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#1

Any tips for improvement? The games were all sloppy by both sides and I was kind of struggling

https://lichess.org/cJyF6ocOzVmf

https://lichess.org/ZnaudEHh3Ni1

https://lichess.org/4wdAwdUHdfF6

I am new to chess with only a few dozen (and all kind of fast) games under my belt so far so please dumb down the advice so I may understanding and ty

Any tips for improvement? The games were all sloppy by both sides and I was kind of struggling https://lichess.org/cJyF6ocOzVmf https://lichess.org/ZnaudEHh3Ni1 https://lichess.org/4wdAwdUHdfF6 I am new to chess with only a few dozen (and all kind of fast) games under my belt so far so please dumb down the advice so I may understanding and ty
#2

Just keep playing chess and doing tactics. You will begin to face harder opponents who don't fall for simple tactics or aggressive openings and you'll be forced to start using more technique to get wins. Good luck!

Just keep playing chess and doing tactics. You will begin to face harder opponents who don't fall for simple tactics or aggressive openings and you'll be forced to start using more technique to get wins. Good luck!
#3

@harrygz Playing chess I can do but when you say doing tactics, what do you mean? And what I am mostly looking for, what were my big mistakes? All of those games felt more like "Losses" than wins and I know it was all so much harder than it should be if I played the right moves and had the right ideas. I mean, where did I go wrong?

@harrygz Playing chess I can do but when you say doing tactics, what do you mean? And what I am mostly looking for, what were my big mistakes? All of those games felt more like "Losses" than wins and I know it was all so much harder than it should be if I played the right moves and had the right ideas. I mean, where did I go wrong?
#4

Someone with more energy than me can go through the games and pick out the specific mistakes here and there, but you could use the analysis engine and do the same thing for the most part. In short, on basically every move of the game there are tons of plans and ideas that you aren't considering and i'm sure there are many times where you might miss a tactic. The only way to familiarize yourself with all the various plans in any given position is to play a lot more chess. You can do lichess puzzles to work on your tactics which will help a lot as well. You'll probably have to spend your first hundred or so games getting better at tactics, before the finer elements of planning and technique really start to matter that much.

Someone with more energy than me can go through the games and pick out the specific mistakes here and there, but you could use the analysis engine and do the same thing for the most part. In short, on basically every move of the game there are tons of plans and ideas that you aren't considering and i'm sure there are many times where you might miss a tactic. The only way to familiarize yourself with all the various plans in any given position is to play a lot more chess. You can do lichess puzzles to work on your tactics which will help a lot as well. You'll probably have to spend your first hundred or so games getting better at tactics, before the finer elements of planning and technique really start to matter that much.
#5

Are analysis engines the only good way to learn from games?

Are analysis engines the only good way to learn from games?
#6

No, but it's a quick and easy start for learning from them. Like harrygz said, it would take someone with the energy to go through and find the specific mistakes that would help you improve.

No, but it's a quick and easy start for learning from them. Like harrygz said, it would take someone with the energy to go through and find the specific mistakes that would help you improve.
#7

@Leckuechner then in that case, how to learn to use the lichess analysis tools? I find them super confusing but perhaps I am not too good at computers

@Leckuechner then in that case, how to learn to use the lichess analysis tools? I find them super confusing but perhaps I am not too good at computers
#8

Tactics are brief move sequences that let you gain a significant advantage, such as a bishop sacrifice to win the opponent's queen.
Contrast with strategic, or "positional", play, where you look for a way to gain a long-term advantage, such as a menacing knight outpost on the sixth rank.

Sometimes an opportunity for a tactic will appear in a game, if your opponent makes a mistake. When you see an opportunity to claim the advantage, calculate it through and, if it looks safe, take it.

Learning to identify and spot tactics in a game is about memorizing and recognizing patterns. Play enough sacrifice puzzles and you'll eventually learn to recognize that Bxf7+! sacrifice with a discovered attack on the opponent's Qd8 from your Rd1, with the help of the open d-file.

Engines are definitely not the best way to learn, and dare I say they might even ruin your performance. They shine in showing you tactics you missed, but for learning positional play, they're pretty useless, and strategy can often be even more valuable than tactics.
More importantly, as a learner, it won't be as pedagogically useful for your development. Figuring out your mistakes on your own expands your mind in a different way than reading the engine's inscrutable evaluation (just what is the difference between a -0.03 evaluation and +0.07?), and it'll be much more memorable and applicable to your own future games.

In recent decades, it was thought that engines had refuted the human concept of strategy, and a lot of human masters tried to follow their system of insane calculations.
The development of the AlphaZero neural network proved this hypothesis very wrong, and showed that strategic domination really can defeat twenty-move calculation.
(Admittedly, the AlphaZero project is still controversial, but the community-led Lc0 project shows that neural networks are still immensely strong and competitive.)

Tactics are brief move sequences that let you gain a significant advantage, such as a bishop sacrifice to win the opponent's queen. Contrast with strategic, or "positional", play, where you look for a way to gain a long-term advantage, such as a menacing knight outpost on the sixth rank. Sometimes an opportunity for a tactic will appear in a game, if your opponent makes a mistake. When you see an opportunity to claim the advantage, calculate it through and, if it looks safe, take it. Learning to identify and spot tactics in a game is about memorizing and recognizing patterns. Play enough sacrifice puzzles and you'll eventually learn to recognize that Bxf7+! sacrifice with a discovered attack on the opponent's Qd8 from your Rd1, with the help of the open d-file. Engines are definitely *not* the best way to learn, and dare I say they might even ruin your performance. They shine in showing you tactics you missed, but for learning positional play, they're pretty useless, and strategy can often be even more valuable than tactics. More importantly, as a learner, it won't be as pedagogically useful for your development. Figuring out your mistakes on your own expands your mind in a different way than reading the engine's inscrutable evaluation (just what is the difference between a -0.03 evaluation and +0.07?), and it'll be much more memorable and applicable to your own future games. In recent decades, it was thought that engines had refuted the human concept of strategy, and a lot of human masters tried to follow their system of insane calculations. The development of the AlphaZero neural network proved this hypothesis very wrong, and showed that strategic domination really can defeat twenty-move calculation. (Admittedly, the AlphaZero project is still controversial, but the community-led Lc0 project shows that neural networks are still immensely strong and competitive.)
#9

So for me, looking at the games I lost are the most helpful. So if you were to look back at

https://lichess.org/9xy6WXDl
against Molaresset, you should be able to see a button below the board that says something like "Request Computer Analysis". If you click on that, lichess will have all the moves in the game analyzed for which are inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders. Once you request an analysis, you should have a new option under the moves list called "Learn from my mistakes" which will take you through the points of the game where there was a significant evaluation change and have you try to find a better move than what you played.

If you don't see the request computer analysis button, you might have to change off of the crosstable, move times, or pgn tabs.

Edit: I didn't realize it would post the game in here, if you select the "open" option at the bottom of this board and view the game page, you should see what I'm talking about.

So for me, looking at the games I lost are the most helpful. So if you were to look back at https://lichess.org/9xy6WXDl against Molaresset, you should be able to see a button below the board that says something like "Request Computer Analysis". If you click on that, lichess will have all the moves in the game analyzed for which are inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders. Once you request an analysis, you should have a new option under the moves list called "Learn from my mistakes" which will take you through the points of the game where there was a significant evaluation change and have you try to find a better move than what you played. If you don't see the request computer analysis button, you might have to change off of the crosstable, move times, or pgn tabs. Edit: I didn't realize it would post the game in here, if you select the "open" option at the bottom of this board and view the game page, you should see what I'm talking about.
#10

@EpsilonCarinae Very interesting, I thought tactics and positional play were synonymous! My question to you is if there are other ways to learn about how and when to spot tactics than just playing a lot of games to build up familiarity with possible patterns. Is it not dangerous to internalize whatever patterns you see in games, can you not dig yourself into some hole with bad information? Can you train, practice and commit to ill patterns that will weaken you as a chess player in the long term? So far , I have been playing moves almost at random and trying to figure out what to do on a move by move basis but it's really exhausting, I try to calculate every move on the chessboard one move deep and my head hurts by move 10 and sometimes, I panic because I realized I missed one of the moves and wonder if that was the critical moment..

@EpsilonCarinae Very interesting, I thought tactics and positional play were synonymous! My question to you is if there are other ways to learn about how and when to spot tactics than just playing a lot of games to build up familiarity with possible patterns. Is it not dangerous to internalize whatever patterns you see in games, can you not dig yourself into some hole with bad information? Can you train, practice and commit to ill patterns that will weaken you as a chess player in the long term? So far , I have been playing moves almost at random and trying to figure out what to do on a move by move basis but it's really exhausting, I try to calculate every move on the chessboard one move deep and my head hurts by move 10 and sometimes, I panic because I realized I missed one of the moves and wonder if that was the critical moment..

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