Over the last half year I've been steadily improving my chess. I do tactics on chesstempo.com every day, Study openings and endgames and recently picked up Silman's "How to Reasses your Chess.". Afer joining a local chess club and seeing my results improve directly proportional to the effort I'm putting in, I feel like I'm improving my knowledge and understanding of the game, for instance of positional concepts.

The problem which bugs me most is: in most of my games I have a plan, which in my eyes is logical, but I fail to properly execute it. Here is a game I recently played which shows what I mean. It was played against a 1500-ish club-level player.

Ouch thats gotta hurt.

Not really, every loss is an opportunity to learn. As Capablanca said: "Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something shameful. This is a wrong attitude. Those who wish to perfect themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from them what sorts of things to avoid in the future."

Biggest mistake is to force things when you already have big advantage.

You should play it easy. For example, instead 26. ... d4 you even could play 26. ... Qxf4. This should be situation where White struggles, not Black.

It's good that you put heart in attack, but somehow you have loose yourself to "only attack".

I agree with the general statement, but if 26...Qxf4 ? 27.Qxa7 is far from simple.

A better example is 31...Rd5 ?! which makes 32...f4 ?? (the losing mistake) an exchange-losing blunder, when 31...Qd5 ! almost forces a queen trade (after what the two passed pawns decide without much trouble).

Otherwise, pay attention to the in-between 35...f5 ! which gives you a very playable endgame (even if you were probably in a bad psychological shape to find it) :

@Irontiger

26. ...Qxf4 27. Qxa7 Qxe5 and if you afraid let's look what can be after:

28. Re1 Qe6 29. Bc3 (29. Rd2) Bf6; even after 28. Qa8+ Qb8 and Black will rule with his pawns on King's wing.

OK a few questions for you:
for a moment imagine you have not won any material. What plan would you have followed in a standard position from the opening?

Often if you win material you dont need to do something different. Its j+ust that your main plan becomes even stronger with the extra piece. Its your opponent that has to mix things up and create complications. You sorta did this for him. Your queen wandered around aimlessly attacking pawns etc. Your other pieces were ignored while you aimmed for additional short term material gains to add to your collection. 

Because you win a piece doesnt mean the game is over,.. keep following the main plan.

a small point but I dont like Qxf4 (it activates the bishop) 

Normally I castle kingside and try to get a queenside attack going. Taking Qxf4, I reckon I was being greedy and wanted material compensation for giving the knight I was ahead back.

Also, many thanks to Irontiger and Utarefson for providing some excellent ideas. You are right Irontiger, sometimes, (especially when I go from winning to equal to sometimes even losing positions) I get bent out of shape and fail to find good moves because I keep worrying that even though I have some extra pawns, he has a rook for my bishop and I can never stop him. Even though I have an advanced pawn of my own, it can never be as strong as his, because he has two rooks and I don't! There's a lesson there in psychological resilience.

Black probably survives and wins, but that's way from easy. ...Qxe5 opens many lines, and is probably responsible for that kind of slaughter :

@Irontiger

First, yes I thought of Qd6 not Qe6. Thanks for pointing it. But I think you downestimated Bf6. 

Let's go with your diagram moves:

4. ... Bf6 5. Qa8+ Kc7 5. Qa5+ Kb8! and Black will rule, for example 6. Bd2 Rhe8.

I missed that, indeed. A better move is then 5.Bxf6 and then 6.Rge2, but it does not save White.

I still repeat my point that this line is far from clear ; I wouldn't find it without the analysis board ! On the board, I would never chose something that risked when I am up more than two pawns !

Maybe this is another issue. at times you MUST take risks to persue the best continuation possible. 2 pawns up is an advantage but not the ONLY advantage. Often times its better to return some material to resolve a positional problem than hold onto it with an iron fist and suffer more positional concessions. 

One of the advantages of endgame knowledge is that you can more easily convert a middlegame advantage to an endgame where your opponents chances of counterplay are reduced

@Irontiger

I thing that our choices are due to our playstyle. I'm quite poor tactitian so my strategy will aim in simplyfying position. I play that way so I can see through line with Qxf4. So, I would even give up a pawn to get position I hope that will be consider straight.

On the other hand, you seem to be more of tactician. You are very carefully consider tactics and initiative. You are suspicious if one side is giving up some of his advantage or initiative. In the end your analyse was better than mine - more precise and stronger. I learned a lot.

you do realize that the idea that your a tactician or a positional player is sort of a joke at the amateur level? You need to be a master of both BASIC tactical motifs and positional motifs. 

Right the idea that you have your a positional player and avoid tactical positions is a strong indication you need to work on your tactical and calculation skill set. My advice as a trainer would be to play sharper openings and work on tactics more so your comfortable in more positions and can make your move selection based on the requirements of the position and not your personal 'feelings'

@TonyH

It's not "personal feelings". It's strategy. Lone Queen is weak and can attack supported/defended King only in specyfic situations. So in our case that is a fact that 2. Qxa7 is treat only if Queen can be supported by other White pieces, otherwise it's just to show off. When I was thinking about 1. ...Qxf4, I considered only posibility of reinforcing White Queen with White Bishop, and it was impossible. Irontiger showed me that White can go deeper and use his Rooks to support that attack, but even then it's futile.

In comparision, counting motifs and lines is tactic, puzzling strategical means strategy. It's not about levels, it's about way of thinking.

But it's true that I'm missing tactics quite a lot and I should work on this to get better. And I'm working on it - Irontiger gave me a lesson. :)

This is what I was referring to. When we are considering canidate moves for a position our memory & pattern recognition to help us in the decision. We are not computers so we have to pick and choose what to look at. This pick and choose phase is critical because we can limit ourselves from moves that might be good because of a personal feeling. That move is too complex, that move is loses material, that move is too passive, that move is too risky etc. 

Often times we miss moves NOT because we cannt calculate deeply enough but because we never considered the move in the first place. Not being able to calculate deep and accurately enough is something we can all improve at and is a problem at all levels and is acute at the U2200 level. 

The key question is to ask why you didnt consider a line or why you dismissed it. Was it a miscalculation after considering it? A lack of knowledge and thereby a misassessment of the position? If the move wasnt considered then why did you not consider it? personal feelings? 

The reason I jumped on this Personal feeling point is that you made a declaration that your a "positional Player" while irontiger is a "tactician"

At the U2200 this distinction is 100% irrelevent. Personal preference has a small factor in the decision process in sharp positions. You must calculate and find the right move. As a coach one of the things that has helped me guide my students to improvement is anytime they said they didnt "like" certain things that is exactly what we worked on until they didnt have a 'dislike' of those positions. They didnt have to like them but they didnt fear or turn away from them. Your statement that your a positional player is just a red flag to me. My advice is to work on that type of position. If given a choice Force yourself to play sharper. Pick the moves that are more tactical and push yourself.... you might surprise yourself.

TonyH it's likely that you said right thing, but I can't do it just now. I still feel that I can develop more my way of evaluating position. Of course I do some tactical training, but not giving it so much time as to "strategical means".

I even think that at some point it would be inevitable to concentrate on tactics, but now I enjoy other way of playing chess - without much counting lines, taking my time otolook for strategicaly strong/important points in position.

If I will not get rank in Online chess beyond 2000 in month or two, then I will reconsider my way of developing. But nowadays I feel comfortable with it. Even more, I enjoy much learning strategy and getting new strategical ideas about position.

I, more of a tactician ? Lol !

I am way better at grinding a += endgame than a middlegame with strong initiative. But as you have to be able to defend against attack, I got some 'feeling' about what dangerous position can be hold or not, and that feeling was half wrong here. I did see the queen was not a lone attacker, and thus it scared me, even if in the end, after spending 30 min on the analysis board you can see it's safe. You can't do that OTB where you already used time before and you want to keep some time for later.

What I meant about 'two pawns up' is that with two more pawns when the opponent has no compensation whatsoever, it is almost always possible to convert into a win, and 99% of the exceptions are opposite-colored bishops or open kings with queens on the board.

Here, White has absolutely nothing after, for example 26...Kb8, and even without the attack Black is winning, with so much material. So even if it takes ten, twenty or even a hundred more moves to checkmate, my 'practical decision' would be the slow pawn push without giving any chance for counterplay.

Of course, if the game was casual with nothing (apart from pride) at stake, this would be different. As I know that I can win slowly, I would try something else to learn something, to 'make the game alive again'.

@Irontiger

I'm person who would play Qxf4 after 5 minutes of thinking. I usually don't go through all lines, just main lines. I considered Qxa7 is safe for Black very fast, but 26. ... Qxf4 27. Qxf4 seem more troublesome for me at first sight. There are some nasty moves and Black needs to be careful. On the other hand after Qxa7 Black don't need to think much because White is forcing him to move.

Well, seems it's all I can say. I play chess that way (without much counting lines) and I'm about your rank in Online chess, so I hope it means that I get strategical understanding of position quite good. I hope I will learn something similar to your analysing lines skill and then be a lot better after that achievment. :)

How to properly execute a plan.

The title to your post indicates that you know that in a chess game you have to have a plan of attack.  The key is, that it can't be any plan that in your eyes is logical.  Don't blame yourself because you fail to execute it properly.  The problem is not your failure to excute your plan properly.  The problem is that your plan has to fit what the pawn structure on the board dictates.  Think of the pawn structure as the hills, mountains and valleys of a battlefield.  Your plan of attack must conform to the pawn structure.  If your logical plan calls for your army of pawns and pieces to go thru a mountain formed by the pawn structure.  Your plan is doomed to failure.  In order to properly execute a plan it must fit the pawn structure.

 In the book, "Pawn Power In Chess", Hans Kmoch, the author, states, on or about pages 114 -142, that almost all openings result in one of 6 characteristic pawn structures.  He goes on to explain in detail the plan(s) of attack for each of the 6 structures for both White and Black, and how to execute them step by step, along with alot of vital info about pawns.  The overarching principle in his book is paraphrased as follows:

Winning chess is the strategically/tactically correct advance of the pawn mass.   One of the main reasons this is so is because pawns are the only ones that cannot move backwards.

 The first thing you need to know is that chess is siege warfare in the form of a game.  You might say what the hell is siege warfare.  It is a strategy of warfare that has been practiced by human armies throughout history.  There have been many forms of siege warfare during the centuries.  However, there are 3 basic methodologies that are basic to siege warfare.  They are: restrain, blockade and execute the enemy.

The best chess book on how siege warfare is conducted in chess is, "My Sytem", by Aaron NImzowitsch.  He also paraphrases the overarching principle written above.  He illuminates the details of restrain, blockade, and execute (kill the criminal) in chess.  He highlights and explains in detail many other concepts, ideas and principles.  But, more important he explains the 2 theories of chess:

Classical Chess Theory:   Control the center by occupying it with your pawns and pieces.

Hypermodern Chess Theory:  Control the center with the power of your pawns and pieces.  This way you do not create targets for your opponent in his quest to take control of the center from you.  Fianchettoing your bishop is a good example of using Hypermodern Chess Theory.

In practice it ends up being a combination of the 2 that is used in actual chess games.

Now that we have all of the above out of the way we can look at the game. You probably already know all of the information above so thanks for bearing with me.

The most obvious feature of your game, marcos, is the pawn blocked up center.  Think of the pawns (White pawns at c3,d4,e5 and the Black pawns at e6,d5,c4) , after the move 9...c4 as a mountain ridge (the pawn structure)  over and around which the battle on the chess board will take place.  A well known strategy in chess is that a flank attack on the kingside or the queenside is best stopped (thwarted, repeled or rebuffed) by counterattacking in the center.  But when the center is blocked, as it is in your game, a flank attack stands a very good chance of suceeding.

I think all of you know that the opening being played in this game is the Caro-Kann.  Marcos, it is a pretty good assumption that you played this opening (chose this way to defend against 1.e4, because your opponent is rated 200 points higher than you, and you were playing an opening which would give you the best chances for a draw. As soon as White played 3.e5 the game transposed in to the Advance Variation of the Caro-Kann. 

Here comes the part that has to do with your post.  White's basic strategy (plan) in the Advance Variation is to complete the development of his pieces as rapidly and harmoniously as possible, and then try to make practical use of his Kingside space advantage originally established by 3.e5.  If Black caastles on the Kingside White normally plays for a King side attack.  And if the center is blocked it can be a Kingside flank attack.  No need to control the inroads thru the channels of the center that lead to Black's castled position, its blocked.  Niether White nor Black can use the center.

Black's basic strategy (plan) in this variation is to complete his development, and then undermine White's pawn cneter with ...c6-c5 or (more rarely) ...f7-f6.  Black should make good use of the c-file.

That deals with the title of your post and explanation of why, while you may have a logical, in your eyes, plan you believed that you had failed to execute properly.  Now you know that the plan has to fit the pawn structure and more specifically the theoretically correct sequence of moves.

If you would like to know my analysis of your game and lots more please let me know.