2 ... Nf6 is Petrov's Defense, and since black didn't bother to defend the pawn, the most common move is to take it with 3 Nxe5. It's ok to defend your own pawn instead, but either 3 Nc3 or d3 are better options than the awkward Bd3, which unnecessarily blocks your d-pawn. After 3 Nxe5 black is supposed to chase the knight before taking the pawn, so 3 ... d6 4 Nf3 Nxe4 is standard, but beginners will often play the copycat 3... Nxe4 instead and that's actually a mistake. You can take advantage with 4 Qe2. With best play I believe white ends up with an extra pawn, but if black isn't careful he can lose the queen.

Could you elaborate on this bold part? I'm curious about it. I've never heard that before and am wondering if it's your own personal theory or if this is a rule you learned that I'm not familiar with.

Interesting. I need to start memorizing opening nuances. It's funny you say to take his pawn because I'm pretty sure this would have always been my move if not for the fact I'd just watched a Susan Polgar video about beginner traps in which she said try to not move the same piece twice while developing. I wanted to take his pawn for free but remembered that lesson and thought I'd instead try to develop. Seems like every time I move twice with one piece it's wrong, and now I don't move it and it's wrong :/

I think what I meant was not having to worry about him killing my (1 point) pawn if I get one of his good pieces. But you are right that it is better there to use the Knight and end up trading 1 of my good pieces for 2 of his. Because if I'm up material then trading equally should be good. Net gain is the same but the game gets smaller and more simplified this way. It's certainly not anything I learned from anybody.

Oh ok, I see what you mean, thanks.

A long time ago, having extra material (whether it's one pawn in an endgame or two minor pieces in the middlegame, like was the case in your game) was explained to me using the analogy of pieces of cake. Let's say you have a Q, 2N, 2B, and 2R. That's 7 pieces (not including the king and pawns) of cake. Now let's assume your opponent is down a knight so he has a Q, N, 2B, and 2R. That's 6 pieces of cake. 7 pieces of cake and 6 pieces of cake is not so different, you both have lots of cake. But let's say you trade off 6 pieces and you are left with one piece and he has zero pieces. Well that's MUCH better for you, you have some cake and he has none. Big difference there, much more than the 7 pieces vs 6.

A good rule, in general, is that when you have more material, it's good to trade down because as pieces come off the board, it accentuates your material advantage. Plus, when you're up significant material (like a piece), virtually all endgames are winning for you. So the quicker you can trade off and get there, the better. Not only that, if you remove all of your opponent's pieces, you take away his chances for a mating attack. And since he's down material and will lose all endgames, if you can take away his attack, he has no tricks left and you just win.

Cliff's notes: whenever I get into a large material advantage situation, I try to trade down asap, as a rule of thumb.

Not moving the same piece twice in the opening is a general guideline, because you'll get into trouble if you're moving the same piece repeatedly while your opponent is developing all their pieces. General guidelines have lots of exceptions though. Sometimes there's a good reason to move the same piece twice (like it comes under attack, or there's an undefended pawn available, or you see a tactical shot, etc). To be clear, you don't have to take that pawn. 3 Nc3 developing another piece while defending your pawn is perfectly acceptable.

I wouldn't suggest you spend a lot of time learning openings in depth at your level, but awareness of basic opening traps and at least knowing the first few moves of the openings you play is helpful. Just don't get carried away with it. You shouldn't be spending very much time at all on opening theory until you get much better, in fact I'm not a good enough player to be able to justify spending much time on opening nuances myself (I'd be better served working through tactics problems). I'd say knowing just the first few moves of the openings you commonly come up against, some basic traps to watch out for (or exploit if your opponent falls into them), and understanding opening principles will take you pretty far.

Maybe a small refinement: with a material advantage, trade pieces, not pawns.

(Irrelevant for sufficiently large material advantages.)

Yeah I get all this. I posted this in this thread a couple weeks ago:

Having 50% more "cake" (3 pieces to 2) is definitely better than having 20% more cake (6 pieces to 5).

Thanks for the write-up though. Had I not known this concept I definitely would have learned it from your post.

A few points. First of all, the "pawn for a piece" vs. "piece for two pieces" thing. Trading a pawn for your opponent's knight is generally a good thing. You should almost always do it if you can, unless a) it opens up a tactical counterrattack ("it's a trap!") for your opponent that might get you mated or b) there's a better option.

The issue here is b. Trading a pawn (1 point) for a knight (3 points) is a good gain of material for you, +2. However if, in the same position, you also have the chance to instead trade one minor piece (3 points) for two minor pieces (6 points), then that's better. You get a +3 material gain instead of +2. The one move wasn't bad per se, but the other is better. And it has the added benefit of ALSO fitting the principle of trading down pieces when ahead.

As for the opening, it's true that there are opening traps out there, but at the same time, any chance to win material should be considered carefully. If your opponent offers you a free pawn, you should take it *unless you can see a direct tactical reason not to*. Sometimes maybe you'll fall for a trap that you didn't see, but then you'll remember it for next time. Falling for traps is, sadly, one of the most efficient ways of learning them (and training yourself to avoid them in the future). It will happen, but you'll learn from it, so don't fear it.

So when you see a pawn, or piece, hanging for the taking, always analyze what will happen if you take it. If you see a specific tactical reason why something bad will happen (it hangs a piece of your own, or removes your defender from a key square, or whatever) then by all means correctly deem it a trap and look for other options. If you can't see that concrete danger, though, then take the material and force your opponent to prove it. Usually they won't, you'll be up material, and you're on your way to winning.

Just dismantled this guy, who was rated 868 to my 858. Now up to 869. Turns out he only had an 8 game sample so he's probably not this good. Anyway he resigned after 15 moves when it was clear I was going to get CM.

I probably opened wrong. Right now I open with King pawn when white and Queen pawn when black pretty much every time. Not sure if I should open with King pawn here though. And I grab his pawn then retreat all the way with Queen because I have kept the Queen out there before and always gotten into trouble. I lose some tempo but it's still super early.

Move 9 I'm hoping I can sneak a Knight fork on him but he sees it and moves his Knight.

His 13.dxc7 move scares me at first since it's such an unfamiliar position. But ultimately I realize my Rook kills his Queened pawn, and he's got no backup anywhere nearby so I ignore it. Especially once I see I can put him in Check. I sat here for probably 2 minutes of my 15 minute game thinking of the best move. This is normally where I'd "panic" and play Na6 or Bb6 or something to rid that pawn and develop. But I felt it was probably unnecessary. Not sure I found the right move with Bf2+ but this can't be too bad. Especially since he takes my Knight next move which I assumed he would.

He resigns and I still have Q, 2R, 2B, N on the table to his 2R, B, N.

Don't think you did too much wrong here. There's no move that I can see that is a blunder (by you). 1... d5 is perfectly playable at virtually any level, but of course 1... e5 and 1... c5 are much more common (other first moves are fine too, but most beginners prefer the two I listed)

3... Qd8 is fine although Qa5 is more common at least among my opponents.

Move 9 your opponent may have been best stopping the knight fork with Ne4 hitting the Bishop as well... after his Nf3 you are virtually winning. Maybe he had some other move like Qe2.

Move 13 - there is no move you can pick that loses here. Bb6 pointless since he takes the Knight anyway, but still winning, Na6 more logical and still winning but really can't go wrong at this point. I would have just played Nxc3.

1 e4 d5 is slightly unusual but it definitely isn't "wrong", it's called the Scandinavian Defense. 2 exd5 Qxd5 recapturing the pawn in the only way possible is obvious and good, though it violates an opening principle about not getting your queen involved too early and that might be a reason not to play the Scandinavian for now. 2... Nf6 is the other move that gets played here but in some lines you're giving up a pawn and I'm not very familiar with it. Anyway Qxd5 is the most popular move. 3 Nc3 Qd8, don't you realize you aren't supposed to move the same piece twice? Just kidding, Qd8 is fine although Qa5 is the most popular move, but to be honest I think that variation is more likely to get you into trouble and you're better off playing Qd8. Or you could try Qd6 which is the second most common move. That said, Qd8 isn't terrible. But overall if your goal is to play simple, fundamentally sound openings, the Scandinavian is an odd choice. You're used to playing 1 e4 anyway, so why not 1 e4 e5 as black? A better question is, what do you play against 1 d4?

Really nice attack in that last game ARC, I don't think you'll be rated under 1000 for too much longer. I'd like to address something you said about the previous game though.

Bishops (unlike knights) are long range pieces, so occupying a central square isn't as important for bishops. That bishop on c5 is putting pressure on white's castled king via the f2 square and black should want to maintain it on the a7-g1 diagonal. 8... Bd4 9 Nxd4 exd4 trades in this powerful bishop for a knight and although white's c3 knight will have to relocate, white should be very happy to make this exchange. Obviously after 10 b4 the bishop needs to retreat to b6, and if white plays a4 black needs to respond with a6 so the bishop can retreat after a5.

Let me know if I'm turning this thread into my blog. It's not my intention but I love posting games and my thoughts and hearing feedback from good players. If I'm imposing on the thread tell me to curb my enthusiasm. With that said, here's another super clean win for me.

Opponent's open was pretty erratic and he pulled his Queen out way early which I knew was bad news for him.

He obviously fouls up with 5.Qxf5 and he said so right away. Anyway, good for me. I've done it plenty of times I told him.

Game was so smooth that 9 of my first 10 moves were pawns. Not what I'm aiming for but sheesh I couldn't resist. 11 of my first 13 moves were pawn moves, as well. Only pulling out the Bishop to kill his Queen and my Queen to kill a pawn and develop, acquiring a strong position with this piece that I'm not worried about bringing out this soon based on how the game was going.

My 13.c5 isn't as good as I thought it was, though. I failed to notice he can simply play cxd5 which isn't great for me. But instead he plays what I thought he might when I made the move: dxc5, which is terrible for him. It allows me to take his pawn and the pawn wall is now broken up, I've developed my Bishop, and I can now steal another pawn and lend support to the fairly powerful e3 square.

16.Qxe3+ is exactly what I want here, checking him as well as threatening 2 of his minor pieces.

I'm not sure if 20.Qb2+ is the best move here but I'm not too worried about it. It can't be too bad as I'm checking him and between his 2 Knights. Playing e3 is probably better here. To discover an (additional) attack on his Knight on the first rank. But he probably anticipates the blood and moves his King forward to the 2nd rank, preparing for a big trade-off. Thoughts? Anyway, I play e3 on the next move. This may be better since my pawn is totally safe from his King now.

He does nothing with his 22nd move, and the carnage ensues. I'm yet to touch my Knights or Rooks and he's down to pawns and a King.

Ending: This is pretty derpy. Passing my pawn is overkill but to be honest I was under the impression my rooks were both buried and quite frankly I didn't even notice that I could have simply played Rh8xh4. Followed by Qh3+ then just pin him to the back wall from there and get a quick mate. Anyway he's dead in short order. I didn't notice I had mate one move sooner when I stuck my King in front of his pawn but I noticed it next move. I can only assume he was going for a stalemate ultimately but I wasn't going to let that happen. 876 new high rating keeps coming!

2... f6. Moving the f-pawn early is often wrong and seems just as wrong here. If you were worried about the white Queen hitting f7 then a) there is no threat to worry about yet, and b) if he plays Bc4 you can always block the Queen's line with Nf6 - if you didn't have a pawn on f6 instead... I would have played 2... Nf6 but any reasonable developing move is okay.

3... d5 - much better idea here. Your opponent plays nonsensical flank moves with no threats, you advance in the centre.

4... f5 - why didn't you take the free pawn? White has no threat here. If I wasn't going to take it I'd rather develop with Nc6 than push my f-pawn, although there doesn't seem anything obviously dramatically wrong with f5.

6... e4 - obviously anything is winning at this point but I wouldn't have closed this line for my bishop. I'd have traded d-pawns and then taken on c2, or maybe taken on c2 immediately.

9... b5 again any move is winning but 9... Qa5+ 10 Nc3 Bb4 looks like it is going to win material to me. Did you see that Qa5+ was a fork, and that he can only save his bishop with Nc3? If you saw that far and then decided that Qa5 wasn't worth playing - that's a good start. Spotting that you can follow up with Bb4 comes later.

12... b4 - curious what the thought process was here. a4 threatens absolutely nothing so you can just get on with your Kingside attack. 9... Qg2 wins his rook immediately as it is trapped. On a much more advanced note (but play through it), 9... Rxh2 wins everything since if 10 Rxh2 Qxg1+ 11 Kd2 Qxh2+ you get his whole kingside and must be mating him fairly soon. Obviously 12... b4 is winning but its pointless to get into flank pawn pushing wars when those moves usually achieve zero.

13... c5 - same comments - another pawn pushed far away from the action - Qg2 is still instantly winning his rook (and continues to do so for the next couple of moves)

18... Qxb2 - you spotted that this rook was trapped but not the other one! Of course technically it can move with 19 Ra4 but then he loses the other Rook and his Knight to Qxb1+

You missed a few quicker mates after that but nothing wrong at any level with just taking your opponents remaining pieces and mating him with multiple queens

Main comments would be - (1) don't push flank pawns or the f-pawn early without some particular reason to do so. Too many pointless pawn moves by both parties (2) Keep an eye out for simple tactics - the h-rook being trapped in the corner by a Queen (or Bishop) on g2 is a very common one when the Knight hasn't moved yet! (3) Play against better opponents, I don't understand how anyone could have 15 minutes + 10 sec per move and play Qxf5 and you aren't going to learn anything from people who do.

Pyro gave you a nice thorough analysis there and I especially agree with point number 3. You have improved. Opponents this bad have nothing left to teach you. Don't play anyone rated <800 from now on. You'll start losing more for a while against better players, so be ready for that, but it's time.

Pyro:

2: I agree. This is my typical play here because at this level people still routinely try for the Scholar's Mate and, well, I didn't realize Nf6 was better. I will try to remember this.

4: My first thought, of course, is to take the free pawn. My reasoning as to why not... first of all this is a weird position that I've probably not seen before so I sat here for a second. I didn't want to open up his strong F-file by taking what appeared to be a benign pawn. At the same time I guess I didn't want to let him take mine. By moving it forward I figured I am advancing my pawn wall more toward the center, and it's protected by my light square bishop. If he then advances his e-pawn I simply play f4. Of course now that I'm typing this all up I can see that he'd just play exd5 and take a pawn and gain control over a center piece which isn't great for me. This move was certainly atypical for me but it's what I went with.

6: Yeah I probably should trade pawns here and weaken his e-file which my Queen has quick access to. I can take on c2 but doesn't he just follow with Na3 (I move to a4) then he plays b3 and backs my Bishop out of there after only gaining 1 pawn?

9: Nice. Didn't even see that. Honestly at this level Bb5+ is such a standard move and the response from me (after seeing my opponents play it against me) is always to push him back with those 2 pawns. My Knight is still back there protecting c6 though so no reason to panic. I played these moves instantly so I didn't even give myself the opportunity to see the moves you said. That's my fault.


12: I like your line about sacrificing my Rook. Pretty cool. That's out of my realm at this point but that's fun and I'm glad you pointed it out because I feel it is in the realm of my immediate visual possibilities at some point in the future.

b4 isn't great. What happens is a lot of my responses still are trying to identify what his plan is then throw a wrench in it. It appears he wants to free up his a-file for his Rook. Or kill me on a4 with his Bishop and keep my Knight pinned to protecting the weak c6 square. I didn't like this so I simply push forward. After this move he sat there for a long while so I know he was planning on me taking. Not a great move but I'm happy with it at this point. 2-3 weeks ago I wouldn't have even recognized this. At this point in the game I can probably be much more aggressive than I am but I sometimes try to play cautiously seeing as I've lost a lot of games this month with quick, bonehead moves. lol. Not saying it's right but that's where I'm at mentally.

Qg2 I didn't even notice and that bothers me. At this point I had in my mind the long-term plan of controlling the more central e3 square so I probably failed to keep my mind open to newer and better long-term plans.

13: See paragraph above about my long-term plan to control e3.

Thanks for the comments, guys. I agree I will start playing better opponents. My recent games I've been murdering people with multiple minor/major pieces remaining. These games haven't been close. Prior to my last game I had my seek set to 700-850 and had just raised it to 720-870 but I will raise it again today. Maybe 800-900 or close to it. We'll see.

That's reasonable but I really do think you're better now than the people you've been playing, make it 800-1000 and see what the next level is like! You will definitely take some beatings but that's how we learn.

I just reset my seek to 800-900 and drew an 875 as an 876.

Good match. I felt he had better position early but I made some decent plays to get an advantage and I got it down to 2 Rooks versus 1 but then made some errors in closing. I even got a Queen at the end and still ****ed it up, though I credit him for playing pretty smart at the end and being slippery.

Moves 36-40 on my part are awful and I see why now. I totally let him back me into the corner and lose my extra Rook. 36.Rc4 is probably better for starters. Move 56 loses 50% win probability and I now see that it's correct to play Qc8 here. Sigh. He's dead this way.

Oh well it was a good battle and a draw isn't terrible. He offered me the draw but I said I wanted to try to finish it if I could which he had no problem with.

Chess.com allows for seek ranges that are set relative to your rating. I'd say that a good range is from your rating -50 up through your rating +200. That will remain fine even as you improve. I much prefer the relative seek ranges to absolute ones, personally.

Good spot that Qc8 is the easiest way to win - the idea of course is that you want to get your Queen on a8 and just block the pawn. Qc6+ has the same idea and is obviously just as good.

Here are some amusing variations at the end of the game which, if nothing else, show that you should never just take a draw without thinking about it

Move 58 - the best move here is ...Kd6. If he promotes to a Queen, you checkmate him immediately with Qc7# If he runs into the corner with 59 Ka8 you just play 59... Kc6 and mate him after he comes out. His best move is 59 a8 = N which delays mate by one more move.

Move 60 - you actually still have a forced win after he promotes to a Queen - I remember seeing the exact position before

There are a lot of variations but you are trying to do one of three things - (i) win his Queen with a skewer on the a-file; (ii) get him into the checkmate above with his Queen blocking his King's only flight square; or (iii) get him in a position where your King is on c7, his King is on a7 and his queen is on a8, and your queen is on the b-file covering b7 so that he doesn't have any checks at all that don't immediately lose the queen.

One possible variation to play through is 60... Qc7+ 61 Ka6 Qc4+ 62 Kb7 Qb5+. Now he has the unenviable choice of 63 Ka7 Kc7 which is position (iii) and you either mate next move or he gives away his Queen to delay things by one move; or 63 Kc8 Qd7+ 64 Kb8 Qc7# which is position (ii).

1 e4 e5, I like (because unlike 1... d5 this won't involve anything goofy like bringing the queen out on move 2).

First 6 moves no major mistakes that I can see. You chose to give up your bishop for the knight and double his pawns in the process, that's one way to go. The other would be 4 Ba5 which maintains a potential pin on the knight if/when white moves the d-pawn. If white wants to shut that down he can with b4 and then you'd bring the bishop back to b6. This is basically a Ruy Lopez with colors reversed and in that opening both the bishop for knight exchange and maintaining the pin are reasonable options. I think the recapture 5 dxc3 would be preferred over bxc3 for white, but that's a minor nitpick at this level. Unlike last game, you're not playing against a random move generator this time.

Doubled pawns are generally considered a weakness and 7... d4 makes it easy for white to repair his pawn structure as happened in the game. 7... dxe4 on the other hand, if white recaptures then the doubled pawns become an even bigger liability since they're now isolated (no pawns on neighboring files to support them).

On move 24 white can force a draw by perpetual check with 24 Qh6+ Kg8 25 Qg6+ Kh8 26 Qh6+, etc. Since white is losing* he should take the draw.

*Ok, technically you can't be "losing" in a position where a draw is available, but you know what I mean. He's at a disadvantage if he plays on instead of taking the draw.

In the opening your move 10...Bg4 is a mistake.

You made another mistake a few moves later and lost a pawn.

Always consider all possible checks and captures before moving. Before you make a move, consider all possible checks and captures for your opponent. This is the absolute essential thing in chess, just like knowing how to read your hand in poker. You'll never progress beyond beginner level while you're still making elementary oversights.

On moves 26 and 27 you could have played Rxe5. At least on move 26 you made a mating threat but you definitely should have taken it on move 27. Since white still wouldn't play f4 you got to take it on move 28.

After the queen exchange you're totally winning with the extra rook. 30... Rf5 makes use of the pin so the rook can't be taken, but it doesn't accomplish anything. But after the rooks are exchanged the win should be even easier.

Ok, so my claim is that the position after the rook exchange on move 35 should be an easy win for black. But maybe it isn't all that easy at this rating level. If you have access to a chess engine I would suggest playing out this position against the computer at its highest level until you can convert the win. First you'd need to capture and/or immobilize the three white pawns, and then as long as the opposing king isn't able to catch your passed pawn on the c-file (or it's protected by the rook) you win. Push the c-pawn whenever possible. If you can't take care of those 3 white pawns any other way, go ahead and sacrifice the rook but that's a last resort. As long as your c-pawn is far enough advanced that the king can't catch it, you still win. Shouldn't even have to mess with the a-file pawns though if you want you could create a passed pawn on the a-file with your first move.