Missing easy checkmates

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone could help me out - I am fairly new to chess and have recently started to play more and more. I am definitely improving which is great, but one problem I have is getting into a winning position and then struggling to find the actual checkmate.

When I analyse the game afterwards and play out the moves, I often find that there was a checkmate that I missed - this is especially true if the mate involves sacrificing a piece - I will usually consider the sac and take a different line trying to keep hold of my material.

How do I get better at identifying these checkmates? Any advice would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks!

I would spend a little time each day with the tactics trainer. That would help your recognition of mating patterns. The fact that you analyze your games is a big plus, also find masters games to analyze, I would start with Capablanca. If you understand Capablanca you will be analyzing at an expert to master level. Hope this helps a bit. 

on each move you should ask youself:

captures /checks/threats.

first you should look at all captures possible and see if they do anything even those that look silly

after that look for any checks possible even the silly ones.

after that look at what you can do.

http://www.chess.com/video/player/how-to-avoid-quiescence-errors---part-1

I used to just play a computer chess set that I had which led to bad habits and careless play due to being able to take moves back, among other things. I just had to slow down, look carefully and just play a lot. In addition to tactics trainer, the daily puzzle thread is useful because of the discussion about the puzzle. I'm not good now, but I used to be worse.

Checkmate tactical puzzles. Will quickly improve this area of your game

Thanks everyone, great advice!

You can just look for the easiest and simplest thing before then moving on to the COMPLEX.

i missed mate in one https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/85267900645?tab=review