I think I know now why I don’t progress in chess

There are two main reasons. On the one hand I just hate to review my games. Everything that I need to improve in chess is in the lost games, but I just don’t want to go through the painful task of looking how I just blundered in a winning, equal, or lost position. (I know, some of you will begin to advise me that losing is part of the game and so on, yes, sure, and I know that it is ridiculous to not be able to look at these losses, but I am sure that I am not the only one).

Okay, I often review my winning games, and there is also a lot of blunders and inaccuracies to learn from. But nevertheless…

The second reason is not to be consistent in training. I am training daily since years without missing a single day, mostly tactics and openings, but I often changed my openings with black (and to a lesser extent with white). This means that I was walking in circles instead of going forward.

In the last time I tried to keep at one opening system, but the thing with not reviewing my lost games is still there.

#1
Analyse your lost games.

Too painful, no way 😊

My opinion is that below master level there will not be that big a difference in the number of errors in a won or lost game.

So if you prefer analyzing the won games and you are a class player, certainly better than no analysis at all.

#3
No pain, no gain...

Yes, any analysis is better than nothing, I agree. Perhaps it would be useful to go at least through the opening phase in the lost games, skipping the painful  middlegame and endgame full of blunders from both players.

There is atleast one mistake you tend to do over and over again which results is losing position. If you don't analyze your losses you will find out what that mistake is only after you lose a tons of games and maybe not even then. But if you get yourself together and analyze your lost games even if you don't like to do that, you will find not just one mistake but few more and be able to correct yourself. Your game will be improved and you won't lose ever again because of the same mistake. You have to accept that we humans are not perfect, everyone makes mistake and losing is part of the game.

If you do not wish to analyse your games FROM START TO END, no problem at all.

Just keep completing these useless chessable dot com badges, and studying openings which you will never use (and master of course, this is impossible without analysing), and your rating will skyrocket from 1203 to 1204.

my highest rating here (on just this account and ive had others where i got over 2400) is 2256. That means Im a GM. 

 

Or an ephemeral troll. Whatever comes second.

Well, collecting badges is probably better than to paying an IM to make you improve some hundred rating points, turning a really weak player to a mediocre player. 

i remember years ago when computer analysis was just becoming a thing, I won an otb game that I was sure was the perfect game of the century.

I fed it into my comp at home for a quick analysis…..and by the time it was done I was left wondering how I managed to squeeze out a win from such an error riddled mess, where I apparently made more mistakes than my opponent.

If you aren’t a master and your ego is preventing you from analyzing losses…. then just analyze the wins. I assure you there will be plenty of errors to find!

I too am lazy to review my games coz i think i get improved faster by sparring with stronger opponents (mostly engines) and memorizing their moves

 

You don't need to pay any IM to become a good player.

You just have to work hard on the game, and analysing your games is the most important thing of all.

If you don't do that, then you are either stubborn, or lazy. In any case, you won't improve.

everybody works hard. IM status is a matter of luck. The luckiest hard worker wins the IM title. 

I guess I will once stand up in the morning and say „from now on I will only play long games and analyse everything“. It is a matter of discipline and organization. And I don’t have to play every day, but perhaps 3 times in the week.

Are you stupid?

So long as you keep taking your losses as personal insults and not opportunities to learn to improve your craft, you will not get far. 

Actually, i didnt get into analyzing my own games until i was around 1600-1800, so i dont even think its strictly necessary for quite some time. You can get by on chess osmosis and being exposed to a lot of games but its not as efficient.

I am better in analysing my tennis games, as in every match I am able to relieve the tension by running.  And in tennis is not about making one decisive mistake, but it is more about the right strategy during the match and stay focus on the big points. In chess you have to stay always focus, it is an incredible hard game, also  from a psychological point of view. 

In chess is it difficult to keep relaxed after losing a game. You are right, probably I am taking the losses to personally. I admire strong players playing online, losing a game and keeping absolutely cool, as it would be somebody else how lost the games. 

Yeah, I know how that is.

For a long time I didn't want to look at my tournament games with an engine, because I felt like if I couldn't find the right move in 3, 4, 5 hour game, then it meant I was not good enough to find it, so having an engine tell me my mistakes is just insulting.

What you can do though is go over the game by yourself. Your goal is to mark every moment where the evaluation changes from equal to either white or black is ahead or white / black is winning.

So for example, maybe on move 25 of the game you knew your position was worse. Ok. Now take back one move at a time to try to find the moment it happened. Was your position worse on move 24? 23? On each position calculate some on your own, and then move the pieces to explore variations.

Write down anything interesting you discover. It could be a tactic or idea. It could be a thought process you wish you'd used during the game, or wish you hadn't used. It could be notes to yourself about correct or incorrect ideas during the game, and what you'll do differently next time.

This sort of thing is much more useful than having chess.com mark a few errors after a 30 second analysis.