Well, I took a quick look at your game and here's my analysis on it. I'm not sure if my analysis is accurate or not though.
It seems like the reasons you lost in the first game and the fourth game are due to a combination of pawn weaknesses and some tactical mistakes at some point like in the fourth game where you gained the initiative and played 32... Qh4 which allowed Qxf5+. Pawn weaknesses, although not always bad, requires you to know how to play with them and seek active counterplay.
I don't understand what strong players "see" during a game that weaker players don't "see". I am starting to think it is whole just memorization or accurate calculation. Understanding positional themes and tactical ideas is foundation. but during an actual game, they are probably just calculating variations based upon those foundation ideas. do you agree?
No. It is a common misperception that masters see ahead farther than non-masters, and that is why they win. More often, though, the moves are more based on positional considerations.
Lack of positional considerations is very evident in your first game...
2. Nf3 - Theoretically OK, but usually you want to get a pawn duo first via 2. e4.
3. c4?! - Allows Black to double your f-pawns. That's partly why e4 was important: it would have covered your knight with your queen to prevent doubled pawns.
4. f4 - Blocks your QB, which then has to move to e3, which is blocked in on three sides by pawns. Aim at eventually trading bishops at g7 via Bh6 after Qd2, which is a clue not to block that diagonal.
9. g4?! - Attacking before castling. It is almost always unsound to attack if your own position is not solid first.
16. fxg6 - Allows ...dxe3, which leaves you with a "sickly" pawn (as Chernev calls it) at e3, isolated and unadvanced.
That should be a start to show you how frequently you are making small positional mistakes, which collectively add up to a poor position.
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(p. 2)
What Is a Mistake?
"Where did I make my mistake?" asked the loser, an Australian
master. "I don't know what to say," said the winner, a Russian
grandmaster. There wasn't one move you could pin the blame on.
Yet by the 14th move White was already in grave trouble.
Hanks-Kotov, Melbourne 1963--1. P-Q4 P-Q3 2. P-K4 P-KN3
3. N-QB3 B-N2 4. B-K2 N-QB3 5. B-K3 N-B3 6. P-Q5 N-QN1
7. N-B3 P-B4 8. P-KR3 O-O 9. N-Q2 N-K1 10. O-O N-B2 11.
P-QR4 QN-R3 12. P-B4 N-N5 13. N-B4 P-B4! 14. P-K5 P-N3!
(p. 3)
None of these moves seems fatal. Yet added up, they destroyed
White before the second cup of coffee. Nor was Black free from
error. With 7.... P-B3! he could have begun the attack on the
White center even earlier.
We can recognize the truly bad moves when they are pun-
ished quickly. It is the other 98 percent of a chess game that leaves
us confused.
A typical move has good and bad qualities. On the simplest
level, a move--any move--attacks and protects certain squares
while withdrawing contact from others. A move may strengthen
our pawn structure, expand the scope of our bishops, and make a
major threat, all at once. But whether the move is good or bad
depends on an evaluation of its minuses as well as its pluses. That
same move may walk into a tactical pin. It may remove a piece
from a theater subject to immiment attack. It may reduce tension
when you want to heighten it. Or its biggest fault may simply be
that there is a superior move available.
Soltis, Andrew. 1979. Catalog of Chess Mistakes. New York: David McKay Company, Inc.
thanks for the advice fellas
In my games, something will just 'look wrong ' or 'look slow '. After countless games and watching GMs play as well as losing countless games to bad pieces, you start to notice these things
I don't understand what strong players "see" during a game that weaker players don't "see". I am starting to think it is whole just memorization or accurate calculation. Understanding positional themes and tactical ideas is foundation. but during an actual game, they are probably just calculating variations based upon those foundation ideas. do you agree?
Here are some of my games below. Could you suggest how I can get better. I played in a live over the board rated event last weekend and I got clobbered.
can you help me explain why i lost
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Thanks