Chess games

I know what you mean. So often I'm developing my pieces to decent squares, I think, gaining central control, doing all the principled things, but nothing really comes of it. I've certainly found that complications can aid things, but I also need to have a good position. I find myself, as I'm not treating every move like tactics trainer, to sometimes make woeful oversights in that regard, even if my absolute ability to figure out the tactics of a position is quite good. I mean I'm playing a game right now where my opponent has been tactically walking all over me, I even hanged a piece (well, I had to stop mate on the kingside, so I can forgive myself for not even looking at that piece, over on the queenside, which couldn't aid anything - and my opponent had already sacrificed one).
Well, paused to actually concentrate on that game. It fizzled out to an ending. I had a knight, he had a bishop. He had four pawns, I had three, but he had doubled pawns. I'm quite happy with the play here...I dunno how accurate I was (I probably could have used opportunities to push pawns earlier rather than dilly dallying) but it's a nice illustration of the knight's limitations. Made up for the middlegame (which I was probably losing by force, as usual I moved too fast, I'll check with the engine) https://www.chess.com/live/game/1711767114

edit: lol in hindsight I was worried about far too much on the kingside. I was up over -2, then hanging my knight indeed puts white easily winning (+3). I really should have thought more. Got too scared by the way the position looked and ignored the actual mechanics and particulars of the position.
double edit: lmao computer announces mate in 10 on move 24 for white. But he didn't find it, and I cannot be blamed for my opponent's failings.

Woah those are some fancy looking tactical shots at the end from your opponent, but nice work holding your ground and winning the endgame (I didn't analyse though so don't know how accurate the moves were, just going by how it looked).

At the start though, white undoubtedly had a very nice position, I'm talking about move 9. The best play for black would've been to meet the intial Nc3 with d5 and then black is just straight up better; it's a QGD type position except white can't move his c pawn and black can. Also e4 should almost always be stopped whenever white plays any sub par moves; otherwise it allows white to gain an advantage instead of black.

Yeah I dunno why I'm setting up basically a King's Indian in this structure. Still not thinking properly. I got some bias, I'd recently watched vids on the King's Indian for black, and I thought I'd play that, but obviously when he plays Nc3 it's a whole different kind of position. But I still wanted to keep my dream alive so I just played the moves of that opening. And then he castles queenside anyway.
I faced 1. d3 later yesterday. I'd like to say I destroyed it, but my main plan was scuppered. A dubious attacking exchange sacrifice by my opponent ultimately brought him down (I actually overestimated it, playing very inaccurately in general, and allowed a perpetual, but he was having none of it and instead decided to blunder into a losing endgame)

I get it yeah, you're thinking "I want to practise KID" but then they come up with this Nc3 rubbish and then you can't play it (if you still want an opening advantage).

1.d3 lol. The main problem with those moves is that, although terribly unambitious, they can easily transpose and you have to be very patient with them, not expect to win since that'll make you 'go for it' too early only to have your position fizzle down to a draw (or worse).
But generally if your opponent plays that move you can trust that he won't play too many good moves .

I just played my first black QGD (weird I know) and I've gotta say I love the opening: https://www.chess.com/live/game/1712300855

My position didn't die this time, and I think I played strategically fairly strongly for once (although the computer might disagree). Position got very dynamic and interesting, and ok my opponent lost at the end by hanging his bishop, but I did have a lot of pressure on him for the whole game which must've contributed.
Funny though, I felt very time pressured towards the end with only 7 minutes remaining, I'm a really slow thinker haha.

Well the thing you have to remember when white plays 1. d3 or 1. e3 is that 1. ...e6 and 1. ...d6 (especially 1.e6 of course - trying to play a bit more French lately as an alternative to the Sicilian, it's an interesting opening) are completely playable opening moves for black against e4 and d4 respectively, so can it really be that terrible for white to do similar with an extra tempo? I mean, there are more aggressive choices, but it's not like 1.d3 is a mistake I guess.

Nice game. Seems like good principled play, getting that c5 break in, making sure you're the one who controls the files when the lines rip open, and just generally targetting weaknesses. White seemed rather "slow". I don't think I've played the QGD as black lol. I've played the Grunfeld, the Slav, and, of course, the King's Indian. Closest I've come is probably semi-slav. I like the Grunfeld as it combines some more classical central play with d5 and the nice Indian style kingside set up. It's all relative, I mean top masters can play bullet and play good moves, but because they're engaged in a different way in classical, presumably, they seem more liable to make silly mistakes in time pressure, even if the time they have is more than they'd have in a bullet or short blitz game.

Just had a very funny blitz game. I missed that their knight was hanging in true patzer fashion, then decided to play a piece sacrifice for maximum banter. The resulting game was interesting, if as unsound as it could possibly get. (checking with the computer and so far, past like the first couple of moves, up to 10 or so everything is a blunder, mistake or inaccuracy xD) At least until I got a clear advantage and started proper king-hunting, I might have missed a mate somewhere along the line but it was nice in general. https://www.chess.com/live/game/1712357009

Thanks, I was quite happy with this game .

I recommend you try QGD, it's quite easy to play and teaches you a lot about principled, strategic play. I also used to play everything but QGD, so KID, Grunfeld, Nimzo - I tried everything. But then I realise it's probably better to get good at the fundamentals before branching out to more complicated hypermodern openings which require greater positional understanding.

Lol, there are a lot funny points about your game, most notably the mass of clicking sounds when playing through your game XD (you checked like every other move lol). Also the fact that your king was never checked and was so safe for the entire game haha. But yeah even though Bxf2 is obviously pretty unsound it was definitely a nice tactical display from your part.

+ a lichess error page which doesn't want to be uploaded for some reason...

@XOR_

If in doubt, refresh a million times

Where's everyone at? Having a ridiculous blitz session. Gone down like 100 points from yesterday with about seven losses in a row. Just missing basic tactics. Feels.

Dw at least you're not having as many tactical problems as me. I spent a couple of weeks hovering around 1800 on TT and recently things have been going wrong and I kept getting the puzzles wrong, so I decided to just reduce my rating to 1600 and try to work my way up again. But then I struggled even more with 1500 rated problems (don't ask how) so I got really pissed and reduced my tactics rating all the way to 1100. Now working my way back up, spending time on each tactic and making sure my basics are in place before I get back to 1800. I really am not a good tactician lol. I don't know if it's lack of familiarity with the chess pieces, but I cannot help missing that a piece is hanging etc. in these puzzles.

Well I do sometimes question how reasonable the ratings are. Until I started playing more frequently again last month my rating was around 1500-1700 for ages, and I found some problems tough at this level. Then, after some more heavy practise lately, I shoot up to 1900, and the 1800 problems didn't really seem much harder. Well, the higher 1800s and early 1900s, you get some more convoluted and demanding puzzles, but still, on the whole, I don't see a vast difference. Often you will get "red herring" problems where the solution is worthy of a 1000 (capture a hanging piece) but you go down some complex line and either get low points based on time or pick a wrong idea. I'm hanging loads of pieces in blitz though. I suppose it's only blitz, but it's so annoying, countless games it's *hangs piece in ridiculous fashion* *resigns immediately* I feel like by this point I shouldn't have to concentrate on the most basic of basics, i.e. "is this square covered by an enemy piece", but if I don't, I'll sometimes miss it...
By the way if you haven't already check out Jerry's latest video, a really interesting strategic game coloured with some cheeky tactics.

Yeah you're right, the puzzles can sometimes be quite inconsistent in terms of difficulty. I'm hoping to get to 1900 eventually but I struggled enough to get any higher than 1800. Out of interest do you calculate everything when you do a puzzle? Like do you calculate each one to the end so that you're always 100% that your solution is correct? This is obviously the best approach but I've noticed I'm lazy a lot of the time and don't bother, so making sure I do this with each puzzle, don't care how long it takes since it's much more important to get the puzzle correct slowly and know that your solution is correct from the start than to guess/'wander through' the puzzle (and I play 30|0 most of the time anyway so taking my time isn't so bad).

Lol yeah I've noticed that you play decent games and then just randomly hang a piece. I can only say just take more time to make sure you don't, although it's quite surprising since you obviously have a lot of vision given your tactical skill.

Gonna watch his vid now .

Literally just put on tactics trainer with 1913 rating and the first puzzle it gives me, which turns out to be rated 1898, is a mate in 1. It's a surprising mate in 1, to be fair, but I mean damn.. I calculated that one to the end. In general it does depend; I'd say I'd look for decent candidate moves, try to calculate for a bit of time, and then if I'm having difficulty coming up with anything concrete in any line, I'll just go for the one that intuitively appeals best. Were the trainer less stringent on time, I would probably be less lazy. Although have they fixed it now so that the minimum you can get is +1 or something? I don't recall losing points after solving lately; a few months ago you could if you took long enough..

I think it's basically a tunnel vision thing. Getting so fixated on certain ideas that you ignore the actual position in front of you. Typically I will make these moves when under pressure, or when I am not focused and rather dejected (which has been the case for most of today's blitz. Thankfully I've wrestled it back over 1400, but I was up to 1482 or something like that yesterday)