people bad at endgames mostly (my guess) find endgame positions boring.

People that constantly get smashed because they fail to foresee the opponents moves probably do that because they simply hate to concentrate on what the opponent is doing. They find that boring, so they don't give any energy to it when playing.

Others constantly lose right out of the opening but refuse to start building up a repetoire, instead they try to take short cuts with "win with this bla bla system books, easy for the lazy". But this backfires once they start meeting people that prepare against them and abuse that one single line that the "system" book doesn't cover.

thanks Manny :) - your site is looking sharp!

about the not analyzing our games thing:I'd like to talk about this in depth.I'm in the bad habit of not analyzing my games and just playing.is there some kind of method of how to analyze your games?like...do you only analyze losses?is it not heartbreaking when you think you had a perfect win but suddenly realize,after an analysis,that your opponent made less than stellar moves?are there specific mistakes you look for in your games?is it preferable to have a coach analyze your games or computer?

1. e4

(ok, just kidding)
My most common mistake is playing too quickly. I often don't take the time to analyze the board as well as I should.

Playing too rapidly and without much analysis are definately problems of mine.  And as a novice I find myself playing too many games at one time which reinforces these common habits.