Players 100- 2000 - what do you think your biggest weakness in Chess is? - Chess Forums - Page 6

Karrysparov

Apr 1, 2022

0

#101

Almost 600 rated player here-Accidentally letting go of a key square. Of all my blunders, letting go of a key square comprises 90% of them.

amorqwerty

Apr 1, 2022

0

#102

JackSmith_GCC wrote:

Hi all,

The title pretty much explains it, but I'm curious - what do you think your biggest chess weakness is? I'd be interested to see if, for example, there is one most common answer in a particular rating group.

If you want to leave an illustrative game that would be helpful

Cheers,

~ Jack

amorqwerty

Apr 1, 2022

0

#103

800-900 here
my weakness is that i just play based on my instincts, there are days when its really sharp but again there are days when i just go on losing streaks

QueenEatingKnight

Apr 1, 2022

0

#104

My weakness is not looking carefully at my pieces. I usually accidently give away a peice

hoodoothere

Apr 1, 2022

0

#105

0WanderingInferno0 wrote:

hoodoothere wrote:

Another weakness is discriminating between several different candidate moves and being able to see which one is best. When I go back over my games I saw most of the excellent moves that the analysis engine does but discarded them in favor of an inferior move. Don't know why?

Easy fix; just flip the board when you're thinking about this. See 3 good moves? Flip the board and see the moves from their perspective. I know people say to imagine a chess board and stuff, but it's just not as accurate as simply flipping the board and imagining the pieces going across the board. I accidentaly pressed the x key on my keyboard and the board flipped. I was so confused at first I thought I was in another chess game xD. Then I pressed x again and realized that i had not resigned and started a puzzle or something, but rather I flipped the board. I flipped the board again and the mistakes and moves became so much easier to see. I know you're a 1700 player and over two times above me, but my rating's gone up by 200 in the past 2 days and one of the reasons is this.

Thanks, I did not know this board flipping could be done. That can be another weakness, not thinking about what the purpose of the other person's last move is, no matter how innocent looking.

sndeww

Apr 2, 2022

0

#106

*presses x faster*

sndeww

Apr 2, 2022

0

#107

0WanderingInferno0 wrote:

B1ZMARK wrote:

*presses x faster*

That's something video games would help in xD.

I mean x is the shortcut for flipping your board lol

68ChessDaddo

Apr 2, 2022

0

#108

I'm 683 Rapid, 978 daily, and 386 Blitz. So all areas of my game are weak. I practice tactics and puzzles daily, so I'm always working on them. But if I had to pick one area that truly overwhelms me, it's the middlegame. Once I develop my pieces, I start feeling lost, and clueless.

mrsidboi1190

Apr 2, 2022

0

#109

100: Missed opening traps, has very weak defense

LoneWolfVahan

Apr 2, 2022

0

#110

Tactics, tactics, tactics above everything else.

kingcobra7777

Apr 2, 2022

0

#111

My biggest challenge by far is not having the ability to visualize and this includes not having visual memory, and this indeed makes it a lot harder to play. I can watch hours of videos on an opening for instance and maybe I'll remember the first two or three moves of the thing, but that doesn't bother me much and might even have some advantages, especially against other more novice players who seem to be studying opening lines without really understanding the reasoning behind these moves.

So when they play me I don't know the "theory," which is an odd word for this as it has nothing to do with theory and is much better described as established practice, quite the opposite of theory, whereby what I do is actual theory, the theory behind a move not just seeing what good players play here, including engines. So I go off the book and now the opponent has to not just remember but think.

I've only actually played one game against a human opponent so far but it was pretty funny. Opponent was black and chose to play the Caro . In the first few moves I played a move that was a bit of an inaccuracy when I reviewed the game with the engine, but the opponent went into the tank and it turned out this move isn't in the database lol. I was only looking for a bit of a positional advantage but he ended up blundering a knight by leaving me with a simple tactic to win it, beginner stuff. A few moves later I was looking to trap his other knight, I didn't expect to win it as I was only looking to mess up his pawn structure and he could have defended with a couple of pawn moves chasing me away. He resigned instead as he couldn't even figure this very simple defense, you attack the queen with a pawn move, I move it back, you make another pawn move, I have to move it away and you can save the knight. Pretty funny stuff.

I have really taken to the game so far even though I'm pretty new to it, and although I realize I'll never be that strong of a player being limited to only being able to look a couple of moves ahead due to my not being able to visualize, this forces me to develop my positional understanding and pattern recognition because that's all I got to work with, but I'm excited about getting better at this as I learn to think about these things better as well as forcing opponents to think more and take them to places they aren't so familiar with.

Gymstar

Apr 2, 2022

0

#112

I think it is blundering

Pattycake2022

Apr 2, 2022

0

#113

Rating at 419,I think that my biggest weakness is moving my queen and forgetting that it was helping with a checkmate

wagyubeefdotexe

Apr 2, 2022

0

#114

If you look at the analysis of this game, I blunder a win into a loss in the endgame a lot. I think that the two things I do most is blunder checkmate in the middlegame or wins in the endgame.

Marcyful

Apr 2, 2022

0

#115

Going for careless attacks without calculating my opponent's defensive options and counterattacks.

kingcobra7777

Apr 2, 2022

0

#116

0WanderingInferno0 wrote:

"You're being too hard on yourself. I personally can't visualize the board and the pieces in my mind. I assure you that I'm not just being nice, I really can't. Solution? Well, it's as easy as imagining the pieces going across the digital board. This is a very good replacement if you can't visualize, like me and you. Even if you can't do that, looking a couple moves ahead is all you need, even though you're higher rated than me, trust me on this. I like to think "A good chess player doesn't need to predict the future; not when they can make the future." Basically what it means is you don't need to think all the different variations and stuff. Play a couple of games against people, and once you get stuck at a rating, it's a matter of using psychological mistakes that opponents who were similarly rated have played in the past. For example, people my rating usually blunder free pawns carelessly. Why? Cuz they don't know the importance of pawns. So 7/10 times when I make a threat against a piece, they don't even take the pawn's safety into calculation and carelessly move their piece behind. Besides that, many people at my rating get too focused on one part of the board. If I start attacking one piece with two of my pieces, they become too focused on that part of the board. Why does this help? Because I can fake double target the pawn defending the opponents castle using a bishop and queen, force the opponent to activate a piece, then use my queen or bishop to attack the g7 pawn, threatening the enemy rook. Even if they move aside, If I had attacked with my queen I could gain another pawn. "

----------------------------------

Thanks for the comment and that does make me feel better, and I can think a couple moves ahead at least, even though I see videos where they say that's a bad move because if you look at 6 or 7 moves downstream you will see this leaves you in a bad position and I'm thinking I'll never be able to see that far ahead. On the other hand, what I have learned from my coach the engine lol is that the engine does look further in advance than any human but it wins not tactically but positionally, building your position a bit each move and making moves that make sense as long as you understand the ideas. So I'm getting better at that at least and this is why I remain optimistic that I can get quite a bit better over time although it does take time for sure, years even.

I like the fact you mention that we need to focus on our opponents more and for me that's the most important thing. This isn't just about threats, even though that's the first thing we need to look at, it is also about how their move may have weakened their position, what new opportunities the move may present to us. I think that once we get beyond coming up with a plan and focusing too much on that instead of looking at the changing dynamics of the board we start getting on the right track at least, where you plan a few moves ahead based upon the current situation and don't adjust as things change. So the game really happens in the present and that might be the most important lesson I've learned so far

AntzSK

Aug 30, 2023

0

#117

1100-I miss tactics

satan_llama

Aug 30, 2023

0

#118

My biggest mistake is that I don't play long games and hence don't perform well in classical. In terms of in-game weakness, my weakness is not seeing counterplay when in extreme pressure. I have not learnt survival yet

JackSmith_GCC

Aug 30, 2023

0

#119

Wow - I really wasn't expecting this thread to get necroed. Thanks, guys, for the comments!

PremovePerry69420

Aug 30, 2023

0

#120

2200-2300 here
Moving quickly is my biggest weakness, also resigning myself to lost positions even when there is still fight left.