Should I analyse my games?

Hi all, just wondering ur opinions on analysing games, should i be analysing my games? do u analyse ur games? I am pretty much a beginner, rated around 550 rapid, been playing off n on for a few months, my win rate is about 50% giv or take n i play jus for fun, dont wanna compete in tournaments or anything like that, no aspirations of bein any kinda top player, wud like to get a semi respectable rating on here...maybe 1000-1200 (i know thats garbage to a lot of u guys), i wud be pretty happy with that n like i said i jus play for fun so is it necessary to analyse my games, i dunno if i wud get a lot out of it and it feels very time consuming, do any of u jus play for fun n not analyse ur games? is this more for the serious chess player? i keep hearing that i shud analyse my games if i want to improve is all so jus curious to everyones opinions n methods on this?

Regardless of rating, you should be analyzing your games to prevent repeating the same mistakes over and over. The problem comes down to HOW to analyze your games and how not to do so. There are many opinions on this and I believe your rating level is one component of this because a "regular" chess players doesn't have to strain with deep analysis like a top Grandmaster would

If around 1000 chess.com rating, or less, then I'd review your games to scan for hanging pieces (undefended things which can be taken for "free") and if you analyze with the chess.com computer analysis/game report, then focus on the "Blunders (??)" and "Mistakes (?)." 

Don't choose one move or discredit a move just because the computer likes one slightly more - it is more important to try to put into human ideas why you think the game blunder/mistake is worse than one of the lines suggested. This takes practice and experience to refine, but analyzing your own games becomes easier with time

What you want to AVOID is trying to memorize all the moves the computer calls "Best" because chess is WAY too deep in possible move combinations to remember them all and besides, the computer actually changes its mind on the "Best" move when it runs a deeper analysis/changes analysis depth - especially so between moves which are close in evaluation.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions on this or anything else chess related. You can even message for something else if you just wanted to chat etc. We might even try a few unrated chess games if you want some tailored advice from whatever I observe, but this blog article I wrote is a great place to start

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again 

I second this. A lot of people always say you need to analyze your games at all levels, but the reality of it is that at lower levels you won't know what you're looking for, because there's still so much you need to learn about. That would make analyzing your games very hard and very time consuming. At that point time is usually better spent by learning more about chess strategy (middlegame) than analyzing your own games. But what does help is to look at the tactics of your game. At lower rated levels chess games are decided by who makes the last of the fewest tactical mistakes. You'll improve a lot by improving your tactics. Going over your games and looking at all the 1 or 2 move tactics that you've missed is incredibly helpful. Don't get bogged down in computer lines that are longer, just focus on the easy things first. In that sense I don't agree that every ? or ?? move should be analyzed, as it's not always so easy to see why it's so bad. So, to repeat, look at your games, but only to see if you could have won or could have prevented losing pieces that you could have lost or did lose in 1 or 2 move combinations.

Thats very helpful guys thanks

Happy to help

Unfortunately as a beginner player you cannot analyze your games effectively, because you are not adept enough to interpret/understand most of the engine's suggestions with a few exceptions like 1-2 move tactical combinations that you have missed in your games.

My recommendation for you is to rather spend time on "easy" (for you) tactical puzzles to build up your tactical pattern recognition. So far you have only done 22 puzzles on the website and I would set this as the top priority for you.

Coach Kestony

https://www.youtube.com/kestony

I say this not to second-guess your advice to focus on tactics, but to point out how computer analysis has been helpful in conjunction with working on tactical puzzles:

What I personally have found is that tactical puzzles are great for building pattern recognition, but they suffer from the problem that the position's being presented as a puzzle implies that there's a trick to be found (aside from a few books like The Woodpecker Method bucking this trend.)

Analyzing my games, using the computer to find those missed tactical combinations has been very helpful for getting a better feel for how those situations present themselves in real games.

At 550 rapid, one's games are going to be dominated, win or loss, by those basic tactical mistakes anyway, and it's relatively simple to use the computer to help find them.  (Chess.com's analysis feature has recently improved quite a bit in terms of how it presents questionable moves in the game report, so this is now even easier than it was.)

Yes, if you want to improve then you should analyse your lost games so as to learn from your mistakes.

i m finding many comments here pretty helpful, cause i m a somewhat recreational player too.. i don't even play that consistently, but really liked the puzzles and stuff in here.. i ve been doing them, and i wanted to ask if doing puzzles etc, helps a kind of a beginner more than analysis - cause i know i always play a bit too proactively and impulsively rather than strategizing and reactively.. i also always forget the analysis mistakes etc fast..

anyway, i feel like this discussion here has made me think of game analysis in a "more correct for me" at least way.. 

very, very early when you drop pieces like mad and neither side has a clue, not worth much. 

later, after you no longer frequently lose pieces to simply throwing them out on the board and don't get oneshot mated from inattention, analysis is a great tool to see what you missed and what you got right. 

     If you truly don't give a d__n about improving your game, don't bother with analysis, lessons, puzzles, whatever. Just play once in a while for a spot of fun.

     But I suspect that you wouldn't be asking this question if you didn't wish to play better. It IS more rewarding to play well and have interesting and difficult games. If you want to improve your game then yes, you need to analyze your games and figure out where you are going wrong.

If you enjoy analyzing your games, do it; If you don't enjoy analyzing your games, don't do it.

Yes.

This is a lot to unpack here.  

If your goal is just to get to 1000 ~ 1200, then as far as time / value is concerned, then I probably wouldn't spend much time analyzing games.  Don't get me wrong, I think it is important to analyze games, just that your time is limited and it could be spent better elsewhere.

Besides just playing everyday, I would make it a point to do 5 hung pieces tactics and 5 check mate in 1 tactics everyday. (mate in 2 tactics if mate in 1's get too easy) 

lichess.org offers this for free, chess.com you have to pay for it.  

I would only take time to analyze a game if you played a game and you were confused as to why you lost.  Just focus on mistakes(-/+ 3.0 or more) and follow the lines as to why you lost. Often times, we make the same mistakes over and over again, so if you find yourself doing it too much, you might want to practice tactics that focus on it.

I`m finding these comments very helpful, thanks to all of ya...now at the risk of sounding like a total moron do i just start analysing my games from now thn or i do i gotta go back? ...coz i played over 100 games on here already n it seems like a huge task to go back thru all of them games lol

You and I talked about this and this is why I was so resistant to analyzing my own games at first but I have enough knowledge now to moderately analyze my games lol, keyword there being moderately.  You simply don't know enough to do a proper analysis, this is why I felt that games already annotated might be a better solution but this would probably be only for the raw beginner. 

If someone is completely unaware of how to analyze their chess games with a computer afterwards, then here is a video almost an hour long where I walk through a single game in-depth with how I'd analyze this as a beginner and the thought-process for finding improvements:

You should always look for best moves you could've done in your games. you want to look at tactics and see where you blundered to learn from it. 

I think this is a bit complex for a raw beginner, not that it's not helpful.  Honestly I'd just focus on blunders (which undoubtedly any beginner will make) and keeping pieces safe, and then eventually what I call "tactically safe".  This also ties into board vision, which I think would also be helpful for beginners and is a rather easy concept to digest and understand.

I always analyse my games and I think it's a great way to improve. Even when you lose, you'll probably be surprised to see that you made some really good moves and it will cheer you up. You'll also see your mistakes and sometimes it's only small things that makes a difference. With the computer help, most of the times I only take few minutes to review my game.