kindaspoingy: yes, you're quite right; Reinfeld's openings explanations are inadequate for higher level play; BUT; we're writing and trying to give help to a beginner. Beginners have to start somewhere and Reinfeld is a good starting point; he wrote aiming at beginners. Almost no one provides any decent openings explanation; everyone explains by showing multiple lines. Bobby Fischer said the Rueben Fine's book; "Ideas in the Chess Openings", or very similar title forgive me if I've not recalled it precisely; Fine's book helped him immensely. Ok. I've got a copy; I read it; hardly helped at all; he gives a lot of lines to memorize but not a lot of answers as to why. Why does the bishop belong on f4 vs g5? What's the long term plan? Roman Dzindzichashvili in his videos gives explanations of why pieces in various openings belong on certain squares, and that's very helpful. Even so you've still got to memorize a lot of lines; often invert the move order and you get in trouble. Too advanced to recommend to beginners. Beginners need to know to get the pieces out; castle usually kingside 'cause it's faster; castle early. Beginners need to learn to count to see who controls a square and when a piece is adequately defended or not. They need to learn about tactics, removing the defender, pins; skewers, discovered checks and on and on. And in tactics books, solutions often stop at winning the exchange. Great, you won the exchange; it's then assumed your material advantage will win the game. Yes, IF YOU'VE got the correct technique! One of my recent tournament games my opponent, solid C class player; with a CAT 2 title; hung a piece ... about move 8. So I'm up a knight. Took 25 more moves to win. Suppose you're down a knight, or bishop: ok; let's fight for a draw; if I can take all your pawns and trade down; I'll leave you with a bishop (or knight) and king vs my king; and DRAW! Bottom line; one doesn't teach first graders calculus, they get to learn addition and subtraction. best regards,
Losing to level 2 as a beginner -
So :
5.Qd2: pointless/clumsy
7.g4: neglects development
11.Nb5: not good, only works if he plays as per the game, otherwise it’s a waste of time
14.Qc3: allows him to protect c7!!
20.Be2: the less said about that the better lol, you were still completely winning with any sensible move.
One of those that got away
You forgot to mention 18. o-o-o which solves the "root of all the checkmate evil".
kindaspoingy: yes, you're quite right; Reinfeld's openings explanations are inadequate for higher level play; ...
Not what I wrote.
... BUT; we're writing and trying to give help to a beginner. Beginners have to start somewhere and Reinfeld is a good starting point; he wrote aiming at beginners. Almost no one provides any decent openings explanation; everyone explains by showing multiple lines. ... one doesn't teach first graders calculus, they get to learn addition and subtraction. ...
I agree with the last sentence, but I do not think that Reinfeld was very good for writing a general opening introduction for beginners. I think that the modern book, Discovering Chess Openings, is much better for beginner opening reading. Of course, openings are just a small part of the Reinfeld subject matter in The Complete Chess Course, thus still leaving potential for a lot of helpful beginner reading.
Certainly extreme amounts on info in the thread yes. Will take a long time, if I ever get through it all, including links etc.
On a more practical note I just enabled pre moves. I have lost multiple games where it seemed they would be draws, if I didn't take me multiple seconds to move each time with mouse pad. Kind of a meaningsless way to lose.
obviously so badly played that the data could be used in concussion research. what interests me though is that a 740 player forked me and then continued his attack so effectively. Usually 750 players seem much worse to me than 850, so I just attempted to mate him in 4 moves.
Of course 8. d3 was horrible. but you missed 8. Bxf7+, followed by nabbing his knight and ending his attack!
It seemed I had a good opportunity to attack after his castling. But 1) I missed his knight guarding A7, and 2) he wanted to trade. It seemed to me like his defensive trading sucked the life out of chess and I didnt care at that point because I couldnt do a good attack. Not constructive approach obviously. Is there something simple i missed, another way to attack than trying to get Bishop and Queen ready?
I am guessing that you meant that you missed that the knight on f3 was guarding h2. That is the sort of thing that one gets to know well after playing for a while. Notice that it wasn't until 13...Nf6 that you were ready to castle, but, by then, it was too late.
[1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Bb4 3 Qf3 Qf6 4 Qb3 Na6 5 Nc3 Bxc3 6 bxc3 Nc5 7 Qb4 Nxe4 8 d3 Qxf2+ 9 Kd1 Qf1#] ... I just attempted to mate him in 4 moves.
You now seem to be making somewhat more of an effort to use your bishops, but there still seems to be a tendency to try to attack while your army is mostly at home. Notice that you were never ready to castle. Are you playing slow games?
obviously so badly played that the data could be used in concussion research. what interests me though is that a 740 player forked me and then continued his attack so effectively. Usually 750 players seem much worse to me than 850, so I just attempted to mate him in 4 moves.
Assume all opponents are GMs and play the best game you can against them all. Notably 2. Bc4 is breaking some important fundamentals of opening strategy: knights before bishops.
As with all things, there are exceptions to the rules. Until you know why the rules are there, however, it's best to follow them. Breaking fundamental chess discipline should be done purposefully.
1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 is somewhat respectable. 2...Bb4 3 Qf3 is considerably less so. There is a famous (Evans) attack that starts:
The idea is to lure the black bishop to b4 so that one can gain time attacking it with 5 c3. After 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Bb4, black has been kind enough to go to b4 without any white pawn sacrifice. My 1500-level lizard-brain instinct would be to react with an attempt at an Evans-style attack. Nf3 and O-O would be high on the agenda.
It seemed I had a good opportunity to attack after his castling. But 1) I missed his knight guarding A7, and 2) he wanted to trade. It seemed to me like his defensive trading sucked the life out of chess and I didnt care at that point because I couldnt do a good attack. Not constructive approach obviously. Is there something simple i missed, another way to attack than trying to get Bishop and Queen ready?
I once had this problem with Internet Explorer but the problem has since been resolved after my switch to Chrome.
And just a game that ended in a very different position. Most things went kinda well here as compared to my latest games.
You need to do tactics problems. There were plenty of 1 move tactis you could have taken advantage of.
I'm sure chess.com has thousands of tactical problems for the sub 1000 crowd.
I have a few questions to specific moves in my last game, where I play as white:
1) Move 3 for opponent: engine prefers Bishop to b4. I often see this, but don't see why its good. I can counter with simply a3 and he needs to withdraw or trade for pawn
2) My move 5 with knight. Engine says blunder, I can't see why?
3) My move 8 with knight. Engine says clear mistake and suggests bishop to f4. If I do this he can take my knight with pawn and I can retake with bishop and check. Again its difficult for me to see the clear advantage of the suggested move.
I have a few questions to specific moves in my last game, where I play as white:
1) Move 3 for opponent: engine prefers Bishop to b4. I often see this, but don't see why its good. I can counter with simply a3 and he needs to withdraw or trade for pawn
2) My move 5 with knight. Engine says blunder, I can't see why?
3) My move 8 with knight. Engine says clear mistake and suggests bishop to f4. If I do this he can take my knight with pawn and I can retake with bishop and check. Again its difficult for me to see the clear advantage of the suggested move.
1)1..Bxc3 2.bxc3 dxe4 isn't great for white.
... Fred Reinfeld's old book THE COMPLETE CHESS COURSE, ...
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5856bd64ff7c50433c3803db/t/5895fe49893fc0b0c9ddde67/1486224972320/completechesscoursexcerpt.pdf
I did not read that specific book, but I did read some of his work. At the time, I thought that it was mostly helpful. I did have an uncomfortable feeling when reading a Reinfeld attempt to briefly introduce a lot of openings.