The only reason I didn't play Rxe5 is because I figure he plays Qd4 and "pins" my Rook. I didn't think far enough ahead to know if this was a desirable position or not. I can just pull my other Rook to the D or E file though.

I assumed I had an easy win once it was down to just my Rook and I probably played sloppy because of that assumption. I mean I wasn't even paying much attention to his pawn wall moving forward because I was fixated on Queening, and he won my Rook because of it. Stuff like this will come with experience. I still feel like I was probably more skilled than this player but he is probably more experienced.

I'd say you were doing fine until 40... Rh8. Instead Rf3 and white runs out of options. 41 f6+ Rxf6. White pushes the a-pawn, you push the c-pawn. The only king move that doesn't drop the f-pawn is Kg4 and then you put the rook on f1. King abandons the f-pawn, rook takes it. King shuffles back and forth between g5 and g4, you push the c-pawn. Easy win.

In any case, despite all the mistakes, I think this game was more interesting and complex than any of the games you've posted before. That's what happens when you play better opponents and that's what will help you learn and improve.

I can definitely relate to underestimating the power of connected passed pawns in the endgame. They are a force to be reckoned with, and they become increasingly powerful as they advance!

Seriously. Those 2 pawns had my king in check across 4 squares on the 7th rank. My king was trapped and there was an "oh ****" moment where I realized something went horribly wrong. lol. I was like... is he going to CM me here!? Whoops!

Played an 887 as an 876 and got him to resign with plenty of time left for me to Mate. I finished with Q, N, p, p to his King.

The chat was kinda funny (this is the entirety - first 2 lines were very early on):

ScottySaltman21: your not the king

ScottySaltman21: your not bad but NO KING

ScottySaltman21: ……….

ScottySaltman21: your still BORING

ChessKing9577: Shush

ScottySaltman21: LOL

ScottySaltman21: HAHAHAHHA

ScottySaltman21: your WIT"S NOT :P

ScottySaltman21: LOL

ChessKing9577: im new to this

ScottySaltman21: you good but you have a long way to go to say your the KIng

ScottySaltman21: :P

ScottySaltman21: your more like a pawn :P

ChessKing9577: i just started playing opponents above 850

ScottySaltman21: I'm just messing with ya

ScottySaltman21: we should play again after this though

ScottySaltman21: your gonna take all my guys LOL

ChessKing9577: You are strong

ScottySaltman21: well right now your team is

ChessKing9577: And it's about to get stronger

ChessKing9577: by 9 points

He resigned after this comment. lol. I definitely took a long while between some moves so I can see why he was bored haha. I had to keep the chat tame b/c next abuse and I'm banned.

My thoughts:


6.Be3. I can play d4 here but I figure I may as well develop my Bishop first if possible.

His 7.Ng4 doesn't scare me so I ignore it and continue to develop minor pieces. I'm now 1 move away from my Knight and Bisop both threatening f7.

9.Bg5 I simply pressure his Queen some more and he moves to the square that I hoped he wouldn't. Anyway. Time to re-assess.

10. Nxe5 is kinda cool. I'm pressuring his Queen some more (punishment for him bringing it out so soon) and I don't think I care if he takes my Bishop. Because I like the position I'll be in once he does.

11. I wasn't sure whether to attack F7 with my Knight or Bishop but I didn't see what putting my Bishop there does other than put him in check (and pin my Knight to protecting it). So I hit it with the Knight, forking his Queen and Rook. His 11.Qf6 seems to be a blunder, as I'll gladly trade my Bishop and Knight for his Queen if he wants to go that route. And he is no longer protecting his Bishop so I kill it with 12.Qxg4, a nice little in-between move before having to kill his Rook.

13. Bb3 - I had anticipated him pressuring this Bishop earlier and I don't want to get it off this diagonal so I just pull it back, leaving him 2 pawn moves away from blocking again. He appears to waste another move with 13.Na6.

14. e5. Not sure if this is correct but I put even more pressure on his Queen and he basically decides he hopes for a trade.

15. My Queen is hanging now so I still can't play Nxh8. I can trade Queens but I'm not going to panic yet. I simply play 15. f3 to protect my Queen. And potentially open up the F-file for my Kingside Rook.

16. He finally plays d6, which I had my eye on. F it. Time to trade then gain material by taking his Rook.

19. Bxe6. Not sure why he wants to trade being down a major piece already but we trade Bishops.

I then get cute with my pawns for a few moves then play 25.Nxf8. Not worried about leaving my Knight hanging because I'll skewer his Rook next with my Rook anyway and keep simplifying the game.

32.Rxf6 is probably unnecessary but again I'm simplifying and still left with a decent attack piece and have a pawn I can easily Queen. From there it's just cleaning up and at the end I can probably mate him with the 2 pieces I have but I've screwed up too many easy wins so I wasn't about to lose this one especially after all the early chirping. I was going to get another Queen then make him beg for mercy. Rating up to 887. I still feel like my opponents in my range are wasting too many moves or not having much of a plan. This dude never had me threatened once and he failed to develop several of his pieces. I'm 11-2-2 in my last 15 15/10 games, going from 796 to 887.

10 Nxe5 - this is a mistake and loses a piece. You said that you weren't bothered about QxB immediately (correctly). But what was your plan if he played NxN first and then took the Bishop? I don't see anything good for white after that. I think the best plan for you here was just to play h3 and castle first, you have a huge development lead that isn't going anywhere. Look at *all* of your opponent's possible captures

15 f3 - you said 'I can trade queens but I'm not going to panic yet' - that doesn't make sense, you are masses of material up so trading queens is good (don't forget you will take the rook after he recaptures). Instead you play a move that let's him trade queens anyway if he likes, and let's him move his rook away from your knight too. Your still very much winning after 15... Rg8 but you're not that much material up and I think there is more chance of you going wrong.

Don't get in the habit of handwaving arguments. "I'm not going to panic yet" cannot be a reason to make a chess move

The move I'd like explained is 4. a3. What was the purpose of playing that instead of developing your LSB?

Funny thing is I saw his Knight move and expected he would play it. For some reason I thought this wouldn't be bad for me as I'd recapture with the pawn but I guess I ignored he'd take my Bishop with his queen next. Not to mention my entire attack would now be ****ed up. His Queen would also have instant access to the weak and powerful g2 square. This is a blunder for me. I should have known when I thought "hey here's a cool play." My opponent was taking an average of 10 seconds per move so this is probably why he missed this.

Nice catch. I failed to notice that by letting him initiate the Queen trade he has time to save his Rook. I now see that I should be the aggressor here as I'd gain 14 points to his 9 point gain. Especially since his h-pawn is now doubled up which would allow me to back my Knight out freely. One thing I "struggle" with is knowing when to trade pieces when I'm winning. When I said "not panic" I think I meant that I liked my Queen's position much better than his Queen's position so what feels like an even trade may be a little -EV for me. I have no idea if this is how I should think about it, though. There is almost not a single square he can move his Queen to that doesn't lose it, and he's got no secondary attack piece anywhere nearby to begin to threaten my King. The only real piece I'm scared of him playing is the simple h5 move which puts heat on my Queen. As I look at the board, though, I can see that my Queen isn't really in a great spot either. It feels like it is but my 2 minor pieces really are the only attack right now so I can definitely see trading here. Especially now that you pointed out it's better to instigate the trade since I'll gain 2 pieces.

He's bringing his Queen out super early so I just want to keep him off a3 and b4. I thought about developing my LSB to c4 but then doesn't he just play c5 and threaten 2 minor pieces as well as the weak f2 square? I also considered developing LSB to d3 but then one of his diagonals is blocked for a while, and he's also blocking d2-d4, which is the only safe way my DSB can get out any time soon (since a3 is completely unprotected now that my Knight is out). These were the actual game-thoughts that I generated.

Why? If he wants to keep moving his queen around, that's his problem, not yours. There's a phrase I've heard about making sure you don't react to paper tigers -- things that look threatening but actually aren't. That is, his queen on b4 look threatening, but what does it actually do to harm you? If nothing, then you shouldn't waste a move preventing it.

Playing a3 (or h3, ...a6, or ...h6) is a common mistake. Sure, it is often a good move, but it's also often a waste of a move. You should be sure it's justified to choose it over developing a piece.

I agree that Bd3 is bad. Playing that before moving your d-pawn will almost always be a terrible idea.

But if 4. Bc4 Qc5, I only see one piece threatened. It's good that you see the queen also targeting f2, but can you defend against that threat? Yes -- either 5. Qe7, to defend f2 and the bishop, or 5. d3 Ng4 6. O-O seems fine to me.

Alternatively, you could play 4. Be2. It happens sometimes when you don't have anywhere else for the bishop, but you want to get it out of the way so you can castle (for king safety and to get a rook to the center), e2 is the only square for it. And it's not a bad place either, just less active than c4.

Just re-set my seek to -50 to +200 per BJJ's rec. Got 2 guys similarly-rated. First guy I'm white and we play 8 moves then he disconnects and I have to wait 5 minutes then get the "win" and it says he may have abused fair play.

So I start a new game. I again play e4 and dude takes like a minute in the 15/10 game. I look at his profile and he's played hundreds of games but he's got a bunch of negative comments on his page about stalling and making BS moves late to get more time and gets people to resign out of frustration. Anyway I try to move quickly so as not to let him do this to me and win. He plays 12 moves in 14 minutes of clock and we're 4-4 on points but it's about to get ugly for him and he resigns. Awesome. 2 lovely games. lol.

This might seem like a nit, but I think it's actually a somewhat important point to make -- you should stop thinking in terms of how many points you each have. There are two main reasons why:

1) The points don't actually matter. You can be up 18 points and still lose. You get nothing for the points themselves. Some people actually don't use the word 'points' for exactly this reason, but instead think in terms of how many pawn's worth of value you've captured. That is, you captured material equivalent to 4 pawns' value. That helps emphasize that these aren't points like points in any other game.

2) What's on the board matters more than what's off the board. So when you state that you're 4-4 on points, you're looking at what's captured, but that can't help you anymore. Most players would instead state "we're even in material," indicating that what's on the board is the same. Or something like "I'm up a rook for a knight," again focusing on what's actually there for you to play with.

I was just trying to paint a picture for you.

But better players would never paint the picture using the language you did, and I think this is actually meaningful. The words you use give us insight into how you view the game. Like I said, if I were describing the same game, I would have said, "we're even in material." This is a very common thing to change in players as they develop since there is usually a lot of focus initially on these 'points.' It's not just a change in language but a change in thinking about what's important to the position.

Jesus.

Also, I think it's important for beginners not to describe the act of capturing pieces as "killing" them--it may lead them to believe that, while playing chess, they're actually committing murder.

The main point of my post was:

"I didn't get a lot of practice in tonight, because of two strange opponents."

My point in the second game was to describe how frustratingly little action there was, even though he had milked 14 minutes of clock (time plus bonus time). We had played 12 plays and each lost a pawn and a bishop/knight.

I fully realize that points don't "matter" and no I am not thinking about the game in terms of points, so stop projecting that onto me please.

I could have said "we were even" but that doesn't tell you how big or small the game had gotten at that point. So I thought by saying "4-4" it would help visualize how little of game was played. I also said "it was about to get ugly for him". I guess instead of writing a qualifying statement like that I should just list every move that was made? lol.

I want to use correct terminology so I appreciate people pointing out when I don't but you are being super nitty here and I really don't appreciate the projecting you are doing, which is uncalled for.

there's been a lot of bad nittery and dead horse beating ITT lately.

Meh, ganstaman has a point here that will be relevant eventually, but I think it's a little premature. At *some* point, yes, you want to stop thinking in terms of points at all, and start thinking specifically about what material is on the board. And no, the terminology you used of "4-4 on points" is not how a stronger player would ever describe the position (and for that reason it failed to paint the picture you intended it to). I'm not sure that you're quite at the level where you have to make that transition though. The concept of points is used to teach some specific concepts about material, and I think those concepts still are in play in some of your games right now. You're improving rapidly, and with a few more weeks of improvement maybe it will be time for you to forever abandon "point count" from your chess lexicon, but you're not definitively there yet.

I think there's a bigger and broader issue here, though, that matters more than whether we call the position "4-4" or "materially even".

In my opinion, the single most frustrating thing about the game of chess is that there are all these concepts that are really easy to grasp intellectually, but really hard to apply over the board. So for your entire chess life you will find yourself doing things in your games that violate concepts you're already familiar with. This can be anything from a 600 player putting his queen on a square the opponent covers, even though he already knows that "don't give your queen away for nothing" is an important concept, to a GM making some positional error that I can't personally fathom, but that is still a concept he's well aware of.

This means that when a stronger player reviews a weaker player's games, they will inevitably spot errors that the weaker player already understands. It's the stronger player's job to point these out. And doing so is NOT a criticism. We all understand that just because you make an error, that doesn't mean you don't already know the concept. You're just not at a point yet where you can consistently apply that concept all the time in every situation. And that's perfectly fine, it's just part of the process of learning this rich complex game. It's simultaneously what makes chess both so frustrating and so satisfying.

There have been several times in this thread where someone has pointed out a concept to you, and from my perspective they have done so respectfully, and you have responded in a way that (again from my perspective) seemed overly defensive. This particular instance is about an issue of how one thinks about a broad chess concept (material imbalance). Other instances have been about more specific things. It does seem to be turning into a pattern, though.

I can assure you that noone here intends any disrespect when they point out something like this. All the advice being offered is out of a genuine desire to help you grow as a chess player. Sometimes you might be trying to make one specific point with a post, and someone responds with something tangential, but that's inevitable with a game like chess. There's just too much to cover, and there's always some tangentially related point that is also relevant. I think that if you can avoid taking offense to these comments, it will probably allow you to get more value out of this forum and improve more rapidly.

I want to close by emphasizing that I am NOT saying this in my capacity as a mod. I'm not trying to imply that there's anything about your posting that has been any kind of violation of terms or whatever. Rather, I'm offering this advice as someone who wants to see you improve your chess game. Although while we're on the subject of my mod duties, I would also like to add that if anyone DOES directly disrespect you then they'll be hearing from me about it. I haven't seen it yet though. All I've seen is people offering well intentioned advice. I hope you can get as much value out of it as possible.

Oh come on. It's common knowledge that players initially focus a lot on these points, not helped by the fact that on sites like chess.com the actual point values are displayed next to a game. Giving up that view is a sign of your game maturing.

I don't get why you sound so angry when I'm trying to give you advice. Above a certain skill level, you will never hear anyone referring to these 'points' and yet they can help us visualize the situation just fine. You don't have to list all the moves, but if you're not thinking in terms of points, then don't mention them. It just wouldn't make sense.

Ganstaman is quite right. Chess players never describe positions in terms of points. They will say something like "material was equal" or "Black was up a pawn" or "Black was up a Bishop for two pawns." When you have a Rook for a Bishop or Knight you are "up the exchange."

.

So a game with King and pawn (or is it K+P? - I don't want to say the wrong thing here), versus a King and pawn is exactly the same "even material" as a game with K, Q, R, R, B, N, N, and 7 pawns versus K, Q, R, R, B, B, N, and 7 pawns?

Got it. Even when my main point is that I didn't get to play much chess? (20 moves across 2 "wins")

I don't want to be a dick but I genuinely want to see ganstaman re-write my post in a way that a True Chess Master would write it, while still getting my personal point across of "I didn't get to play much chess tonight". Seriously. This is a BBV thread. I'm not writing a chess thesis here. Sometimes you just need to hear "man that sucks" or criticism in a more diplomatic and less offensive way.

I know I ****ing suck I don't have to be beaten to death and told every little nit that I **** up.

I sure hope this isn't like the Golf sub-forum. Everyone there is a bitter +3 handicap upset that they are just barely not good enough to make money at the sport, and they verbally rip your head off if you use a 2 iron and aren't on Tour. It's not at all welcoming for a noob. I've gotten tons of good advice here from people who are nice while being critical. Ganstaman seems to lack basic diplomacy in his trying to help me. I'm definitely defensive but his posts are not fun to read. I can get the same advice from 20 other posters here without the intimated smackdown.

Of course those aren't the same, but how many extra words would it take to explain either? "Only a few captures made" or "most pieces still on the board" are certainly sufficient.

Yes, my point was unrelated to what you were trying to say in your post. Which is why I only quoted that small phrase. That indicates that I was responding to that alone and not the rest of your post.

Re-read my first post in this conversation. What there is undiplomatic or offensive? You chose to take it as an offense, as me beating you to death, but really it was a very benign post.

I was being mean to you when you were complaining about players stalling in blitz. But here, it wasn't even close until you got all defensive.

That was just a joke.

Your initial post did strike me as (1) over-explanatory in a way that could justifiably be interpreted as patronizing, but (2) born out of good faith and a desire to help, not animosity. Together those qualities are a contradictory brew, sure, but it's the most likely outcome of caring a bit too much about linking together inferential steps. When I give advice to adult beginners, I try to err on the side of under-explaining (while avoiding opacity)*, because everyone has an ego, etc., and I know how tilting it is to be preached on things I already understand.

I might be mischaracterizing ARC's quibble, but I doubt the response would've been the same if your post were "It's pretty important to stop thinking in terms of points"--the goal of said post being to cheaply elicit either a "Why?" or a "Ahh, I know, I was just yadayada ..." without pre-committing too hard to a potentially unnecessary explanation.

It is very true that (e.g.) "we had exchanged only a piece and a pawn up until then" would be a much more natural way to describe that particular game state.


*ETA: Duh, but this changes if I'm prompted for a thorough explanation or if the conditions are such that a fine-grained explanation can't come across as patronizing.

Ok, sounds fair enough.