I am terrible at finding mate in game

Well, as you can see here, I am terrible at spotting mate on the fly. Move 22 on I had a forced mate for at least four straight moves. Sorry I can't annotate, I'm on mobile. It is important to note I was down to 5 seconds on my clock. But I feel I still should have won easily. And this is just the latest example. I have several wins where I missed mate in 1 even. I primarily play blitz because I'm trying to learn openings and I just want to get in as many games as possible. My blitz rating was up around 1200 but I lost a lot of games trying new things.

But I digress. What do I need to do to get better at finding forced mates? When I do tactics I find them easier, way easier. And I understand how to attack and get in position to mate, but then I falter.

There are several signs that a winning combination might exist. One of those was present in this game: At move 22 you had 3 pieces attacking and only 1 defending. Whenever you have at least one more piece attacking than defending then a mate likely exists. To be fair, I didn't see it right away, either, as I was going through your text moves quickly. Then at one point I paused and said, "Wait a second," and ran the moves back because the position looked so unbalanced there due to the difference in attacking versus defending pieces that I thought that might be the position you were talking about, and I was right.

I should make a handy list to keep on hand of all the signs I know about that a combo might exist. I did that once in some other post 1-2 months ago.

Yeah, I learned that from Kasparov, but I forget about it sometimes. Is it just a matter of time then? I only had 5 seconds. I feel like I still would have missed it though, I didn't even think about the piece difference. I try to always use all my pieces to attacks. I also used to go for mate a lot more and throw caution to the wind, but I'm trying to play more accurately now. Are there basic patterns to look for? Or some way I should be visualizing? This is the weakest aspect of my game.

I think it's just a case of pattern recognition. You can make a list of signs to watch for, but if you learn what normal positions look like, then such unbalanced positions tend to catch your attention because they don't look right for some reason. That's the signal to take time out to figure out *why* they don't look right, because of the potential of a winning combo. I couldn't do it in 5 seconds but if I had 30-60 seconds I probably would have seen the mate there.

Other patterns to look for:

keep count of the opponent's lost tempi, and be extra aggressive if the count is 1, and start looking for winning combinations right away if the count is 2 or more

opponent's king in the corner, especially with a sole pawn in front of it at R2, suggesting a potential "Corner Shelf Mate"

rook and bishop in the vicinity, where the bishop can support the rook at R8, that might lead to an Opera House Mate

uncoordinated pieces of your opponent

pieces other than rooks on the back rank of your opponent

pieces in the corner next to your opponent's king, such as a queen or knight that obviously have extremely limited scope

holes in the pawn cover, especially a pawn at N3 without your opponent's bishop there to cover that hole, especially if you have a bishop that can move to R6 in that edge hole

less than 3 pawns as pawn cover

no Luft, suggesting a potential back rank mate

your orthogonal pieces (rook, queen) can quickly swing in to attack, especially with check

one of your cramping pawns on your opponent's side at N6, locked with one of his pawns at N7

a RP on your opponent's side at R6, especially if you have a queen that can get to N7

your two rooks on the 7th rank, with the potential for a Blind Swine Mate

one of your pawns on the 6th or 7th rank that might provide a queening threat

criss-crossing bishops, pointing toward the uncastled king in the center from different angles

pinned pawns or pieces that protect the king, especially pawns at N2

a knight and queen near the opponent's king with no opponent's pawn on his bishop-file, suggesting a potential smothered mate

an opening position with many pieces clustered around the opponent's uncastled king, especially a knight at K2, with your knight in the vicinity of his king, suggesting an early smothered mate

opponent's knight missing from B3, especially if you have a bishop that can capture a sheltering pawn at R7 or R6, especially as a sacrifice

a hole at your opponent's B3 where your queen can sit when backed up with a bishop on the long diagonal going through that B3-square

an open rook file ending next to the opponent's king, especially if your orthogonal pieces are on or can get to that file quickly

the opponent's king along the side edge of the board, with doubled pawns alongside it on the N-file, especially if your bishop is covering the N1-square

always consider the pawn advance P-K6 (= e6 if playing White), especially if the only pawn discouraging that advance is the opponent's pawn at your KB7

Thanks for all that. I have trouble visualizing, so seeing things written helps a lot.

You're welcome. There's a guy on this forum writing a book about some impressive system he has developed for detecting such combinations, so he inspired me to notice such patterns more diligently, even though I have little idea of how his system works. I estimate that at least one of those patterns I listed above will be seen in 80% of chess puzzles you encounter. If people keep asking about such things I might write and post a document showing numerous puzzles with their solutions and point out how those patterns keep recurring.

Move 24 is nice - 24. Qg6+ Kh8, 25. Qxh6 mate!

The mate is also available on move 25, and is still ready for you to play on move 26 - until black plays 26...Qe8 and finally covers the g6 square.

The mate was there, thanks to a pin on the g7 square. 

On move 27, there's another mate there, thanks to a pin on the h6 bishop - namely 27. Rxg7+ (this move led to mate on move 22 as well) Rxg7 28. Rxg7+ Kh8 29. Qxh6 mate.

I'm really terrible at manipulating pieces in my head, so I also don't see the forced mate. Maybe we should just play daily chess, and try all the combinations on the board, or read novels .

Have you ever been to the ideachess.com web site? It has tons of puzzles for mate in 1, 2, 3 and 4. They're good practice. But, maybe practice isn't what's needed since you said you work better with written words. I just thought I'd mention the site.

Maybe http://www.chesstactics.org/ would be for the OP. It is wordy.

Id like to answer everyone without quoting everyone andmakinga huge post, or making 3 seperate posts....is there any way to do that?

You can either write...

@ name1:

comments

@ name2:

comments

etc.

...or you can open up a temporary text file, click "quote" on each person's post to which you want to respond, copy and paste each resulting header into your single text file, then add comments under each of those pasted headers (which presumably contain HTML tags you can't see), then post the contents of your text file into the response section. Preferably you'll delete the parts of the quotes that are irrelevant.

Id like to answer everyone without quoting everyone andmakinga huge post, or making 3 seperate posts....is there any way to do that?

@Sqod - Thanks a lot man. Mating patterns help out a lot too, like when I first learned smothered mate, I found one in a game a few weeks later. I didn't actually get the mate, but I won a ton of material when my opponent had to stop it. And I forgot that the chess.com app has mating patterns in lessons, I just can't study them all because I don't subscribe. But after I learned the epaulettes mate there, and the variation of it, I found it in a game soon after that. And providing example puzzles would be terrific, especially if they occured in real games so that we could see how the position evolved and try to identify at which point the player saw the potential mate and started going for it.

@Mal Smith - Listening to lectures helps me a lot. Like the ones from Finegold and Yasser from the Chess Club and Scholatic Center of St. Louis. If you can't visualize in images like me, maybe hearing the words would help you. Also, when doing puzzles or watching games, go out of your way to see the variations in your head. No matter how long it takes you, force yourself to do it. I have, and it has helped me to improve a lot. I normally make my moves off of intuition and feel.

@ SirCoffeeCrisp - I haven't tried that site in particular, but as I believe I stated before, when I am looking at a puzzle or a game position and I'm told mate in 3 or even mate in 5, I have no trouble finding it. Even when I'm just told, "White to move and win"", I can still find the mate. It's when I'm in a game that I have trouble detecting mate. I play with short time controls though, so I think that is a factor.

@ Mal Smith - Thank you so much! I just started reading that and it's perfect!

You're welcome. I've been wanting to do such a project for a long time, but I don't have the time since I have so many other chess projects going on at once. Would it be of any use to you if I created and posted a file of (say) only three such examples? That's about all for which I currently have time, though I don't know if such a short list would be enough to be useful. If that still sounds useful, just specify which three patterns you want included in that file. Maybe in later months I can expand it a little at a time.

I think as you spot that there is an undefended pawn on f7 that is attacked twice by queen and rook and second the black bishop is pinned by the white Queen and can t move if an other piece give a check. Then you somehow must look at Rxg7+ removing the gard ( in this case by just taking it )

and then caculate what is 22.Rxg7+ Kxg7 ( because the bishop can not take ) and then 23.Rxf7+  and then you will see soon that the Queen and Rook are very strong together and just give the black king that is without any cover checkmate. 23...Kg8 24.Qg6+ and mate on the next move or 23...Kh8 24.Qxh6# does not help back too.   ( Also not on move 22....Kh6 23.Qxh6# )  This are thing you can practice.

Just wanted to reiterate how helpful this has been.

another person looking for the easy guide to life, us folks that live by blood, sweat and tears are a dying breed.

Any mates you could post would be great, especially if they have a name and/or they are consider to be classics or primary patterns that everyone should know. 

On a separate note, I tried posting a mate I found from a position in a game I was looking at. It was a mate in 9. But I could not figure out how to do it after inserting the board and setting up the pieces. Someone vomited on my laptop and killed it, so I'm on mobile. Is there a way for me to do this without having to put in an entire game? I have the chess.com app, but when I went to the forum from there, I couldn't add a board to my comment at all. If there is a more appropriate place for these kinds of questions, by all means, tell me.

As to what mating patterns I'd like to see, besides what I said earlier, which was more general, queen and knight would be really cool. Anything with only the minor pieces would be cool. And any mate with pawns pinned on diagonals. And I know it's more than three, but any mate with a queen and another piece where the queen is used to control a lot of squares around d the king and the other piece comes in and gives mate.

For basic checkmate patterns see the "Bible" of checkmate...

"The Art of the Checkmate" by Renaud & Kahn....

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Checkmate-Georges-Renaud/dp/1849942706/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492898235&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+the+checkmate

For generalized attacking methodology/technique, focused primarily against the opponent's king position, see...

"Attacking Manual 1" by Jacob Aagaard...

https://www.amazon.com/Attacking-Manual-1-Jacob-Aagaard/dp/9197600407/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492898428&sr=1-1&keywords=attacking+manual+1

For the beginner-intermediate player, the following provide excellent instruction in the practical application of attacking technique.  I would recommend working with these books prior to tackling the Jacob Aagaard book, as these are these are more targeted to the beginner-intermediate player, while the Aagaard book is more appropriate for intermediate players and above.  (The Renaud & Kahn book is primarily a reference of mating patterns, accessible to all players)...

"Attacking the King" by J.N. (John) Walker...

https://www.amazon.com/Attacking-King-Everyman-Chess/dp/1857441273/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492920910&sr=1-1&keywords=attacking+the+king+everyman

"The Winning Way" by Bruce Pandolfini...

https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Way-Opening-Strategems-Fireside/dp/0684839490/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492904890&sr=8-1&keywords=the+winning+way+pandolfini

"Simple Attacking Plans" by Fred Wilson...

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Attacking-Plans-Fred-Wilson/dp/1936277441/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492904968&sr=1-1&keywords=simple+attacking+plans+by+fred+wilson

Lolwut? Do you not study openings either? I didn't even know mating patterns were a thing until I heard Yasser talk about how he had to study and memorize them all and how much it improved his game after he did. The only mating patterns I knew where the ones I learned as a kid, the ones you use against a naked king, like mating with two rooks or a queen and king. And those are still easy for me to spot in the middle game. So I know if I study all kinds off other patterns, I'll be able to spot those too and I'll be able to spot when a combination could force them. I'm excited to learn patterns that take multiple forced moves to mate, 3 or more, because I feel like these will be the most useful as the opponent is less likely to realize he is vulnerable. If you add on a 3 or 4 move combination that leads to a 4 move mating pattern, bam! You found a mate in 7 and you feel brilliant.

Another thing I've learned is that once you start !Earning mating patterns, when you see the potential for one on the board, all you have to do is imagine the to final mating position and then work backwards from there.