Yeah I typically start trading if I can when I already have a material advantage and think I'm the stronger player. Sometimes I don't like it, though, because I feel like my piece lost was in a better spot than his piece lost. But still it works wonders especially in a timed game. And yeah a 3-to-2 offensive piece advantage is 30% better than a 6-to-5 advantage.

Yeah I've been playing people well below me. I meant to imply that in my previous post but it's not clear. The "large material gain" start is why I seek these players. Since it's far less common against 750+. It's just something I'm working on right now trying to be more efficient with my moves and it's easy to focus on that against a bad opponent.

Definitely agree that I need to play tough opponents to progress strategically.

Here's a 15/10 game I just finished with a 24 move CM against a similarly-rated opponent. 12-4 on points. This was one of the cleanest I've had in a while. Very happy with my performance, though he missed a few moves. Especially his last move. Having some more time probably enabled me to see more moves and not panic.

I really love my 23Ne6 move. Instead of panicking and just trading Queens, I've forced him into a trade situations in which I will have him in check immediately after the trade.

I've got the e6 square protected by 2 pawns so he can't just take my knight. And my knight is protecting my Queen. My Knight and Queen also have a stranglehold on f8 square.

He definitely missed some moves. Obviously he didn't see the mate in 1 at the end.

Also not sure why he didn't play 21 Bf8. Also he could have had a nice double-pin (is this a phrase?) by playing 16.Bh6 which aligned with my knight-queen-king. No idea what 16. Rh8 does for him. He's obviously worried I'm going to put my knight on h7 but who cares about that yet? He lost some tempo with this move.

2.Qf3 is not so good. Whenever you play 1.e4 and your opponent doesn't do something to attack the e4 pawn or d4 square immediately, you should play 2.d4. That applies to any move except 1...e5, 1...d5, 1...c5, 1...f5, and 1...Nf6. Also on 1...b5, just take the pawn instead. Against everything else there is no reason to play anything other than 2.d4.

Instead of 4.d3 you should just take with 4.Qxf5.

Why 10.Na4? This is a great time for 10.Bb5+. He will have to move his king, and this is very dangerous for him because he has to walk into the f-file with your queen there too.

I almost always start with 2 pawns on the center squares. I just put my Queen there because I figured his next move was pulling that bishop to b7. Not saying it's right but that was my thought.

10 Bb5+ I just didn't see. Having my pawn on d5 is what makes that play so strong and I didn't see that. If he blocks with his pawn then I just take with pawn and he takes with bishop and I take with bishop and fork his King and Rook and just trade the bishop for the rook. Missed that.

I did the free analysis on this game and here it is. I played much sloppier than I thought. His blunders were pretty huge.

The bishop going to b7 is actually a reason not to have your queen on f3 since your e4 pawn is now pinned, even if black can't exploit it right away (but note that the immediate 3... Nf6 becomes playable because of the pin, since you can't chase it away with e5). Black's 3... f5 may have been an attempt to exploit that pin, it just happened to be an extremely inept attempt since the queen can just take on f5. Another reason not to put the queen on f3 is that it takes away your knight's best development square.

Good point about pinning my pawn.

Here's a 15/10 game I (812) just won against a guy (878).

16. Nf4+ is a big mistake as I totally forgot about the bishop (I do this a lot for some stupid reason). I'm not really sure if I'm supposed to trade Queens on move 15, but I liked the rest of my set-up a lot better than his and I figured he'd just steal my knight otherwise. He may not have wanted to trade since it gets my bishop out of the way of his rook and back to the center.

Really surprised he resigned after 19.Be3+. Though I guess I had him in a really bad spot since 2 of his knights and a rook are in-line with my bishop after he moves. I really wish he would have finished this one.

2... Nf6 allows 3 e5 and then where does the knight go? It might be ok for black but looks a little awkward imo.

3 f3 weakens white's kingside. Respond with dxe4, then either 4 fxe4 or 4 Nxe4 Nxe4 5 fxe4 and white's king is very exposed.

5 g4 weakens white's kingside further. I mean this is ridiculous, no pieces developed on the kingside and an open diagonal to the king that can no longer be blocked by pawns. Attack! 5... dxe4 is obvious but how about 5... Nxe4 and if 6 fxe4 Qh4+ 7 Ke2 Bxg4+ (if hxg4 white loses a rook). Probably better to play 5... d4 first to chase the knight before sacrificing your own with Nxe4 but the point is, white has messed up his kingside so badly that there's obvious blood in the water and you should be looking to attack.

You could have just taken White's Knight when it went to f5. You should always run through all possible checks and captures before moving (both for yourself and your opponent) to make sure you don't miss anything (this would also help you to find moves like Nxe4 pointed out by the last poster).

It also helps to ask yourself what your opponent is threatening and whether it is dangerous. For example after White went 3.f3, you played 3...c6 - why? your d-pawn is protected, you don't need to defend it again. 3...c6 isn't a bad move, but it's not necessary.

Thanks guys. You guys are way ahead of me so don't expect to see these changes overnight with me. Before I signed up on chess.com a couple weeks ago I'd probably played <100 games in my life. But I appreciate the advice and enjoy picking your brain.

lka, I totally missed the free knight. Just straight missed it. Can't believe how many plays I miss - this is really eye opening. Not only would I have gotten a free knight but I would have developed my bishop and free'd my Queenside rook to get onto the D-file, which is a gain in tempo.

3 c6 is dumb, I agree. At this level their next move here is almost always checking with the bishop but if so I can just react to that (instead of preventing it). It's actually better to react to this because they almost always back their bishop to a4, in which I'll just play b5 and throw a big wrench into his plans.

Thanks again for your thoughts both of you.

God dammit. I totally feel like I should have closed this game given my material advantage at the end. I feel like I should have played 32. Qc3+

Dude left for like 7 minutes in the middle of the game so when he came back I played a little more loose and traded some pieces. I wasn't sure if his head was in the game or not and I had a large time advantage now.

He left for like 7 minutes just before playing 19.Kb1. No idea about my 19.Nc3+ play but I wanted to open up his weak King side for my queen so I thought I could sacrifice a knight. I'm probably not good enough to do that or know when to do that, though. Chat is pretty funny. For some reason it omitted an "FU" I posted just before his "gg".

Move 36 I should have definitely traded Queens seeing as I had time to move my bishop around his and take his last mobile pawn. Sigh.

Nice to see you are so actively trying to improve A-Rod's Cousin. Could you help us out a little by posting links to the archived games instead of the finished live games? This saves us from having to click through, and, I guess, logging in.

Some (incomplete) notes:

Move 3: This is an awkward square to develop your bishop when the e pawn is still on its original square. It robs that pawn of its ability to help consolidate the center and your dark-square bishop of one of its more natural ways to develop (e7-e6, and then Be7/Bd6/Bb4/etc.). It's not a coincidence that this bishop remains awkwardly placed for a while afterwards.

Moves 15/16: This was the game's critical strategic moment. You're up a piece but without any particular advantages in activity/development, so your goals at this point should be to (1) trade down (at a 1:1 exchange rate) into a winning endgame and (2) improve the position of your f8 bishop. A sequence like 15. ... Bg7 / 16. ... c5 should accomplish both goals. The two consecutive pawn moves don't accomplish all that much.

Moves 18–26: The piece-liquidation scheme would've been great without the knight sacrifice (as I'm sure you already know).

Move 37: Right square, wrong piece. 37. ... Bd4 wins.

Moves 15/16, I actually considered pulling those moves, but I thought I would end up with his Queen on d4, with a weakness at h8 (my unprotected rook) and a7 (pawn, opening up my weak Kingside). I also liked that his pawn on d4 was reducing his Queen and Rook's mobility for the time being.

I also considered 37 Bd4. That was actually my first thought, but then I panicked and wanted my queen over there to be able to snap off his passed pawn. But now I see how putting the bishop there leaves me, at worst, with a Queen +4 pawns versus a Bishop and 1 soon-to-be-dead pawn. I wish I would have calmly thought all this out. It would have been super obvious.

Uitje, I will try to remember to link archived games. I'm new to the site and didn't realize there was a difference. Thanks.

This was a neat little short game I finished tonight. My blitz rating is now 831 which is a peak.


My 9.d4 move was stupid and I didn't think it through but I really like my finish after that. I'm getting better at concepts like discovered checks, and not panicking when my Queen is in jeopardy. I kept it under threat 2 straight moves but gained tempo through repeated checking tactic.

When I got CM I didn't even recognize it as CM. I just knew it would be a good spot. I heard the beep sound and thought he resigned then realized it was actually mate.

9 Qxb2 should be your first thought there (does it win the undefended trapped rook?), though it doesn't if black plays Bc3, forking your queen and rook. But that's ok; 10 Qc1+ Qd1 11 Qxd1+ Kxd1 and then you save your rook on h8 with 12 f6. That's if white defends accurately, which at your level he likely won't (might miss Bc3 and you win the rook, or if he gets out of check with 10... Ke2 instead of blocking you can follow up with Qxc2+). Not expecting you to see all that during your games just yet, but as you improve you will eventually. Analyzing your games afterwards and playing through variations like that with no time pressure should help.

So for example, if you only saw as far as the trapped rook that you win after Qxb2, that's better than not noticing it at all. If you saw this but decided not to play it because of the Bc3 fork, even better. And if you noticed that you can escape the fork by giving check and therefore Qxb2 can be played after all, even better.

Didn't even see that. I saw him move his bishop and figured his plan was next to go Bc3 and pressure my queen on e5 so I figured I'd move the pawn forward since he couldn't take with his pawn.

It's still an awful move, though, because I didn't even notice the simple fork he could play with his Queen next.

Well yeah, first things first. You've got to start noticing the immediate tactical threats more consistently (both yours and your opponent's) before anything else is going to matter much.

Bb4 after Bc3 is even better.

One thing you can do to really improve fast is to go over your games very thoroughly. Start from the end, work backwards, and try to find better moves for both sides.

What could White have done instead of walking into mate with 14.Kf3?



There is a better move than 12.Bc3 too:

Yep, it's "how I want to spend my time". Thanks. I definitely would rather have people bitch out on me and me have to report them than for them to just play honourably (I added the "U" because I think it's better) and resign or move.

Anyway here's a game I just finished. My rating is its highest since I started about a month ago, at 858. I thought we were going pretty evenly until he slipped up a couple times and lost quality pieces. I think I'm getting better because I'm doing things that I didn't used to. I'm being more patient when it appears I'm under a great deal of pressure (but am not). I'm moving key pieces to better squares I think (like pawn-protected squares). I'm also playing much better/smarter with my pawns. Like when foe is trying to open up a file and I recognize it would be bad for me I am moving forward in lieu of taking. I'm still awful but anyway...

Some of my thoughts. I don't know why he kept his Bishop on c5 for so long when d4 seems like a much better square. I feel iike Black's 8th move should have been to put his Bishop on d4 to pin my knight or trade his Bishop for my Knight and end with his pawn on d4 pressuring my knight still. But I'm not sure. Anyway he just left it there to die for some reason.

I like my 13.h3 of course. Even though I have h2 protected with my Knight from CM... I don't like having my Knight pinned to this square. And this puts pressure on his Knight anyway and ultimately backs him up.

I think his 16th move should have been Rce8, so he can move his bishop and discover an attack on my Knight (and Bishop if my queen moves off that file).

I like my 17d3 move. It gives support to my Bishop if I move my Knight, and it also prevents his obvious plan of trying to acquire a material gain on d2.

His 17.Bxh3 move scared me at first. And the obvious thought at my level is to take his piece for a gain. But then he will just move to h3 with his Queen and really threaten my weakened Kingside. His Bishop on h3 is also blocking his Queen, which I like. So he's got to move it ultimately. The only damage he can cause me is killing my g2 pawn, in which case I probably kill him with my Bishop which is currently under attack from his Knight. So what I pull here is a move I simply would not have been able to just a couple weeks ago. I opt for f3. While I did block out my Bishop I'm not sure I care about this seeing as I'd kill him with my King if he takes my pawn on g2, and simultaneously freeing up my entire back row for my 2 rooks which can put serious pressure on his Queen and ultimately damage his Kingside pawn wall. This also means he's got to retreat his Bishop all the way back to the e-file if he wants to save it. For some reason he fouls up on his next move and just donates his Bishop. Maybe a mis-click but he didn't say so.

I hate my 20.Bxb7. I wanted to get my Bishop out of trouble and figured "hey, free pawn". But he can simply stick a Rook on b8 and threaten 2 of my pieces. Luckily, he missed this. I feel like he missed a lot of moves and wasted a lot of moves.

Love my 21.d4 move. The otherwise weak d4 and e5 squares are now strong. Unless he threatens my Knight on b5 (but he doesn't).

For some crazy reason on move 21 he trades a Rook for a Knight, and allows me to get my Queen to a center square and support the weak h2 square.

His 22.Nxg4 move scares me at first but I've got f2 and h2 supported by my Queen and Rook.

Not sure why he did move 23. He must have thought it was Mate. Huge blunder. Thought he'd resign here but no.

He blunders again on 27.Ra8 as I guess he didn't see my Bishop.

My finish is a bit clunky. I could have pushed my a pawn across as I had plenty of time but figured I should just try to Mate him with what I had, which was plenty. He definitely should have resigned but this was good practice in closing.

EDIT: Holy **** I didn't even notice until just now (going over my post and checking the game again) that I left my Queen to die on 23. And he missed it. WOW. I still probably win as I'm trading a Queen for a Knight but Sheesh.... I seriously didn't recognize this in the game OR during my initial write-up. Yikes.

at first glance, 17. ...Bxh3 looks super harmless. it looks like 18. gxh3 Qxh3 19. Qf3 is just gravy for you. you're offering a queen trade, you have two pieces covering g4, so him playing Ng4 is never a threat, and you're just up a ton of material. he has to retreat his queen somewhere, all much less harmful than h3, and there aren't any perpetuals anywhere.

hell, you might even be able to get in something like Kg2, Rh1, Kf1 and get your own kingside attack going.

overall, this actually looks like a huge improvement over your other games. obviously there are still kinks, like your opening issues and the dropping the queen thing, but this is vast improvement already.

Yeah the Queen gaffe bothers me greatly and I need to knock that **** off. And a couple times I felt like I left him with a good move only to discover I just so happened to have a piece covering (like when my Bishop killed his Rook on a8). I didn't even notice this until after I moved my Knight there. That's not good. I was lucky to have a8 covered as he gets either my Knight or pawn for free.

But yeah, overall this game felt like one of my best. Mostly for the reasons stated in my 2nd paragraph of my previous post. I mean this guy was like 130 points worse than me but I ended the game with 4 offensive pieces to his 0. That is an obliteration. He offered me a rematch but I declined since it was late. I've been seeking 700-850 players but now that I'm 858 I should probably increase this. My low was like 640 a few weeks ago so I've made some decent progress in ~150 games or so. If I remove a few stalemates in which I should have won easily had I been patient, and remove a loss where I abused chat I'd probably be over 900. I know my rating doesn't matter but it's nice to see progress manifest in rating.

Thanks for your thoughts about the other stuff, too.

If I redo move 23, is it correct for me to move Qc7? Kill his pawn, threaten his Rook (and threaten Mate) and still maintaining support to h2?

Here are a few of my thoughts, skipping the opening.

I like 19. Nxg4 forcing a trade of knights. You're up to minor pieces at this point, so all trades are good for you. This move takes away his last potential attacking piece and leaves him down a bishop and knight, and he only has two rooks that have no scope right now.

To answer your question, yes 23. Qxc7 is a good move. Black can't force your queen off that diagonal, so as long as your queen covers h2 you are good.

Starting at move 29 to the rest of the game, I thought you mopped up very nicely.

Yeah I sat on 19 for a while. I definitely saw the Knight fork available. And when I finally decided to move the pawn I even thought to myself that it was probably wrong. I still have the beginner mentality that killing a 3 point piece with a pawn is almost always desirable. But yeah I like your move better. Instead of killing 1 piece for free it's even better to trade 1 good piece for 2 good pieces at this point. And my Bishop on e4 no longer has to worry about being under duress from his Knight. I also like that it moves my Knight off of the superweak e5 square when he's got 2 Rooks with current mobility to that file. I'm not even sure why I ultimately settled with the pawn but I think typically when in doubt I will opt for the safer, less complicated move. At least for now at this level. Thanks for your thoughts.