Maybe pay more attention to tactical motifs for both sides? You were probably too excited about queening your pawn. But you should have noticed other factors when studying the position:
- Black's rook is stuck on h8,the king is exposed on f8 so you have a serious lead in development, which should be exploited
- Black's queen is nicely placed in the centre, potentially threatening both the rook on a7 and the king (via b6 and f2)
- Black has to do something quick. Can he/she do some crazy stuff, like sac a bishop on g2 and give a perpetual? As the answer is no, then what else? Play g6 and Kg7 to connect rooks? That's two tempi. What can you do to mitigate this plan? And so on.
Don't forget to study the position carefully (if you have enough time) and consider all the main factors.
I’d like to post a perfect example of “Hope Chess” and of why I’m only rated 1389 USCF and not closer to 1700.
Nice. The second I did not consider my opponent's checks, captures, and threats before playing a move and it's move 27.
So my question is this: Are there any players out there who have successfully broken the bad habits of their thinking process and eventually broken into the 1800 rating range? What advice would you give to help train the thought process to stop making moves like 27. b7? Seriously, every game I lost in my last OTB tournament was like this in a winning position (maybe not so extreme). I have read Your Best Move by Per Ostman and I'm trying to implement his "process" to the best of my ability but it takes a lot of real practice - not just solving problems - to get rid of these bad habits. Any advice or suggestions would be great. Thanks in advance - and don't laugh to hard at that game!