Your chess weakness
Sort:
It’s in my complacency, poor planning, over emphasis on material gain, failure to convert tactical advantages and not looking at the whole board.
I dislike positions where my structure is fractured by my opponent early on.
err....my weakness
1) tactics. May fail to spot simple tactics. Really simple ones like 1 move knight takes. See below.
2) tunnel vision or blindness. I do sufffer from tunnel vision from time to time. eg I will forget your bishop is at that square and move my piece to there and you take it.
3) positional. I tend to place my pieces at the wrong squares or not to coordinate them properly.
4) planning. I tend to have a bad plan.
5) endgame. I will lose in some endgames that is considered theoretically draw. I will be stracthing my head wondering what happen.
6) openings. I just started 1.d4 so very inexperience playing it. I ususally arrive at the middlegames at an inferior position.
I think I describe my entire problem with chess. 
Feb 20, 2008
0
#25
Baseballfan wrote: My main weakness you would think should be easy to fix, but it's not for me.... I move too fast. I look at the board, see a move, then just make it. So many times, that move ends up being a ?? blunder.
My weakness exactly. I am trying to let the move in three day format help teach me patience. I have to slow down in OTB play.
Feb 20, 2008
0
#26
I have NO idea how the knight moves. People say three spaces up, one space over, but then I see something go diagnal and another thing go vertical! There's some sort of half radial drag queen running around the board that does whatever it wants. I always lose my queen in the first two moves and then the game tells me to checkmate. So, I go check on my wife and she seems perfectly ok, then I come back to find out I've lost.
I guess my weakness is not knowing how to play the game.
My weakness was when I played Jennifer Shahade :(
now that i think about it some more..... my big OTB problem is distraction and self-punishment. i'll be there during my turn and start thinking about something else. then i realize that i haven't been making a move for a while and my opponent (and on-lookers) are bored... so i snap out of it just long enough to find the instinctual move and touch the piece. then i spend the entire time my opponent is going, looking at that last move and finding better moves, when i should be planning for the future.
vicious cycle... must break the chains
My main weakness is my lack of planning. I usually have no idea of what to do during a game I just react and look for attacking chances and tactics...I am trying to study strategy more because I am suffering as a result. The other major weakness is that I always rush my moves and very rarely analyze the position...I usually make my moves after work when I'm tired and impatient...not a good idea!
For me it's endgame. When im down to king, a few pawns, rook, maybe a knight and my opponent has the same I usually end up losing. I can hold my own very well until that point however.
monalisa wrote: My weakness was when I played Jennifer Shahade :(
I bet that was an.... interesting experience.
Well..., hmmm, sometimes I play too fast without thinking all posibility, and I usually play my game too positionally and care less about tactic
. And when I play againts a stronger opponent who play flawlessly (at least in my judgement) sometimes I run out of plan and when I have a plan and try to execute it, my opponent already attacking my King.
. And when I play againts a stronger opponent who play flawlessly (at least in my judgement) sometimes I run out of plan and when I have a plan and try to execute it, my opponent already attacking my King.
Mine is patience and planning. I’m always trying to finish the game quickly without looking deeper at the catastrophic result that lies ahead should I proceed with that move. Not making the most of promising positions that I create is another, wasted moves with no purpose are things I must improve on.
My weakness is me. Too often I become to concerned about what my opponent wants to do. it helps sometimes but too often it becomes the overriding concern and hence I fail to develop the game and my confidence.
1. In OTB games I fail to look the entire board.
2. I do not know how to finish my opponent. I often have a winning position but I just don't know how to continue. (this happens to me in both OTB and online games)
I tried the Bonetti Defence and she countered with the Capo Ferro, but my ultimate demise was I went against the SIcilian when death was on the line :(
Feb 21, 2008
0
#37
Great subject. The problem with (chess) ignorance is that we don't know what we don't know. I play better when I'm losing, probably because the strategy is more clear. I think it was Casey Stengel who said something like, "If we played all the time as well as we play when we're in trouble, we would never get in trouble in the first place!"
I play better when I'm losing, probably because the strategy is more clear. I think it was Casey Stengel who said something like, "If we played all the time as well as we play when we're in trouble, we would never get in trouble in the first place!"
Cleptomania wrote: Great subject. The problem with (chess) ignorance is that we don't know what we don't know.
Spot on! I found something out recently which is slightly involved. For years I have been quite concerned about pawn structure and pawn weaknesses - using that as a guide to what to play and who is winning. Reading Suetin at moment and he stresses the importance not of the 'pawn' centre as such, but the 'piece -pawn' centre. Shows how pawn structures which would lose in an endgame are actually strong because of the piece support they have. This even goes as far in some cases as tripled isolated pawns (!). Suetin states that positional factors have also to be backed up by 'concrete' analysis. I.e. tactics relevant to the position. I have since noticed these terms used (sparingly) in other books and realise it is actually a major point of general opening theory. Eureka. Makes me wonder why this isnt stressed more in other more basic books. Maybe it's considered too difficult to explain as an exception?
In response to some of above posts regarding sitting on your hands, here is a good piece of advice from Kotov. 'You have decided on your move. Now stop and look at the position again through the eyes of a patzer. Does your move hang a piece or allow mate in one (or two). etc. ' This is very good advice and goes most of the way to eliminating blunders.
.....just taking some notes
=)
I am quite the opposite, in tournaments, that is. I am like General McClellan; I am too cautious, I'm too afraid to attack mercilessly when I have an advantage, so I consider moves for ten minutes at a time. Most of my tournaments are G/30, so more often than not, I get in time trouble. I only make moves quickly when I am under two minutes, and I use rule 14H (draw by insufficient losing chances in sudden death) so often that I know it inside out. Everyone who knows me knows not to get confident when I go under two minutes and they still have twenty.
However, when there is nothing at stake (other than virtual rating points), I make moves far too quickly. I don't look for brilliant moves when playing a friendly game or online. I only look for a move that doesn't lose.
When there is something at stake, I do everything possible to prevent blunders, like think forever and play very sound, analyzed openings (except for the Winawer!). When there is very little at stake, I just play a move for the heck of it. That's why before tournaments, I often lose, but I kick butt in the tournament.