How Do You Stop Hanging Pieces?

Tony, I agree with you about the importance of learning by osmosis. However, it's easier for young players : for adult players, a conscious thinking process and blundercheck procedure may help till you've garnered enough experience to "see things" on the chessboard...

Younger players and experience.... Hmmmm... While I agree that a lot of grown ups become rather stubborn as time goes by, I propose to you that this is in fact a matter of 'know thy self'.
If you choose to believe that older mutts (being "old" at age 30-40-50, I mean c'mon...) are incapable of learning new tricks, I'll bet this prophecy WILL come true for you.

The difference between a childs mind and that of an adult is that the child simply doesn't care a whole lot about outer factors. They mostly just wanna be kids and enjoy the game, whine a little when they lose and voila, next game is a foot whereas the adult will be likely to punish himself for hours on end over minor details. It's your responsibility, after all, it's your life.

Even GM's hang pieces. You know why? Because we're not computers. Isn't that delightful in itself?

That's simply hopeful thinking. Children learn and absorb chess in a completely different way than the adults do, it's not only about the approach, it's about how the brain is structured. That's why we have juniors who jump to titles in just a few years, but we never have adults who can do the same.

I think tonydal does what he does all the time: frowns upon any kind of elaboration on any subject. You want to learn chess? play chess. simple. sounds nice, but it's wrong.

I think I am getting better at walking, because I haven't 'thumped my tootsie' in a while.

The better you get the more you have to spend playing/learning chess to keep up.

Loose pieces lead to tactics. You're only improving if you are learning from your mistakes, so analyse them and don't repeat them anymore.

This topic interests me greatly, as in faster time controls, I find that I'm notorious for dropping material as a result of simple oversights.  OTB slow time I don't have these problems, but getting into time pressure or blitz, it's difficult to do all these checks, as was mentioned 'flooding'.

I think the one I'm most prone to is when it's my move, and I move a piece that was guarding another piece...then guarded piece is left hanging.

I'm trying to figure out a way to train my board sight as a drill exersizes that I can practice outside of playing games to try and minimize such blunders, I find tactics problems aren't doing this for me. 

A big thanks for taking the time to make those two diagrams.

I must admit that I still struggle with the concept of weak squares. Are empty squares most weak when they are not defended by a pawn? Is that what makes them weak? A piece can defend that square, but then it is tied down to that square and can't attack the enemy king. Pawn structure must be everything in chess.

Example: I play 1.d4 often, and find Black's knight placed on e4 too many times! How does one stop Black's knight!!

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I wish we were all on the same time zone, since I must go to work and chess.com and all other game sites are blocked at work. So I won't be able to post until 4pm PST. While I am typing this at 8:30 am, it is 2:30 pm in England.

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Everyone who has posted has been extremely kind and helpful. I look forward to posting some more about counting, calculating, weak squares, pattern recognition and experience (tonydal ) when I get back.

Experience always helps.

If it will make you feel any better, I hang peices in turn based. I got distracted a couple hours ago, and hung my damn queen. After I resigned from that game I hung a bishop in another one.

Did you notice the subtle difference there? I mean the dichotomy of optimistic vs. pessimistic viewpoint? How's that helping you out you think? You think kids in general do that?

I'm not really sure you got the essence of my post here. Do you disagree with the whole difference between kids and adults thing or what is it exactly? Grudge much?

"I think tonydal does what he does all the time: frowns upon any kind of elaboration on any subject. You want to learn chess? play chess. simple. sounds nice, but it's wrong."

But I didn't hear Tonydal say that, what I heard was: "if you want to stop blundering you need to 'get better' -- which is an amorphous and many-headed problem. -- there's no simple cure." 

That view is really what I was trying to say (in my muddy, one-assumption-too-many way)  when I berated musikamole for playing lots of blitz against weak opponents -- that isn't going to make him better, and IMO the way to blunder less is to play better chess. He needs to push himself to grow and not only will blundering decrease, but good things will show up in their place. 

I should add that I have been a blunderprone chess player all my life -- I've known about this problem a long time and had been unable to solve it. But I've found that as I've been studying very hard the past two years my blunderprone problem has improved. I haven't worked on it, I haven't incorporated 'blunderchecks' into my thinking in any deliberate way... I've simply gotten better at chess... a big part of that better is that I am much more conscious of my opponents pieces and plans and of the total chess board than I used to be... you can't just mandate that awareness, you have to grow into it IMO.  That's not the same as saying "just play chess" -- it's saying: study, learn, keep at it, work... the blunders will decrease.

Great question, great answers. Thanks.

Yes, that sounds right too... Before seeing anything, you have to actually look at the board. Obvious, but who can boast to do it on each and every move ?

It echoes a recommendation by the very nice and talented GM Matthew Sadler. When asked how to play better chess, he simply answered that chess is a lot about focusing at the board and trying hard to find a good move. A modest answer, from a great player

Did I mention cheating?

I think I had blocked you when you were calling some people "egg heads" in some  discussion, I don't remember which one. I don't like the way you dismiss thoughts very easily because "they are trying to sound complicated". Well, sometimes things really are very complicated. Chess training is one of those, I think. Of course, you have the master title and I don't, so I understand we're not really on equal terms in this discussion. Anyways, that's a respectable perspective on life, I just don't agree with it.

For example, I don't think one can improve just by playing, unless some other factors are present, like, he has some special talent, or a good sparring partner, or a coach etc. It seems to me you're ignoring that chess has many components which needs to be worked on independently from its other components and game practice. Consciously trying to develop a thinking regime for every move is one of the things most players needs to work on. It's not enough to just improve as you play. You need specified work to improve. Well, maybe some don't, but many do. I 100% surely know I very desparetely do need to improve on that area.

You were told several times that the solution is to practice your tactics. Solve thousands of tactical puzzles under strict time conditions until you are able to see that a piece is hanging in a fraction of a second.

I rarely hang pieces in my bullet games.

blunder-checking seems like proofreading your own work.  it is harder to catch your own mistakes.  if you overlooked something once, odds are you you will overlook it again. 

I like this

(or when you notice you could have forced mate but missed the opportunity)

I just played a blitz game where I had mate in one but due to attack on the queen didn't see it. Fortunately my opponent obliged me by allowing the same weakness to appear a few moves later.

On one of my last games my oponent just hanged a knight. He is an over 1800 turn based player and the game had a time control of 10 days!!

Even great players hang sometimes. Take a look on a game of Tigran Petrosian: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1033916

In the 36th move he ignores his queen is en prise. Yes, Petrosian hanged the queen!

An advice: this usually happens when we are too foccused in some idea of the game and forget all the rest. Tigran had a great attack in this game and, foccused in it, he didn't see the threat of the knight against his queen.

The simplest solution is to drink scotch or bourbon while you play.  On the rocks or neat, whatever you prefer.  Simply holding that delightful glass in one hand will cut down on your hung pieces by 50% in one week, guaranteed.  

Not only does it allow better focus and the feeling of having a chess piece in your hand (a wonderfully tasty one with toasty notes and a bit of a bite), you'll find yourself naturally admiring each of your pieces on the board as you sip and asking yourself "Can he take that one?  No.  Can he take this one?  Oh my! I'd better take a sip and think some more."