I think Yusupov's book will help you a lot, as it points out what is most useful to learn for beginners (there's so much around !)
Besides, I would recommend you check Heisman's columns on ChessCafe, which gives lots of useful advice on chess thinking and practical play.
First, you've only been a member for like 50 days, and have played 157 of what I assume are primarly 5 minute games. This is just about half a day of playing chess. You really can't expect too much improvement.
In the vast majority of your games the problem isn't positional, opening, or endgame problems, your problems are strictly tactical. Here are the major ways I see you lose.
1. Your opponent will make a direct threat, you won't notice, and he will win material. You have to check what your opponent intended every move, this is a lot more efficent then looking at the entire board, as you only have to check what the last piece he moved threatened. In addition, you should also check what his last move left behind.
2. You will make a move and leave something else undefended. Often this happens when you move a piece, you fail to realize it was an essential defender of another piece. Or something like this happens.
3. You will make counting errors, and have trouble noticing when something is defended or attacked
4. You will miss oppertunities to checkmate, both by not considering all checks in a position, and having not mastered checkmates in one move. Here you missed the move Qb3# winning instantly.
Neither you nor your opponents are playing standard openings after the third or fourth move, yet you are putting pawns in the center and developing your minor pieces. I suggest that you stop thinking about openings as repertoire, and learn the principles of development: mobilization, center control, vulnerability, piece coordination, flexibility.
Practice basic tactics until forks, discoveries, removal of the guard, x-ray attacks, skewers, and so on are second nature. Slow down. Blitz kills your chances of improvement because it reinforces bad habits.
You are a diamond member: get your quick fix from the tactics trainer.
In the vast majority of your games the problem isn't positional, opening, or endgame problems, your problems are strictly tactical. Here are the major ways I see you lose.
4. You will miss opportunities to checkmate, both by not considering all checks in a position, and having not mastered checkmates in one move. Here you missed the move Qb3# winning instantly.
Amen.
You painted a strong picture in my mind of what will help me the most by your analysis of my blitz games. I feel greatly encouraged. Thanks!
I have already taken your advice and am playing longer games.
About a week ago I started playing correspondence games on this site. Two games are set for one move per day, and one is set for three days. I'm finding it very difficult to find candidate moves, something very new for me. It requires a great deal of thought! It's hard stuff.
I'm not sure if I could get someone to play a 20-30 minute live chess game yet. I'd probably need to make a few friends first. There just is not that much interest in chess where I live. Now, as an elementary school music teacher, I do get to play OTB before school and during lunch with my students. They don't provide a challenge yet, however, I do enjoy teaching them the basics and just having fun playing with them. Perhaps by the end of the year a few of them will learn enough of the fundamentals to give me a hard time.
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Before I read your post, I just started working on "checkmate in 1,2,3" problems at work. It's fun.
Finding 1, 2 or 3 move mates is a huge weakness of mine. I learned a two rook mating pattern a few months ago from "Silman's Complete Endgame Course". I'm not blaming Silman completely, it's just that he recommends that players under 1200 only learn the staircase and box tactics for checkmating an opponent.
Perhaps I was confusing checkmating tactics and endgame tactics? Anyway, I am finally having an enormous amount of fun finding ways to checkmate the opponent's king long before just a few pieces are remaining. Examples: attacking or placing pressure on the f7 square. This is all brand new stuff for me, and great fun.
Below is a game where I simply got lucky. I was going for a fork and by surprise, checkmated the king with my knight!
1. Neither you nor your opponents are playing standard openings after the third or fourth move, yet you are putting pawns in the center and developing your minor pieces. I suggest that you stop thinking about openings as repertoire, and 2. learn the principles of development: mobilization, center control, vulnerability, piece coordination, flexibility.
Practice basic tactics until forks, discoveries, removal of the guard, x-ray attacks, skewers, and so on are second nature. Slow down. Blitz kills your chances of improvement because it reinforces bad habits.
3. You are a diamond member: get your quick fix from the tactics trainer.
1. Thanks. That is a more accurate statement. I only know opening lines about 3-4 moves deep.
2. I like the sound of "principles of development". As you saw in my attempt at playing the Ruy Lopez, I got crushed. I stopped looking at what my opponent was doing and started playing zombie chess.
3. I hated tactics trainer until I finally learned how to turn the clock off! I've only done it for one day, unrated, but I like not having the pressure of the clock, giving my mind a chance to ponder.
I think Yusupov's book will help you a lot, as it points out what is most useful to learn for beginners (there's so much around !)
Besides, I would recommend you check Heisman's columns on ChessCafe, which gives lots of useful advice on chess thinking and practical play.
This book?
Build up your Chess with Artur Yusupov: The Fundamentals Volume I (Paperback)
It's already shipped and should be in the mailbox tomorrow!
To: hicetnunc, MikedaSnipe and Ziryab
You three guys are great. You've been extremely generous with your time. Again, thanks!
I think your thinking too much about how to improve your game. Just play more long games and take your time.
I find Blitz baffling. It's not how I came to know Chess and as much fun as it can be it's not how the game should be played. I can't take it seriously. Even when I lose it doesn't bother me the way it does if I lose a long game. In a long game defeat I'll take apart the position and find out what I should have done, with blitz games I'm like 'Yeah well, its only blitz, who cares?.
I can see the benefit in it, the ability to think quickly like that, but the scope for missing what is really going on in the position is enormous, even for the greats, that is why your game isn't getting better.
You should get better by slowing down. Point of note, this won't help your blitz game one bit. I'm basing that statement on the fact that mine is crap, then again I'm not interested in blitz so maybe it would work differently for you.
I'd have a guess and say that developing a better understanding of the mechanics of the more common openings, and specifically opening traps, might be the way forward to make your blitz games better. Good luck.
maybe you are just two old to learn :)
It seems a lot of people start playing chess, or pick it up after 10-20 years on here and go straight to blitz chess and then wonder why they do not improve.
I am not sure where the fascination of blitz chess comes from for new players ( I can understand masters wanting to try to best another master in a rapid time format ).
Stick to long formats and you will improve as it gives you time to think over the moves and you learn from that.
Also you should easily be able to find 30 minute per side games on here, no need to make friends first just choose it from the drop down and hit match and within a few seconds a game will pop up.
My blitz rating is no better than when I started playing chess live some time ago, yet I feel like a stronger player now than I did then. My OTB friend still beats me as easily as he has beaten me before I began to study chess seriously.
As a musician and music teacher for many years, practice makes a person a better player. I find chess improvement to be a mystery. It's frustrating. I feel I have a well rounded approach to my chess studies, i.e., refinement of opening repertoire, end game studies, tactics...tactics...and more tactics.
In his book "Pandolfini's Chess Complete", Bruce Pandolfini believes one needs to aquire that "thousandth thing" before the next skill level is reached. What do you think? Please discuss. Thank you!
My current blitz rating (5 minute games) is 722. My highest was 811, and my average opponent is rated at 849. I've logged 157 games. My rating took a nose dive into the low 600's when I tinkered with different openings. It's steadily climbing back to the 800's since I returned to my main opening repertoire.
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Bruce Pandolfini and the quantum theory of chess improvement
What is the "quantum theory" of chess improvement?
Essentially, the quantum theory asserts that people seem to make periodic and sudden jumps in chess improvement, rather than continuous and fluid ones.
Chess education offers peaks and plateaus, and learning the game goes something like this: Let's say to climb to the next level of skill you must learn a thousand things. If you've learned 999 of those things, obviously you should be a much better player than when you knew nothing, but you may not necessarily show significant improvement yet. You still may not be able to implement certain acquired skills, so your overall play appears relatively the same.
But add that last piece of knowledge (the thousandth thing!) and suddenly, seemingly inexplicably, you jump to the next skill level.
You finally put it all together, and your ability has taken a quantum leap.
- NM Bruce Pandolfini