SquirrelChess.com - Where to go from here

Where to go from here

Written by Sciurus

Monday, 09 April 2007

It has been a while since I wrote the last post - I've been busy with other things than chess and this will continue for a couple of weeks. In fact I even won't have Internet access in late April, an almost scary thought for somebody like me... Lately, I spend most of my little chess-time with analyzing games of mine (mostly losses) to find out where my biggest weaknesses are. A humbling experience, because even though I spend now more than one year to learn chess I still lose most of my games due to very simple mistakes. The goal of this exercise is to get an idea how to improve. So what am I doing wrong?


Photo by Gadl

1. Not being careful enough. Here is an example from one of my recent games in the STTourney series at the Internet Chess Club (ICC): Towards the end of the

middlegame, my opponent captures my last bishop. I could have recaptured it, a no-brainer decision. However, I start calculating other options. Nothing wrong with that, after all the saying goes "if you see a good move, look for a better one". Only too bad that I simply forgot about the recapture and end up pushing a pawn which saved the pawn but lost the bishop for good. These kind of mistakes are typical for me.

2. Being too aggressive. Somehow I like to attack in chess which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, there are many situations were I came to the conclusion that my opponent has a good attacking position and that it would be best for me to coordinate my defense. Next thing I catch myself making plans for an attack. This might cost me some games that I might draw or even win by luring my opponent int making mistakes. However, attacking is simply too much fun and therefore I decided not to worry too much about that - after all I am playing chess for fun and not to make a living.

Not recognizing some tactics or missing endgame knowledge comes after the two reasons above. It might sound strange, but in many cases I already know I am making a mistake before I make the move. The fact that a particular move is a mistake just seems to slip out of my mind at some point during analysis until it is too late - I already made the move and all I can do is to curse myself. Which is another reason to play on the Internet and not over-the-board chess, because I can be rather harsh to myself.

What can I do to learn to avoid this? I really don't know. However, I don't think that solving tactics problems will help with that. The only idea I have is to play more chess. With only a limited amount of time on hand, this means that I cut back on training at the Chess Tactics Server. Instead, I will try to play more slow games, if necessary against the computer because a piece of silicon "brain" doesn't mind being put on hold when I have to work or make dinner, even though I prefer to play against humans.

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