How Do You Play Safe Chess?

I put a seek out for a 20 10 game, in an effort to play slower and with greater care, but no one wanted to play that slow.

So, I played one last 15 10 game and gave it my very best, taking the game all the way down to one minute left on my clock, thinking on each and every move. It's real late for me, 1:23 A.M., so I'm real tired, but I still think I played to the best of my abilities, and just got beat by a better player.

Below is the "safest chess" game that I could muster tonight. I had a real hard time holding my position together in the middlegame and lost a pawn or two as a consequence, pretty sure.  I did try real hard. Thanks for the encouragement. Maybe I can find some 20 or 30 minute games tomorrow to practice this new mental discipline thing, as I will be home all day.  Good night. 

Last, my opponent was far, far away, in Greece. Internet chess is a very cool thing, in that regard. It's a global experience. BTW - I also played someone from Sri Lanka. Where is that?

Well done. A quick look shows no gross tactical errors, which shows what you can do when you put your mind to it. To me it looks like you lost due to

1) poor strategical decision making - 24.Qf3. You generally don't want to trade pieces when your opponent is under pressure and has a lack of manuevering space as he did in that situation due to the octopus on c6.

and 2) poor handling of the endgame. 36.Nh7 is particularly odd. Is the knight deserting? But not to worry, you can improve your endgame technique later

   Edit: Hang on, I just found one. 27.g3 hanging your rook

Much better, except for 27.g3?? but those mistakes naturally occur when you're tired.

Maybe next time, try a 20' or 30' game when you're fully awake, and see if you can just eradicate gross blunders ?! Then the road is open to the 1300 elo mark

The road to 1300 is open if I eradicate gross blunders? Now that is a happy thought for the morning. Yep. I am going to play slower, 20' or 30'.

Thanks for looking at my game and the tip on trading pieces.

I just woke up to a pleasant morning in California. It must be pretty late by now way over in Ireland. I see. Google says that there is an 8 hour difference. It's 8 AM here, so I guess it is...um...4 PM over there. It's not bedtime yet over there. 

Regarding strategy, I wonder if pushing my d-pawn early in the game was a good idea? It did present a problem in the middlegame, needing to protect it with my knight and the kitchen sink!

Also, my pawn at c2 became a real thorn in my side, and I had to babysit that little fellow as well.

Here is my question. Would it have been better, in the very beginning, to keep the d-pawn at d4, relocate my c3 knight to another square, and then play c2-c3? At least then, my d-pawn would have had a defender, and my pieces would have been free to move about.

I should take a look at some Scandinavian games, since that opening occurs often in my games. It's quite popular.

Here are a few positions from the game.  

Basically, it felt like I had to work really hard to keep both the pawns at c2 and d5 safe.

 10.d5 -  My idea was to restrict the movement of Black's queen along the 5th rank, as well as cramp Black a bit.  

11. Re2 - Black has not completed development, and yet my pieces are working hard to defend both c2 and d5.

27.g3 was pretty ugly.

17.dxc6 ep. - I need to paste en passant onto my laptop, and I will do it, right after breakfast! I keep forgetting about that possibility. It's such a strange little move. 

After 17.dxc6 ep. Rxd3 18.cxd3. A much better position. It solves problems.

 5pm here now, and about time for me to get some sleep 

10.d5 is a really nice move, and it's good that you had a solid reason for doing so rather than it just being a move that randomly popped into your head. It gains space and impacts the coordination of whites only two developed pieces which are on opposite flanks. When you make a move like that though, you have to be prepared to back it up give the pawn support...the most logical way of doing that is putting another pawn on c4 so your pieces aren't tied down to the defence of d5.

11.Re2 - Ok, you saw a threat and responded adequately to it...that's fine. It's not the best way to do so, the rook is awkward on e2 and on d2 it blocks in your bishop. Nd4 is probably a better way to defend c2. But that's all beside the point, the fact is it's not a real threat! Let's say just white plays 11.a3 and Black takes the pawn 11...Nxc2. See anything? A zwischenzug or two?

Your opening play was fine. You harried Blacks queen, developed your pieces, gained some space. You've got a pretty nice advantage already after 7 or 8 moves.

You just need to concentrate on completely eradicating errors like 27.g3 and to make more moves like 10.d5 - moves that are part of a plan...if it turns out they're wrong...fine...that can be fixed. It's better to make bad moves for the right reasons than to make bad moves for no reason at all.

1. Excellent advice, and it is a question that I almost never ask. I do ask myself what my opponent's move is trying to accomplish, but I don't ask the stronger question, which can be stated in a slightly different way - what would happen if my opponent had one extra turn? Ouch! 

2. I do this in Turn-based chess, always taking one last look before entering a move. If I can't find the time to do this in 15 10, I need to play 20 20, or at whatever speed it takes to play Real Chess, and not Hope Chess, on every move.

I was thinking about playing Re5, driving Black's queen away. Yep. Nxc2 was not a real threat. White would have won the exchange after 11.a3 Nxc2 (?) 12.Re5 Qd7 13.QxNc2. Good eyes!

Musik..., I'm a beginner myself, but I do have a "trick" you might find useful. 

Before placing a piece on a square, first imagine it's a Rook you're placing, and see where your "imaginary Rook" can go from this square. If you meet an enemy Rook or Queen, that enemy piece can capture whatever you place on the square. Now, imagine it's a Bishop you're placing on the square. Where can it go? If you meet an enemy Bishop or Queen, that enemy piece can capture your piece too. Finally, imagine you're placing a Knight, and see where it can go. Can it go to a square with an enemy Knight? If so, that enemy Knight can capture whatever you place on this square. 

Hope this helps. I find it more concrete, than the advice: make sure the move is safe.

It's funny how someone who got a little above 1800 USCF says you shouldn't listen to advice from players rated less than 1800 USCF. Why not say: don't listen to players below 2000 USCF, or 2500 FIDE, or 1234 on Chess.com?

ajed..., you might be right that many players study openings because it's like candy.

However, the psychological advantage of being in positions one is familiar with is important, I think. For this reason alone, it makes a lot of sense to study openings. Not tons of openings, for pure pleasure, but the handful of openings one plays in each and every game (as far as possible).

Further, if we remember to do post-analysis of our games, and constantly try to find better moves where we went wrong and so on, we will more and more often enter the middle game with an advantage. And, after all, it's easier to win a "winning position", than a "losing position". So, studying openings - in the right way - I think is someone every player should do, including players at my level.

kborg, but why the top-10-percentile? Why not the top-1-percentile (FIDE 2000)? Or the top-3-percentile, or top-5-percentile. Just pointing out that choosing 1800 USCF is arbitrary. 

adej..., how small do you think? Let's say someone study chess about 40 hours weekly (like I do), then how many hours do you think should be dedicated to opening study, tactical training, playing and so on?

Thanks, ajed.... I spend a lot more time on openings. Or rather on openings/classic games/own games all "mixed together". 

Best wishes reaching your goal!  My goal is to reach master level within 10,000 hours. 

mate we all have the same problem. well i do anyways :) 

1st look

2nd calculate

3rd try not to fall asleep

hmmm

I agree with the person who recommended 45/45 on ICC. That will help you a lot, because it will give you enough time that you can really think about every move. In terms of safety, you should ask yourself before every move you make, what are all my opponent's checks, captures, and threats? That is, systematically examine every one of your opponent's pieces, looking first to see if any of them can make a check, then do the same for each of the pieces to see if there are any captures possible, and lastly, check where each of your opponent's pieces can move on the next move and if there is a threat that needs to be addressed. I guarantee you that you didn't do that on 11...Qf6, because if you'd have looked at the knight and asked if it has a check, you'd have instantly seen that it checks by capturing your queen.

See Dan Heisman's article on Real Chess for more info, and if you have an ICC account, I recommend his Tactics and Safety videos, starting with Introduction to Safety and Counting and Is It Safe? All the videos in that series are great, as are the Thought Process and General Improvement videos.

lol...reminds me of when I started playing in swiss tourneys, and friends and I would go down all the high-rateds' boards and just marvel:  "It's always even!"  Nobody was ever down anything...ever.

Honestly though, I'm not sure what "safe chess" is supposed to be.  If you mean emulating a style like Karpov or Andersson, then that's reasonable; if though you mean trying to avoid blunders by some sort of system...I think that's on the wrong track.

Just avoiding hangs and so forth will not make you a good player.  You have to try to do stuff too, and once in a while it's going to rebound against you (and sometimes you'll overlook things, even if you've got a lot of experience).  I know it's frustrating to overlook stuff...but just looking around the board saying to yourself:  "OK, just make sure I'm not dropping any material!" isn't a very satisfactory (or successful) way to play the game, imo.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure what you're complaining about.  It's seems to me (judging from that second game, the Philidor's) that you've gotten a lot better than you used to be.  One thing I've noticed from hanging out around here...sure, inexperienced players will often overvalue their chances and underestimate (or simply miss) their opponents' threats (I fully expected to see that); what I wasn't so aware of though was how often they do the opposite:  thinking they're playing badly and that their positions are inferior when in fact they're doing quite well and have a considerable advantage.  At any rate, your pieces looked quite coordinated and "right" to me in that second game.