Lately, I have been spending quite some time analyzing my own chess games, particularly the ones I lost. I have to admit that I find it rather boring to analyze my victories. Does this mean that I have masochistic tendencies? I hope not. Nevertheless I read somewhere that one should also take a look at one's won games. However, I don't remember the reason for this and do believe that learning from my mistakes is one of the most efficient ways to improve. Please leave a comment if you do know why it is important to look at won games as well. Anyway, I found 3 weak spots that trouble my chess life. There are probably many more, but I want to focus on the big show stoppers here. This will be the start of a mini series of blog posts. In the first post (this one), I will describe what I think are my weaknesses. In the following three posts, I shall try to formulate a plan for chess improvement focusing on these three chess sins.

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From the obvious beginner problem to a slightly more subtle problem: My ability to calculate variations leaves much to be desired. Firstly, I am often overlooking perfectly reasonable responses my opponent can throw at me. I am not talking of grinding through deep variations here. I am talking of trouble as early as one single move into the future! Secondly, I tend to stop calculating variations too early, before a quiet position is reached, often resulting in bad surprises even if the first few moves work out as I intended.

The last of the three top probems on my list is that I simply do not have any kind of plan in many situations. I wrote already about the importance to have a plan in conjunction with openings recently. Even though there are some kind of positions where I have a decent plan of action, I need to become able to make sensible moves in any situation. Furthermore, my knowledge that I acquired by playing through games of chess masters in my favorite openings is too simplistic. My attack plans don't work against good opponents not because they are particularly bad, but because attacking often requires more careful preparation than my current skill level allows. In short, I need to learn the basic concepts of chess strategy.

Of course, there are more areas in chess where I need to improve. For instance, I still know very little about endgames and the work of some fellow chess bloggers such as the excellent blog by likesforests makes it very tempting to start studying endgames. However, there is only so much time I have for chess and even working on the three areas sketched out above will probably result in total overload and, I am afraid, in reduced efficiency. But well, at least I already became a much stronger player since I started out playing chess almost two years ago.

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written by Dean, October 22, 2007

Hi, I always review my winning games, because I always still make mistakes, but not as many as my opponent, or not the last mistake. I pretty much do the same thing for every game, check the opening theory, find the tactical mistakes and see how I could have won easier if I won.

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written by Sciurus, October 22, 2007

Hi Dean,
Thanks for the comment. I just gave it a try and analyzed my last won game. It was G/15 so I expected plenty of mistakes from my side but I was surprised how many tactical shots I missed (and that I was hanging my queen for 2 moves and not noticing it. Fortunately, my opponent did not see it either). I guess I will look at all of my games from now on!

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written by Blue Devil Knight, October 23, 2007

One of my pet peeves with my old chess coach is that he didn't want to go over my wins. Maybe if I were an IM or something, but I make tons of mistakes in my wins and losses. Probably half my wins are games I rightly should have lost, and I don't want to make the same mistakes again!

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written by Blue Devil Knight, October 23, 2007

Oh, and if the goal is to improve, positive reinforcement is at least as important as eliminating negatives. If you made a particularly brilliant move, but at the time didn't realize how good it was, you want to know, so you can do it again in the future. Perhaps you incorrectly thought move 23 was your brilliant move, but in fact it was move 22 that set up two different things one of which you didn't even see. Postmortem with Fritz will show you, and reinforce good chess habits.

There is an irrational focus on negatives in chess. I think I'll write a post about this, as it goes against everything psychologists know about learning.

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written by Sciurus, October 23, 2007

Yes, looking at a few of my won games after Dean's comment showed some surprising results. Aside from hanging my queen for a few moves in a situation where I (and probably my opponent too) thought I was playing a "brilliant" combination to fork his K&R I found out that I won my last game yesterday because my significantly higher rated opponent resigned in an even position.

Looking at both wins and losses now I get the impression that I almost never play good chess but that the guy who makes the last/worst mistake loses, just like it is said so often. On one hand, I find this rather depressing (may be your coach wanted to give you a higher self-esteem by not criticizing your wins?). On the other hand, it only shows me that my opponents are not much better than me, so I should be fine

Anyway, I agree there may be too much focus on the negative aspects. I am looking forward to reading your take on it!

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written by Atomic Patzer, October 24, 2007

Sciurus,

I have always struggled with this topic. You guys are right in this. Analyzing your wins and losses helps improvement in many ways. I get this same advice from many different sources. Last week I examined my opening moves from two losses. Sure enough, the exact things I did were in the book and it warned not to follow the course I took. Two valuable lessons learned. But I have a real phobia about looking at my games. I wonder if other players do also. I can't seem to make myself do it. I know it is because I will see how bad my chess is. Even my wins are just luck.

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written by Sciurus, October 24, 2007

Atomicpatzer:
for me it is other way around - I actually enjoy analyzing chess games and that is even the case for most of my losses. However, I feel that I play way too little. Sometimes I even think that I spend so much time analyzing my games because I have a phobia of playing chess - after all recognizing a mistake is a learning experience, but realizing in a game that I just repeated that same mistake that I painstakingly analyzed just a week ago, that hurts.

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written by caturcoach, October 25, 2007

I use my winning games to create my tactic database for my tactical training later on, because usually i was in an attacking position in these games and i missed many tactical shots (i know it post mortem with Fritz).
I use my lost games to create my defence technique database for my defence technique training later on, because usually i was in defence position.

Nobody ask me about what do i do with my drawing games?

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written by Sciurus, October 26, 2007

That is an interesting idea. I started a personal "hall of fame" a while ago to collect positions where I missed tactics. I guess it is similar to your system, although I do not differentiate between attack and defense. May be I should.

Drawing games? What drawing games? I hardly draw any games because I ever win or, more often, go down in flames

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written by Polly, October 27, 2007

I don't draw very much either. My last draw was against a master who refused to give me a draw in R & P vs R, and I had the pawn! He figured with my only having 2 seconds left that perhaps I might walk into a skewer. Mercifully one of the players called the TD over who then counted 50 moves for me. It's funny because I'm a TD, and in the heat of the battle I will forget the rules and not stop the clock to get the TD.

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written by Sciurus, October 27, 2007

Polly-
I wish I could play enough moves without messing up big time to invoke the 50-moves rule, not to talk about time pressure!

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written by Michael, November 19, 2007

I found on Professorchess.com ( a paying side, but with good ideas) one beautiful idea is
it is your turn, find six moves that you could do. This helps with not just choosing the first moves that come into your head. Moreover it helps in slowing down the moving process.
I play on chessworld (letsplay chess.com) and I make the mistake frequently to see a move and click it, only to see that my oppoent will take the rook or the queen at the next move and I am sunk! The six moves does help in giving some perspective to the game. Some comfort anyway!

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written by Sciurus, November 20, 2007

Michael-
nice tip, thanks! I play mostly on ChessWorld. Challenge me for a game or two if you like. My handle there is Sciurus.

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