Yep, It's Brain Damage

Those who have been following my ramblings/blog on desperately trying to improve at Live Chess may at least get a chuckle for the day. It is important to laugh once a day, more is better.

I am now convinced that my poor play in Live Chess is the result of brain damage. As a child, I did fall one too many times down the stairs, slamming into the washing machine and dryer at the bottom, seeing stars, fairies and other fanciful things. Does anyone else suffer from this malady? I'd be happy to start a chess league for people who fall into this most unfortunate category.

Before the annotation, you will notice that I have been listening to the wise advice of other members, with my opening play following opening principles, not opening theory, nor memorized lines, to the best of my abilities.

Example of brain damage in action: 20.f5 - opening the e-file to expose the enemy king that is stuck in the center. 21.fxe6 - mission accomplished. 22.Nf4 - attacking the queen which is pinned to the enemy king, thus bringing my rook closer to this enemy king. 23.Rxf4 - mission accomplished. 24.Qe3 - with the idea of Re1, bringing my last piece to the battle, with a rook and a queen attacking a pinned queen to the enemy king. 25.Re1 - mission accomplished, but not happy that the enemy king moved to f7 - darn. 26.Qe2?? - with the brilliant idea of setting up Alehkine's Gun, R+Q+R on one file. 26...QxRf4 - I hang my rook, now I just have a pea shooter.

Am not sure why you played 7. h3

A couple of simpler things--why not 10 Bxa5? winning the Queen ( I assumed that was the point of 9 Ne2)

I think you need to look at the board closer and really check hanging pieces as well as basic tactics

7.h3 - to prevent Ng4. 7.0-0 was best. 

10.0-0 was a blunder. 10.Bxa5 wins the queen.

With that said, it's not tactics nor board vision. My standard tactics rating at chesstempo is 1461, and my blitz tactics rating is 1291. My Live Chess rating is in the 800's. Since tactics is 99% of chess, my Live Chess rating should be in the 1000's.

In education speak, we call this a discrepancy (1461/800's) when looking at children who have the aptitude, but do not succeed in school. That's why we have special education. 

Maybe chess.com can offer "special" chess.

Am still not sure why you feared...Ng4 (and played h3) I would have 0-0--

Seeing tactics in a set environment where you are looking for them is much different that finding them in a game where there is no set diagram with a forced move and your opponent has threats etc. Rating pools vary and you can't compare various skill sets that way. For instance I can not play bullet for the life of me--my mind does not work that fast--I really only play 5-0. I would keep playing and look at your games to see what went wrong and try not to make the same mistake twice.

That's five. I needed that. I'm still laughing. Thank you!

That's really the best advice anyone can give a beginner and it's something new that I am doing. I'm looking at each of my over 500 Live Chess games to find the very first mistake in the game, which would add up to over 500 mistakes. I can learn a lot from that.

I agree. Tactics in a puzzle environment is not the same as tactics during a heated battle. But 1400's/1200's tactics and 800's Live Chess. That's a huge gap that tactics alone can't explain, I fear.

Edit: Oh my, I'm up to 780 Blitz and 54 Standard Live Chess Games for a total of 834 games, which means I can learn from 834 mistakes! Time to fire up Fritz.

Maybe it's low blood sugar.

My brain feels like it is shutting down. I've had some rude opponents this morning in Live Chess. One said, while I was cogitating, "move!". I disabled chat, played only as fast as my brain would permit, and crushed someone rated about 100 points higher than me.

24.Qe3 hangs your queen.

Checking for hanging pieces and checkmates before you make each move would shoot your rating up quite a bit, I imagine.

Interesting.  It's odd that you can find combinations on a 2d board on a tactics site but not as well during a game.

Out of curiosity why did you play 9.Ne2, moving a piece twice before finishing your development with 0-0?

If it was to uncover your c pawn to be able to play c3 there's no need to reinforce d4 it's not attacked.

If it was to uncover the c pawn to play a break with c4, well, that's not possible because black's played b5.

If it was with the idea of moving your knight or bishop to f4, it's too soon to relocate when your development isn't done unless you have a forcing combo or are preventing something dangerous.

Apparently you missed that it uncovered an attack on the enemy queen, so I'm just curious.  You didn't follow up with a c pawn push or a piece going to f4, you 0-0 and then played Ne5 which should have lost a pawn.

You say your blitz tactics rating is 1200s, so I know you're able to see things like hanging pieces in a matter of seconds.  Maybe it's your approach somehow?  What do you think about treating each game position as a tactics puzzle?  One game means you're solving lets say 80 puzzles (for a 40 move game).  Not only do you find the tactics you have after your opponent moves, but when considering a move, even if you have to place your mouse cruiser on an empty square to help you see it, solve that puzzle before moving to see if your opponent can do something.

Dedicate a set number of seconds after each opponent move to not think about an open king, or development, but just think of it as a tactics puzzle.  Look for a piece or pawn to win.  Because if it's anything like this game, about 1 out of every 5 moves you're going to find one, and that accounts for hundreds of rating points if you can find them all.

But that 2nd game was excellent, nothing like the first one you posted, you saw all the tactics at hand... so don't be so hard on yourself :)  But apparently you need to work on consistency.

It is great that you are good humoured about it. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, we all just have to practice.

Even if you say that the problem is not tactics... it's absurdly clear that the problem is tactics.

You have to think about ALL the tactics first and then you can think positionaly, of course you have to be trained to do that quickly.

The problem is that you have to look for tactics first, that should be the base of all you plans.

Please see post #8 if you want to view the full game.

1. Correct.

The Chess.com computer agrees that taking the e5 knight is better, and that 8...Nxd5 was not just an inaccuracy, but a mistake, and I don't know why.

After 1.e3 e5 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 e4 4.Ne5 Nf6 Bb5+, I played 4...Nbd7?! The chess.com computer said "(-0.44) INACCURACY - Perhaps better was 5... c6". Thinking in terms of opening principles, I thought it would be best to block the check by developing another piece, not pushing a pawn, thus killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. I played the wrong move, and again, I don't know why. 

I especially like getting comments like this from the chess.com computer,  (-5.17) BLUNDER - Lucky you! Your opponent blundered! The best move was 8. Nxd7.

I also really like this one, Black has a decisive advantage.

My opponent opened with the well known Van't Krugis Opening Akahi Variation: 1. e3 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3. ;)

I took him right out of book with a bold move, 2…d4! I get the dynamic duo as Black with 1…e5 and 2…d5.

Here's the strongest player with the White pieces from the ChessBase database with 3.Qh5. 

Good question. These are Blitz games, not Standard. When I first started playing at chess.com, my Blitz time control was set to 5 minutes with no increments, or 5 0. I found that to be much too fast, since I was blundering my way to victory or defeat. I currently have the Blitz time control set to the maximum, 10 0.

For Standard, I like increments, and will set the time control to 15 15, which makes a huge difference, since 15 seconds are added to every move made. I can pretty much think forever, and never feel the affects of time pressure.

I got this idea of the 15 15, 20 20, 30 30 and 45 45 from ICC. Can you imagine that, 45 seconds added to the clock for every move played!

Over at ICC, they have a 45 45 league, and Dan Heisman analyzes a small portion of those games and uploads his analysis as part of a video series. I listen to it often, and none of the games analyzed are of Master strength, and I'm pretty sure none are even at Expert strength. Mostly Class C and below. So, I get to see many mistakes made at a skill level I can understand.

The light bulb just switched on in my brain after dinner. Maybe it is blood sugar. 

I'll play a few 15 15 games, so you can get a better handle on what I do and do not understand about chess, since I will have more time to...think.

That was hard! I just finished only one 20 20 game and feel absolutely mentally exhausted. So much for getting in a few of those.

I did win, but it was a difficult match, since I got myself into an unpleasant pin, and it ended with a K+ P vs. K endgame, which I have not done in a long time. I'm terrible at it. After the game, my rating jumped from 1078 to 1117. The last several games in Standard were against the Easy computer, which boosted my rating over 1000. This was my first time to play a human opponent in the 1000's.

Update: I ran the game through Fritz and discovered that I completely blew the opening, and made too many mistakes throughout the game. This was with 15 minutes and 15 seconds per move. I don't know what to think right now. It was my best effort. :(

Lot's of possible improvements, but one that some of your advisers might miss: instead of 28.Ra3 to defend the pawn, manuever the rook to a more active square. 28.Ra8+ Kd7 29.Rd8+ Kc6 (or e6) 30.Rd3.

After that, Bd2 and b4 frees your rook to go pawn hunting.

Of course, 46.Kf6 was more effecient, as was 54.g8Q followed by 55.Qg3 and mate next move.

Lots of possible improvements?  I guess so, as with all of our games, but my first impression was he played well.  Saw tactics and forced a simplification too.

The Rd3 maneuver involving checks is good.  But really a piece up white can do whatever he wants so it's hard to criticize.  Ra3, while giving an odd impression when Rd3 was possible, does save two tempo that black would have used to get his king into action where his majority is.  With Ra3 white can already start advancing his kingside.

Oh! I didn't see the bishop defending my rook at d8. That's why I didn't go for Ra8+.

I did think a bit about move 46. My thought was this: don't mess up a won game! So I kept my king close to my three pawns with 46.Kf5. Arg.

What is the time control set to at your local club tournaments?  20 20 felt like an eternity, and like I said before, I was completely emotionally and physically drained. Chess IS a sport, I don't care what anyone else says. My brain is of no use for the rest of tonight. 

Read a book, then bed.