@ muskimole
Glad it was in some way useful :)
@ ajedrecito
I missed 12.Nxd5, now that you mention it though, looks winning to me.
Yep, It's Brain Damage
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Apr 20, 2011
0
#23
waffllemaster wrote:
Musikamole wrote:
aansel wrote:
Am not sure why you played 7. h3
A couple of simpler things--why not 10 Bxa5? winning the Queen ( I assumed that was the point of 9 Ne2)
I think you need to look at the board closer and really check hanging pieces as well as basic tactics
7.h3 - to prevent Ng4. 7.0-0 was best.
10.0-0 was a blunder. 10.Bxa5 wins the queen.
With that said, it's not tactics nor board vision. My standard tactics rating at chesstempo is 1461, and my blitz tactics rating is 1291. My Live Chess rating is in the 800's. Since tactics is 99% of chess, my Live Chess rating should be in the 1000's.
In education speak, we call this a discrepancy (1461/800's) when looking at children who have the aptitude, but do not succeed in school. That's why we have special education.
But 1400's/1200's tactics and 800's Live Chess. That's a huge gap that tactics alone can't explain, I fear.
Maybe chess.com can offer "special" chess.
Interesting. It's odd that you can find combinations on a 2d board on a tactics site but not as well during a game.
1. Out of curiosity why did you play 9.Ne2, moving a piece twice before finishing your development with 0-0?
If it was to uncover your c pawn to be able to play c3 there's no need to reinforce d4 it's not attacked. No.
If it was to uncover the c pawn to play a break with c4, well, that's not possible because black's played b5. No.
If it was with the idea of moving your knight or bishop to f4, Yes. it's too soon to relocate when your development isn't done unless you have a forcing combo or are preventing something dangerous.
Apparently you missed that it uncovered an attack on the enemy queen, Ouch! Yes. so I'm just curious. You didn't follow up with a c pawn push or a piece going to f4, you 0-0 and then played Ne5 which should have lost a pawn. Ouch! I need to get better at simple math, simple counting - takes, takes, etc.
2. You say your blitz tactics rating is 1200s, so I know you're able to see things like hanging pieces in a matter of seconds. Maybe it's your approach somehow? What do you think about treating each game position as a tactics puzzle? One game means you're solving lets say 80 puzzles (for a 40 move game). Not only do you find the tactics you have after your opponent moves, but when considering a move, even if you have to place your mouse cruiser on an empty square to help you see it, solve that puzzle before moving to see if your opponent can do something.
Dedicate a set number of seconds after each opponent move to not think about an open king, or development, but just think of it as a tactics puzzle. Look for a piece or pawn to win. Because if it's anything like this game, about 1 out of every 5 moves you're going to find one, and that accounts for hundreds of rating points if you can find them all.
This deserves more attention and thank you for all of the excellent comments and suggestions, again. 
1. "Out of curiosity why did you play 9.Ne2, moving a piece twice before finishing your development with 0-0?"
My novice mind at work -
I saw 8…b5 as a threat, making me move my knight with a loss of tempo, while Black gains space on the queenside. Also, I didn’t see any future for it on the queenside, so I relocated it to the kingside, with what I thought was a saving of one tempo. It looked like my opponent was going to attack my minor piece with a pawn, which happens often to me, resulting in all kinds of problems for me down the road. That's how I see chess right now.
2. "What do you think about treating each game position as a tactics puzzle?"
I like this idea.
I tend to worry a lot about development in the beginning of the game, and find it hard to switch my thinking to tactics. To be perfectly honest, tactics don't enter my mind at all in the first five or so moves.
I'm not the kind of player who wants to cross the center line and look for a quick checkmate, i.e., 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6?? 4.Qxf7#. My opponents try this on me all the time, and in my first 50 or so games, I lost to checkmate often in under 20 moves with all sorts of tricks and traps. My Live Chess Blitz rating started out at 1200, like everyone, but hit a low of 650 on April 24th, 2010.
Now it's in the mid to high 800's, with a few peaks around 900. What's driving me crazy is that I train with really strong players and perform deep calculations, searching for all kinds of tactics and subtle positional stuff before entering a move. 10 to 20 minute games must require something extra, and I have yet to discover what that something extra is, with over 800 Live Chess games played.
Apr 20, 2011
0
#24
ajedrecito wrote:
I think 12.Nxd5 wins on the spot, no?
Also, in the endgame you wasted a lot of time and did not move your king to f6 to capture his pawns, taking advantage of the fact that you could give up your bishop for his pawn on b2. Because you wasted so many moves, he had time to bring his king close, though you found the winning breakthrough.
Good grief! How long did you spend staring at the position before you found 12.Nxd5? Fritz 12 has this to say, 12.Nxd5 0-0-0 13.Nxe4 - White has a decisive advantage.
Um, that means winning.
Musikamole wrote:
Edit: Oh my, I'm up to 780 Blitz and 54 Standard Live Chess Games for a total of 834 games, which means I can learn from 834 mistakes! Time to fire up Fritz.
And here lies the cause to your lack of improvement.
You played 780 freakin' blitz games and you expect your rating to rise !!
Had you played 400 standard games instead, you would be at least 1300 now.
Apr 20, 2011
0
#27
Musikamole wrote:
Edit: Oh my, I'm up to 780 Blitz and 54 Standard Live Chess Games for a total of 834 games, which means I can learn from 834 mistakes! Time to fire up Fritz.
Here is another mistake , stop using the fritz ! analyse it yourself first.
Hi
This might sound quite harsh, but I think you could spend your time better! Drop chess and go for something else that you will be better at.
This is really given as an advice!
Apr 20, 2011
0
#31
how can you say that when someone like to play chess for fun, also he like music.
How bout like assume like every move your opponent makes is a mistake...
And treat it like a tactics puzzle
And yea why do you keep going over your games with Fritz. Go over them yourself. Post annotations and stuff. Next 'analysis' you post should be your own, annotated. Then we might be able to help you with your thought process.
There has to be some reason why your not taking those hanging pieces. Board Vision? Concentrating too much on one's on plans? Being afraid of grabbing material?-Don't be, think practically, take a criticality assmt.
OTB in time trouble, I grab all the material I can. Its my only chance and I'm guna lose anyway. I don't have time to calculate or anything so why not-its the last stand. At least if my opponents attack fails I have a chance at winning the game. And if it turns out that grabbing the material was a major tactical blunder, it doesn't matter bc I woulda lost anyways on time.
Apr 21, 2011
0
#33
LavaRook wrote:
How bout like assume like every move your opponent makes is a mistake...
And treat it like a tactics puzzle
And yea why do you keep going over your games with Fritz. Go over them yourself. Post annotations and stuff. Next 'analysis' you post should be your own, annotated. Then we might be able to help you with your thought process.
There has to be some reason why your not taking those hanging pieces. Board Vision? Concentrating too much on one's on plans? Being afraid of grabbing material?-Don't be, think practically, take a criticality assmt.
OTB in time trouble, I grab all the material I can. Its my only chance and I'm guna lose anyway. I don't have time to calculate or anything so why not-its the last stand. At least if my opponents attack fails I have a chance at winning the game. And if it turns out that grabbing the material was a major tactical blunder, it doesn't matter bc I woulda lost anyways on time.
I never thought to do that! Annotate my own games without a chess engine? You have just blown my mind.
O.K. I stopped typing for one minute because my mind was still blown. I honestly never thought to annotate my own games without engine assistance, never.
Well, my annotations will be full of screwed up chess thinking, but I guess that is the point of this exercise. You guys will be able to fix my chess brain, which IS the focus of this topic - Brain Damage.
LavaRook - Absolutely brilliant!
I guess I have it myself, since my games still suck after 200 or so, games.
Apr 21, 2011
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#35
lo2 wrote:
Hi
This might sound quite harsh, but I think you could spend your time better! Drop chess and go for something else that you will be better at.
This is really given as an advice!
It's not harsh. Life is short, and if I truly suffer from "chess" brain damage, where my brain is incapable of doing what is necessary to play a good game of chess, then I should try another game that is equally as fun, maybe. Right now, I can't think of a game that brings me more enjoyment than chess. It's an amazing game that I wish I had discovered well before turning 50. I started at age 49. :(
Apr 21, 2011
0
#36
woodshover wrote:
I guess I have it myself, since my games still suck after 200 or so, games.
No worries. Together, we can start a new chess league, ya know, for special people.
Apr 21, 2011
0
#37
tarrasch wrote:
Musikamole wrote:
Edit: Oh my, I'm up to 780 Blitz and 54 Standard Live Chess Games for a total of 834 games, which means I can learn from 834 mistakes! Time to fire up Fritz.
And here lies the cause to your lack of improvement.
You played 780 freakin' blitz games and you expect your rating to rise !!
Had you played 400 standard games instead, you would be at least 1300 now.
Tarrasch! Hello!
Yes. You did admonish me to play slower games, and I did not do well in that category with only 54 standard games played. That last 20 20 game was mentally exhausting. It requires a level of concentration that I am not accustomed to.
A simple goal. As a Blitz junkie, I will hit 100 standard games on my stats page before even playing another blitz game. This I will commit to.
Keep checking in on me. Thanks!
Apr 21, 2011
0
#39
I played my heart out on three 15 5 standard games with the same opponent, losing all three. This person was extremely good with pins, causing too many problems for me to solve. I simply said, well played.
I’ll upload my annotations of these games without the use of a chess engine, so you can better know what know what was going on between my two ears, and I hope, fix it!
Last, standard games feel more like the OTB games I have with my students, where each side has more time to think.
@ Tarrasch – I’m now closer to my goal of 100 Standard games.
Game One
In game two I knew in a heartbeat that 19.Nxh5 was immediately losing, with a discovered attack on my queen. I thought for a long time on how to get myself out of a difficult position, and somehow forgot about Nxh5, and played it anyway. I typed “sorry” into the chat window, because it was a good game and I blew it, and my opponent kindly offered me a rematch.
Game Two
Game Three
Apr 21, 2011
0
#40
uhohspaghettio wrote:
Personlly, I would not get stuck playing standard games either.
I think I remember you talking about all the chess books you have, why not actually use them...? (even though it's not as fun as playing I know). And posting here a lot with large posts probably isn't the best use of time also.
Not play standard games? Then I wouldn't be playing chess at all. Well, I do play Turn-Based, but those are all unrated and for instruction purposes. But it's not the same as sitting down to a game of chess. There are no chess clubs in my area, so Live Chess is all that I have, and at age 51, it's not like I have an infinite amount of time to learn how to play before actually playing the game. Maybe I'm missing something in your post.
Yes. I do have over 50 chess books, and I do use them in my Turn-Based instruction games.
@ waffllemaster and uhohspaghettio - a big thanks for the chess move explanations that the chess.com computer and other chess engines can not provide. It means a lot to me. Thank you.