lichess.org
Donate

What is the best way to analyze your own games?

So I'm trying to become better at chess, or to at least to learn from my mistakes and not make them repeatedly. I know that studying your own games is an extremely important part of improving, but exactly what does that entail? If I play a game and go over it, I will most likely be thinking the same thing I was then (unless it was time pressure).

For example, my position may become slightly worse over time, but I am unable to find exactly what it was that caused it, or what I could have done better. Sure, there is stockfish, which is helpful; but that only really helps with missed major opportunities or blunders. I can always find the move that stockfish prefers, but I do not always understand why.

I know that with time I will get better at analyzing my own games and realizing where I could have done better, but are there any tips or tricks to truly understand *why* my move was not sufficient?

Whether it is finding a partner (to study each other's games) or by just thinking about it until I finally manage to understand why: is there an optimal method, or at least a better one?
Have someone better than you analyze it for you. THat's the best way to analyze your games.

You get your own opinion and their knowledge & experience
You need to find the moves where you could play better and understand them. If you dont, ask about the specific move in the forum. In general, it is also good to read some chess books or watch youtube videos which explain to you the typical chess motifs.
Parsing your own games increases your level of understanding of the game itself. Your plans in the game will be more solid, and the game is more meaningful. Play no more than 10 blitz games, and then, look and evaluate your game. Did you manage to get a playing position in the debut? Did your plan of counterattack or offensive work? Follow the schedule of the game, in which zone it is in the middlegame and endgame?
Hi,you can analyze with a good engine(example,here tools-analysis board).
Opening : did you stay in the opening book ? If your opponent went out first, did you "punish" him not having played a right move ? did you see it was not a good move ?

During the analyse, do you understand the plan ? Do you see some threats you did not see during the game ? What move would you improve ? Do you think you missed a tactical one ? WAs there some critical positions ? In the ending, do you lose because of a lack of theory , bad calculation ? and so on...
Ask yourself why you miss a good move or why you made a bad one ?
And finally, when you think having the answers (these are yours, they are not the big Truth), it's time to ask Stockfish (let him work while you sleep !) for improvement , tactical ideas. Best of the best : your best friend is a GMI !
Click on the 'learn from your mistakes' option and everymove it says u did wrong think about why it was wrong
"If I play a game and go over it, I will most likely be thinking the same thing I was then (unless it was time pressure)."

Well, yes, but now you have the benefit of hindsight. Given that you know that a particular sequence of moves leads to a loss or a blunder, or whatever, can you find a sequence of moves that does not lead to that position? This is one reason why it's better to analyse your losses than your wins. With wins, you can easily go "yeah, I could have maybe done this move instead and it would have been better", but it's harder to get into the mindset of looking for improvement. When you analyse a loss, you know that your opponent outplayed you in some way, so you're looking to come up with solutions to correct your mistakes.

Here's what I do:

First I, open a study with the game so I can annotate and record my results. Make sure the engine is turned OFF. I walk through the game, move by move, making note of any moves that look strong, or suspicious, or obvious blunders. Any move that I make that is suspicious or a blunder, I will try playing through a some different lines on the board and see if I can come up with a better solution. I try to be exhaustive... try everything I can think of and see what happens. In situations where my opponent makes a strong move, I'll go back two or three moves and see if you can see if I can see how that move came about, and what steps I could have taken to prevent it. Again, try a few lines to see what happens. Make notes in the study as I go.

I'll go through the game systematically like this, until I've reached the end.

Next, I will turn on the engine and have it do a full game analysis. This gives a sense of what blunders or mistakes I may have missed in my analysis, and which lines are the strongest. I make note of these and work through them to make sure I understand the steps (admittedly, sometimes the sequences in the engine lines are 10-15 moves deep and don't follow obviously to me). The engine should only be used at the end of the analysis, to check your work. Don't use it right away or you will miss the whole process of actually analysing your game.

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.