David's Chess Journey-Installment 71

Chess Lessons and Marriage Counseling

I had my second lesson with https://lichess.org/@/Mischuk_D this morning and it reminded me of the years of marriage counseling that I have done with my wife. (Side Note: I'm sure the comparison I'm making applies to several different types of counseling, but I can only speak from my experience and I have only been in marriage counseling.) How? During today's lesson, we walked through my last two Lichess4545 games. The game that I won was a very poor demonstration of chess and Dmytro thoroughly walked through every significant error and drew out lessons from each mistake. The last game of the season was a game where I lost, but there were many positive moments in that game that were not present in the game I lost. Sure, there were several bad mistakes in the game that led to the loss and Dmytro again walked through those key mistakes in detail and drew out helpful lessons from the mistakes.

So how is that like marriage counseling? Well, a good marriage counselor will listen to both partners talk about the issues that they are working through, will identify the mistakes that each partner is making and draw out lessons from those mistakes. My wife and I did about 10 years of marriage counseling and it was extremely beneficial. I have no doubt that we would not be together without the help of a third party observing our mistakes, calling them out and helping us learn from them. Chess is not nearly as important as a marriage, but I see a lot of parallels with a good coach that walks through your games with you. While the computer will call out our mistakes for us, few players at my level can really understand why moves are mistakes and even fewer can draw helpful lessons from those mistakes to move forward. Sure, it is sometimes embarrassing to have an International Master talk about my mistakes with clarity and clinical precision exposing how little I still know about this beautiful game. But, like marriage counseling, I think it is necessary for me to learn and grow.

Weaknesses & Candidate Moves

During last week's lesson, we talked about how looking for mistakes can help me develop a plan in the middlegame. I have used a lot of my time over the past week looking for mistakes and learning how to take advantage of them. Here is a brief list of mistakes and basic plans re same that I developed with ChatGPT:

List of Weaknesses:
1. Exposed King

• What it is: The king is unsafe—no pawns in front of it, or it’s stuck in the center.
• How to exploit: Bring your queen and rooks into the attack. Look for checks and ways to force trades that open up lines to the king.

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2. Hanging Pieces

• What it is: A piece that is not protected by another piece.
• How to exploit: Just take it! Always check if your opponent left something undefended.

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3. Weak Squares

• What it is: A square that can't be defended by a pawn (often due to a pawn move).
• How to exploit: Put a knight or queen on that square and use it as a strong outpost.

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4. Isolated Pawns

• What it is: A pawn with no friendly pawns on the files next to it.
• How to exploit: Attack it with your pieces—especially in the endgame—it can’t be defended by another pawn.

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5. Back-Rank Weakness

• What it is: When a player hasn’t moved the pawns in front of their king’s back rank and has no escape square.
• How to exploit: Watch for chances to play a rook move that delivers checkmate on the back rank.

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6. Cramped Position

• What it is: The opponent has little space to move their pieces.
• How to exploit: Don’t rush. Build pressure, trade less, and slowly improve your pieces—they’ll run out of moves.

I know that there are many other types of weaknesses, but I feel like this is a pretty descent beginner-level list. One weakness that we have talked about a good bit the last two weeks that is not on this list is weaknesses related to one color or the other. I've heard of that weakness, but I'm not really sure what it means, so we are going to explore that concept in future lessons.

One thing that came up today is that I don't always come up with candidate moves. More often than I would like to admit, I just see a move and make it without considering candidate moves and calculating the various lines. I think that is likely pretty common for my level and is just laziness. This week, I'm going to work on exploring candidate moves in addition to continuing to look for weaknesses in my games.

Endgames & Basic Tactics

One other theme that came up during our lesson today is my poor performance in the endgame. I'm going to revisit Silman's endgame book for my level as I haven't done that in over a year and practice some basic endgames.

As you might expect, I also miss basic tactics, so Dmytro reminded me of the importance of solving basic tactics. I'm going to try and get some easy puzzles in most days in addition to playing.

Petroff(v) Update

I am still working through the 3-hour Petroff(v) course and trying it out in games. I am getting absolutely crushed, but am determined to continue playing and learning through the losses. My hope is that I will have a good game to share at some point in the not too distant future.

Until the next installment!