My latest disaster. What did I do wrong? (I'm stupid!!!)
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IMBacon wrote:
I have a rule about chess books. I avoid any book that has any of the following in the title:
"Beat the..."
"Attack with..."
"Crush the..."
"Dominate with the..."
"Secrets of..."
Along with..."Agressive"..."Tactical"..."Hyper"..."How to..."
Perhaps the authors should have incorporated impuissant sounding words, Pillow fight with the London system, or The Petroff for Pansies or Play the Sicilian like a Mamas boy. What yah think?
mickynj wrote:
"Attacking with 1.e4" is a perfectly good repertoire book, but it's almost completely irrelevant to the OP's problems. Basic opening principles and elementary tactics are what was missing in that game. I don't say that to make fun of the OP, there's no disgrace in being an inexperienced player. What he needs is experience to develop better playing habits, not a repertoire book. A list of twenty books is almost never the answer to a chess player's problem
Agreed, the book was mentioned incidentally and i don’t think anyone is advocating it to solve the OP's problems.
mickynj wrote:
"Attacking with 1.e4" is a perfectly good repertoire book, but it's almost completely irrelevant to the OP's problems. Basic opening principles and elementary tactics are what was missing in that game. I don't say that to make fun of the OP, there's no disgrace in being an inexperienced player. What he needs is experience to develop better playing habits, not a repertoire book. A list of twenty books is almost never the answer to a chess player's problem
It does seem to me that a book like First Steps 1 e4 e5 (and/or Discovering Chess Openings) could help the reader to be aware of the merits of 4...Nf6 over 4...a6.
BobbyTalparov wrote:
The good news: your rating cannot go below 100. There is a hard cap at the low end to prevent it. So, it will never be 0.
In addition to opening principles, you are making a couple of mistakes every beginner makes (so do not feel bad - we all went through it).
1) You are not protecting your king. Leaving him in the center is dangerous, especially when you are behind in development and your opponent can open up the center to attack your king. Make moves that allow you to castle early to get your king protected.
2) You are trying to attack with only a couple pieces. Chess is a team game; get your whole army involved in an attack. This also means your position (e.g. development, the squares you control, the activity of your pieces, etc) must justify the attack, otherwise it can be refuted.
3) You are playing "hope chess". You are looking at lines and hoping your opponent will not find a way to punish the move you made instead of evaluating "what is his best move if I make the move I want to make?" If his best move refutes the move you want, you must discard it and find another move.
4) Pawn moves cannot be taken back, so when you push a pawn, you must make sure it improves your position. Pushing a pawn just because it attacks a piece that can easily move and still maintain the same scope but degrades your position (i.e. weakens key squares in your side of the board) is not good.
To address these problems: Practice tactics, Practice opening principles, and work on your thinking process (specifically, the safety check before you make a move).
Thank you, this is super helpful. I will work on it.
Check all checks, all captures all forcing/tempo moves, for you AND your opponent! even if they appear to be absurd. Envision the outcome and evaluate it. If you don't like it, go back again through the same process and find something that you do like. There are essentially four things you can do.
1.strengthen your own position
2. weaken your opponents position
3. liquidate your weaknesses
4. accentuate the weaknesses in you opponents position
Strong positions win chess games.
May 11, 2018
0
#27
DeirdreSkye wrote:
On move 12 you were a bishop and a rook down and you need us to tell you what you did wrong?We all have blundered like this but when we did we knew what we did wrong(well , at least most of us).
Don't expect to improve if you need others to tell you the simple and obvious.
Hey Deidre, he posted his game because I asked to to this, and I really I don't see any reason to be rude with him. If you think he is doing obvious mistakes, take a look at some of your games, I am sure you will find some too.
This is a forum where people share their experiences and help each other, and not to attack each other. Hey buddy,he is still a beginner and so doing the same mistakes as we all did at the beginning. So try to be kind and helpful or go somewhere else.
torrubirubi wrote:
DeirdreSkye wrote:
On move 12 you were a bishop and a rook down and you need us to tell you what you did wrong?We all have blundered like this but when we did we knew what we did wrong(well , at least most of us).
Don't expect to improve if you need others to tell you the simple and obvious.
Hey Deidre, he posted his game because I asked to to this, and I really I don't see any reason to be rude with him. If you think he is doing obvious mistakes, take a look at some of your games, I am sure you will find some too.
This is a forum where people share their experiences and help each other, and not to attack each other. Hey buddy,he is still a beginner and so doing the same mistakes as we all did at the beginning. So try to be kind and helpful or go somewhere else.
I much respect you (from ur posts), but I don't think DeirdreSkye had any intention to be rude. He was just genuine surprised that the op was asking for help identifying where the game went wrong.
In this game you lost, because you left your knight and rook undefended.
You will get a nice rating boost, if before making a move you try to see whether you don't have any undefended pieces under attack. Also spotting mates in one helps.
After that you'll get another rating boost, as you learn to spot one or two move piece winning combinations for both sides.
Opening principles are good, but I wouldn't worry about learning particular opening lines. With a blitz rating of 1600, I can admit that I have almost no knowledge of opening theory and beyond a few opening moves I just improvise.
In this position your opponent attacked f7 and you tried to defend with the bishop. This left the knight unprotected and also the rook and king under a fork. Instead Nh6 would have developed a piece (although not in an optimal way) while defending the threat.
FatBertha wrote:
... Opening principles are good, but I wouldn't worry about learning particular opening lines. ...
It seems to me that it could help formatallan to read about 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 5 c3 Nf6 in a book like First Steps 1 e4 e5
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7790.pdf
or Discovering Chess Openings.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
"... Review each of your games, identifying opening (and other) mistakes with the goal of not repeatedly making the same mistake. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2007)https://web.archive.org/web/20140627062646/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman81.pdf
formatallan wrote: "... I spent most of the game playing defense ..."
DeirdreSkye wrote:
On move 12 you were a bishop and a rook down and you need us to tell you what you did wrong?We all have blundered like this but when we did we knew what we did wrong(well , at least most of us).
Don't expect to improve if you need others to tell you the simple and obvious.
I am unable to say for sure, but my guess is that formatallan had the feeling that things had gone somewhat awry before 10...Be6, and it seems to me to be somewhat understandable if formatallan sought help with such details - the sort of help provided by robbie_1969 in #7, ~1 day ago.
May 11, 2018
0
#32
dk-Ltd wrote:
torrubirubi wrote:
DeirdreSkye wrote:
On move 12 you were a bishop and a rook down and you need us to tell you what you did wrong?We all have blundered like this but when we did we knew what we did wrong(well , at least most of us).
Don't expect to improve if you need others to tell you the simple and obvious.
Hey Deidre, he posted his game because I asked to to this, and I really I don't see any reason to be rude with him. If you think he is doing obvious mistakes, take a look at some of your games, I am sure you will find some too.
This is a forum where people share their experiences and help each other, and not to attack each other. Hey buddy,he is still a beginner and so doing the same mistakes as we all did at the beginning. So try to be kind and helpful or go somewhere else.
I much respect you (from ur posts), but I don't think DeirdreSkye had any intention to be rude. He was just genuine surprised that the op was asking for help identifying where the game went wrong.
You are perhaps right, it is just that the OP is interested in improving his whole game, to get advice how to improve. It is not only about obvious blunders, but also the approach needed to chose a move, to see a threat and how to react to it. There are multiple aspects to be considered in such a game (and more importantly in several games). The obvious blunders are only one of them, and probably not the most important, as the OP can see them through an engine check.
formatallan wrote:
... This was a player with a lower rating who once again seemed to have every move memorized and counters for everything I did. Does everyone really have 10,000 moves/tactics memorized? Is that what I had to do? The opening was terrible. ...
This memory issue seems to be a recurring theme, and I wonder if your problem is, in part, a misconception about the role of memory in chess. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that your opponent had a prepared reaction to 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 c3 a6. Again, a book like First Steps 1 e4 e5 (or Discovering Chess Openings) could help you with the understanding related to 4...Nf6 so that it would not be just a matter of trying to memorize what to do on move 4.
mickynj wrote:
I don't think you need an engine check to figure out that you just lost a rook and a minor piece! The OP's problem is not one that requires engine analysis or book recommendations. ...
Don't you think a book like First Steps 1 e4 e5 (or Discovering Chess Openings) could help formatallan with the understanding related to choosing 4...Nf6 (instead of 4...a6) after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 c3 ?
BobbyTalparov wrote:
... "First Steps 1e4 e5" and "Discovering Chess Openings" will introduce him to better moves in the opening phase, but will not address his key problems that led to him making bad moves in the opening. ...
I do not see a convincing argument that something other than Discovering-Chess-Openings-material is what is involved in helping formatallan to choose 4...Nf6 instead of 4...a6.
BobbyTalparov wrote:
... Thus, it would simply delay his blunder until sometime in the middle game. ...
To me, that sounds like progress. Like it or not, a lot is going to go wrong for a beginner, and, for many, progress is a gradual matter.
BobbyTalparov wrote:
... The OP must learn to recognize undefended pieces and perform a safety check before making his moves. If he does those 2 things, he won't need either of the fore-mentioned books, and he will perform better in the middle game as well.
Are you sure that a "safety check" (on opening issues) is so easy for a beginner?
"... In the middlegame and especially the endgame you can get a long way through relying on general principles and the calculation of variations; in the opening you can go very wrong very quickly if you don't know what ideas have worked and what haven't in the past. It has taken hundreds of years of trial and error by great minds like Alekhine and, in our day, Kasparov to reach our current knowledge of the openings. ..." - GM Neil McDonald (2001)
pokojni-Toza wrote:
After 7 d4, you always take the pawn... 1. e4 - e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Bc4 Bc5, 4. c3 a6, 5. a3 b5, 6. Ba2 d6, 7. d4 ed4, 8. cd4 Bxd4, 9. Nxd4 Nxd4 and white has backwards "b" pawn, isolated king's pawn, ...
Does White have compensation?
BobbyTalparov wrote:
kindaspongey wrote:
Are you sure that a "safety check" (on opening issues) is so easy for a beginner?
"... In the middlegame and especially the endgame you can get a long way through relying on general principles and the calculation of variations; in the opening you can go very wrong very quickly if you don't know what ideas have worked and what haven't in the past. It has taken hundreds of years of trial and error by great minds like Alekhine and, in our day, Kasparov to reach our current knowledge of the openings. ..." - GM Neil McDonald (2001)
That is a great quote from McDonald to sell opening books, ...
"... For beginning players, [Discovering Chess Openings] will offer an opportunity to start out on the right foot and really get a feel for what is happening on the board. ..." - FM Carsten Hansem (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf