Hi, so I played this game, figured I could get some feedback as to why I lost, what are the fundamental mistakes I did, maybe something to work on, anything that helps ! Thanks !
(I'm playing black)
(I'm playing black)
@Senpai-Noticed
Move 26 , Nb5 , was your first big mistake, as the knight can be taken by a pawn. For example, white can first take your queen, then after you recapture , they take the knight, and white is winning, having a rook to your minor piece. Your opponent however, didn't notice this, and instead took the knight immediately. You were now in a very strong winning position because your move Nb5 opened up your queen to attacking his queen. You could have taken his queen at that point.
You didn't see this though, instead taking the bishop, and after Qxa3, white has won a piece with this series of moves.
Question. Why did you play Nb5?
That is the technical side of what went wrong. However, the deeper, main cause, is this: You failed to see how Nb5 opened up the queen's sight. This is referred to as a discovered attack, and any good chess player is always aware of any indirect pressure in a position. Your queen was exerting an indirect attack on the white queen, and your opponent did not realize this. You can help yourself by being aware when you may have a discovered attack, and when your opponent might.
If you have any questions about my response, feel free to ask as many as you want!
Move 26 , Nb5 , was your first big mistake, as the knight can be taken by a pawn. For example, white can first take your queen, then after you recapture , they take the knight, and white is winning, having a rook to your minor piece. Your opponent however, didn't notice this, and instead took the knight immediately. You were now in a very strong winning position because your move Nb5 opened up your queen to attacking his queen. You could have taken his queen at that point.
You didn't see this though, instead taking the bishop, and after Qxa3, white has won a piece with this series of moves.
Question. Why did you play Nb5?
That is the technical side of what went wrong. However, the deeper, main cause, is this: You failed to see how Nb5 opened up the queen's sight. This is referred to as a discovered attack, and any good chess player is always aware of any indirect pressure in a position. Your queen was exerting an indirect attack on the white queen, and your opponent did not realize this. You can help yourself by being aware when you may have a discovered attack, and when your opponent might.
If you have any questions about my response, feel free to ask as many as you want!
@ChessMathNerd Oh wow, I actually didn't realize this until you pointed that out, I could've indeed taken the queen...
To be honest, I think I was failing to find any strategy so I was trying to keep pressure on his queen and saw this would fork but actually didn't see the pawn, I guess I played too fast
What to do when you don't know what to do
Like, sometimes sure I have a small checklist, looking for what I need to defend, what I can attack, small strategies that could make me get in a better position, or look for weak pieces I can take,
but sometimes just nothing pops up and I find myself in a defense position where I'm kind of lost at what to do
This is actually the reason why I believe I win like twice as more often as white, I can just start with the halloween gambit or some agressive opening, and then I just keep pressuring all the time
Do I need to like learn to play more defensive and wait for a mistake or should I have went for a better strategy ? Or maybe I should learn aggressive black opening ~ not too sure
To be honest, I think I was failing to find any strategy so I was trying to keep pressure on his queen and saw this would fork but actually didn't see the pawn, I guess I played too fast
What to do when you don't know what to do
Like, sometimes sure I have a small checklist, looking for what I need to defend, what I can attack, small strategies that could make me get in a better position, or look for weak pieces I can take,
but sometimes just nothing pops up and I find myself in a defense position where I'm kind of lost at what to do
This is actually the reason why I believe I win like twice as more often as white, I can just start with the halloween gambit or some agressive opening, and then I just keep pressuring all the time
Do I need to like learn to play more defensive and wait for a mistake or should I have went for a better strategy ? Or maybe I should learn aggressive black opening ~ not too sure
25. Qc3 Ne2+ would have won the queen and arguably the game.
Yeah tactic on move 25 as others pointed out ._. But move 12._. Bf7 inbetween move ._ but nb5 was a blunder ._ your opponents queen was hanging but you didnt capitalize ._. The opening was fine but the last to blunder usually loses._ keep trying we all miss stuff i personally dont like e5 as black anymore and really like c5 to counterstrike the center._
@Senpai-Noticed , Just for the sake of clarity, I am listing your questions at the beginning of my response.
1 What should I do when I don't know what to do?
2 Should I play defensive and wait for a mistake by my opponent or go for a better strategy?
3 Or should I learn an aggressive opening as black?
I will do my best to answer these questions. Most of my time on the first one. That's a big question.
1. This is a question that a lot of inexperienced players struggle with. They know what to do when there is something to do, like take a piece or attack the king, but they are at a loss if their opponent doesn't mess up and start giving away pieces or pawns.
The answer here lies in one word. Strategy. A well known grandmaster once said, "the tactician knows what to do when there is something to do. The strategist knows what to do when there is nothing to do". At every point during a chess game, you should always have a master plan in mind. It is how maturely you formulate this plan, and how you put it into action, that decides how strong a player you are. So, that is the general idea, but as for practical advice, there are several things that you can do in a quiet position. Here are some of them.
a. Improve your worst piece.
b. Limit your opponent's pieces, and or pawn breaks
c. Prepare a pawn break of your own
If you don't quite understand what I mean by one or more of these, just say so, and I can elaborate.
Once you decide on a course of action, (often the hardest part), you must then devise a series of moves that will accomplish the goal. For example, "I want to play c5 to attack the center". Now, you may need to give support to the c5 square first. This is a very basic example, but I hope that you get the idea.
Once you reach a higher level in chess, your opponent will often see these ideas and try to shoot them down, so that the game becomes a duel of ideas, tons of fun!
2. Playing defensive and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake is almost always a terrible idea. At the low level in chess, you can generally count on your opponent messing up eventually, but you will have messed up first if you sit and wait. Once you reach a certain level though, you will find that your opponent has a plan in mind with his moves, and sitting and waiting for a mistake will suddenly result in being utterly unprepared when they finally bring their plan to fruition. There are times when defensive play is necessary, but it should always be with a view to defend against the assault and continue with your masterplan, whatever that may be.
3. An aggressive opening as black is completely your choice. Sicilian, caro-kann, kings pawn, French, are all acceptable. Your opening was not the problem in this game. You just need more of a coherent game plan, and good board vision.
Hope that this helps. As always, any questions are welcome.
1 What should I do when I don't know what to do?
2 Should I play defensive and wait for a mistake by my opponent or go for a better strategy?
3 Or should I learn an aggressive opening as black?
I will do my best to answer these questions. Most of my time on the first one. That's a big question.
1. This is a question that a lot of inexperienced players struggle with. They know what to do when there is something to do, like take a piece or attack the king, but they are at a loss if their opponent doesn't mess up and start giving away pieces or pawns.
The answer here lies in one word. Strategy. A well known grandmaster once said, "the tactician knows what to do when there is something to do. The strategist knows what to do when there is nothing to do". At every point during a chess game, you should always have a master plan in mind. It is how maturely you formulate this plan, and how you put it into action, that decides how strong a player you are. So, that is the general idea, but as for practical advice, there are several things that you can do in a quiet position. Here are some of them.
a. Improve your worst piece.
b. Limit your opponent's pieces, and or pawn breaks
c. Prepare a pawn break of your own
If you don't quite understand what I mean by one or more of these, just say so, and I can elaborate.
Once you decide on a course of action, (often the hardest part), you must then devise a series of moves that will accomplish the goal. For example, "I want to play c5 to attack the center". Now, you may need to give support to the c5 square first. This is a very basic example, but I hope that you get the idea.
Once you reach a higher level in chess, your opponent will often see these ideas and try to shoot them down, so that the game becomes a duel of ideas, tons of fun!
2. Playing defensive and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake is almost always a terrible idea. At the low level in chess, you can generally count on your opponent messing up eventually, but you will have messed up first if you sit and wait. Once you reach a certain level though, you will find that your opponent has a plan in mind with his moves, and sitting and waiting for a mistake will suddenly result in being utterly unprepared when they finally bring their plan to fruition. There are times when defensive play is necessary, but it should always be with a view to defend against the assault and continue with your masterplan, whatever that may be.
3. An aggressive opening as black is completely your choice. Sicilian, caro-kann, kings pawn, French, are all acceptable. Your opening was not the problem in this game. You just need more of a coherent game plan, and good board vision.
Hope that this helps. As always, any questions are welcome.
26...Nb5 and 27...Bxa3 are blunders. You used only 15 seconds for each of these moves. In a 15+15 time control you should use about 30 seconds per move on average. You still had 15 minutes on your clock, so you played as if it were 0+15 time control. If you had taken more time, you would have realised that those moves were blunders.
1 What should I do when I don't know what to do?
2 Should I play defensive and wait for a mistake by my opponent or go for a better strategy?
3 Or should I learn an aggressive opening as black?
2. No, develop (connect the rooks) and play active.
1. Once you developed, talk with your pieces, improve the position of that which deserves most attention, or, as @ChessMathNerd put it, improve the worst piece. That includes the pawns and the King. Strictly spoken that is also development, middlegame development. Development is something which never stops in a chess game.
3. No, your opening fits well. Stick to 1...e5 as answer to 1.e4 until you stop blundering pieces.
4. Do tactics in order to prevent such blunders like the already mentioned. lichess.org/training/
5. Everything else, like endgames and pawn strategy (for example 20...dxc3 is inaccurate, because you exchange a good center pawn against a not so good pawn on b2) comes later.
2 Should I play defensive and wait for a mistake by my opponent or go for a better strategy?
3 Or should I learn an aggressive opening as black?
2. No, develop (connect the rooks) and play active.
1. Once you developed, talk with your pieces, improve the position of that which deserves most attention, or, as @ChessMathNerd put it, improve the worst piece. That includes the pawns and the King. Strictly spoken that is also development, middlegame development. Development is something which never stops in a chess game.
3. No, your opening fits well. Stick to 1...e5 as answer to 1.e4 until you stop blundering pieces.
4. Do tactics in order to prevent such blunders like the already mentioned. lichess.org/training/
5. Everything else, like endgames and pawn strategy (for example 20...dxc3 is inaccurate, because you exchange a good center pawn against a not so good pawn on b2) comes later.
You already had many great comments on the subject.
Let me tell you in my opinion the best short term course of action you could follow.
I assume the diagnostic is that right now your weakness are tactics.
1. First do puzzles. lichess.org/training/
Don't try to do that for a long time, after certain time you will get tired and then it will be a waste of energy. Sometimes 20 minutes per session is enough.
2. Avoid playing bullet and invest your times in games that you can analyze with the help of the computer.
Just try to understand whenever the computer analysis says blunder. You need to understand both your blunders and the other side.
Analyze all of your games.
3. If you like to read something about positional play, just read "My System" by Aron Nimzowitsch.
That book is great, it s simple, and is all that you need to know for now.
I hope this helps you.
Thanks a lot to everyone, this was all quite useful and I somehow have an Idea on how to improve !
this will all be put to good use
this will all be put to good use
This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.