Figured I'd start my own thread instead of filling the LC thread with this nonsense.

I'm a 32 year old guy, never played an actual game of chess before today. Was OK at the pokers - winning player up to 2/4nl and eventually just said **** it and got a real job as an air traffic controller. I donk it up in low limit tourneys still, but poker has gotten a little mundane for me. I always had an interest in chess, but poker took up all that time. Now with that essentially out of the way, I've got time to learn.

To get into the fray, I've read Comprehensive Chess Course Vol 1 and am halfway through Vol 2. I've also got Everyone's 2nd Chessbook and Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess waiting when I'm done that, with Logical Chess: Move by Move slated in there as well. I've done probably 100 tactics puzzles a day for 2 weeks, and have done some elementary reading and practice on simple endgames (Q+K v K, R+K v K, R+R v K).

I don't have any ratings goals as of now (as I've played all of 4 games and have no idea where I'm at right now), but I'm looking to play my first live tourney somewhere near the end of the summer.

I take criticism quite well, and am probably harder on myself than I should be. I also think I'm smarter than I am, so continually losing will probably be a nice humbling experience for me.

I'd appreciate any help I get along the way, and hopefully this thread isn't too too boring.

My first game ever vs 1320:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=90000

Epitome of play bad get there vs 1496

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=89999

Ratings don't really mean much, but one clarifying point that might nevertheless help is where these games are being played and at what time controls.

There's a huge difference between a chess.com correspondence rating and a FIDE rating and a FICS Standard rating (which I *think* might be what your games are?)

Also, you say in post one that you've played four games. You posted two of them, both wins. I don't know what your reasoning for not posting the other two was, but just because some people are sometimes reluctant to post losses I will remind you that losses are often more instructive, and would generally be more valuable than wins to post here (though of course you should brag about your nice wins when you get them.)

I have no idea why I didn't play 8 ... Qxb5 in the second game, as I saw it but just didn't play it

obviously knight move is terrible - hovered over resign button then decided to **** it and go deep

And to answer your question, I saved my first game manually and thought I changed my preferences to save all to computer - after I resigned after 9 moves in my third game I went to go look over the game and realized that the second and third didn't save. Going forward I intend to post mostly losing games.

Those are both very strong games for them being your first ever. Those don't look like 1300-1500 chess.com players though. Not sure what the ratings mean but you played well I think. Much better than I'd have expected based on your commentary leading up to this.

In the 2nd game, the move 18.Nf4 is obviously bad since your Knight had a safe spot on g7. But let's say your Knight didn't have that open square and he was trapped. If you can, try to threaten his bishop there by playing h6 so that if he wants your knight, you'll get his bishop in trade. Just make sure plays like this don't open up the h-file for his rook to capture your or whatever. Getting your bishop or knight trapped sucks and it's sometimes hard to foresee. Especially with the knight it seems like he'll always have a safe escape square but you'd be surprised if you aren't paying attention. If worse comes to worse and you have no real re-threat then try to at least take (sorry, capture) a pawn if it's not going to worsen your position.

20. Be5 makes me think this isn't a chess.com 1400. I don't think they would leave a bishop hanging like this. You do well to capture it but then you fail to back your rook out of there.

His inability at nearly 1500 rating to see that obvious checkmate move coming is hard to believe.

But still you are solid for sure.

tbh I made 3 serious blunders, and I hoped I could parlay that into him thinking I'm completely terrible instead of just terrible and make that mistake.

I'm actually quite happy after putting the 2nd game through the engine - other than missing the free bishop he gave me (lol) and gifting him my knight (double lol) it wasn't as bad as I thought.

I'd agree with you though - it seemed he made a few huge mistakes: (hanging his bishop trying to get my h8 rook made me feel I had a shot at playing my pawn capture instead of protecting my rook); pinning his own bishop early on was terrible.

I feel a little study into theory of e4 openings is probably necessary at this stage - thoughts?

I'm also on fics fwiw

Yeah, in your first game 2.dxe5 I think is standard play. You might think it's bad because it ends up being a pawn exchange where black somehow ends up with the only developed piece, once he recaptures the pawn with his queen but you'll just play Nc3 and make him move his queen back or probably over to a5. In either case, it's not really "developed" or ready to launch an attack. In general it's good to keep the queen tucked until after you develop the bishops and knights. But I play this line as black. For some reason I used to play e5 but seemed to hate it.

As played, 2. d4 just loses you a pawn right off the bat (it doesn't seem like it but losing a pawn is a big deal), and you amplify the mistake by defending the other pawn with c3 instead of Be3. Be3 defends, develops, blocks his pawn from advancing, and keeps Nc3 in play.

The more you play the better you'll get at openings and just being super efficient and not blundering or inaccuracy-ing.

The Ruy Lopez opening for white is a pretty natural one to learn right out the gate. It's not too exciting but it's good for getting yourself castled early. It's pretty easy to remember. You'll see this type of game break out a lot especially in the 700-1000 range so it's probably good to learn as white or black.

Yeah it seems like even the third or fourth move in I **** up and am down at least a pawn right off the get go and have to work from behind.

I feel I understand the middlegame and endgame pretty decent for someone my level, but openings are just bizarro for me. I think a memorization of open openings and somewhat understanding of them seem like an initial starting point.

I sucked at openings when I started because I wanted to try creative **** and unless you're Magnus Carlsen, that's a mistake. No reason to reinvent the wheel. It can be boring in the sense that it's basically playing by rote for the first 3-5 moves or what have you, but it's worth it because getting a good setup early is really key. Playing from behind the entire game sux. And getting your openings down helps if you want to dabble in 10 minute games or 5/2 games down the road.

Every once in a while I'll see my foe fiancetto his bishops. I don't know what moves I'm supposed to be playing against this but I just try to figure it out. It seems like I play well in these games, or, more likely, they play poorly. You may want to look into defending against this, or even playing it. It's where they open with their b and g file pawns then move their bishops to those files on the 2nd or 7th rank.

This sort of setup is pretty flexible:



Bc4 or Bd3 should come next.

I assume that exchanging fianchettoed bishops isn't the worst thing in the world?

Anyways, stalled about halfway through Vol 2 to change it up a little. Finished Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess. Was enjoyable and a quick read overlapping what I already know. Also started the first games of Logical Chess Move by Move. I very much enjoyed what I've gotten through so far and anticipate this being extremely important in my development.

I've played 7 games now, all against players reasonably better than me. 2 wins 5 losses (2 while drunk lol). All 15 0. It's clear that I need at least 30 0 to actually learn at the same time as play.

I'm not at home, but I hope my last game got saved. Managed to overcome being down a knight with a really nice combo to fork a queen and rook, but was completely lost in the Q+R+R v Q+R endgame with little time remaining. I'd never had an endgame and it showed lol.

Overall tactics are significantly improving, especially placing attacking pieces on squares controlled by pawns and knights. It's a concept that I'm finally starting to understand.

You just need to start playing more. It's more important thant studying more at this point.

Yeah I know. It's just so much easier to study at work lol. I'll be playing a few tomorrow.

It depends on the position. The fianchettoed bishop on the side the king is (or wants to be) castled is usually one of the most important minor pieces in the game.

This is the position resulting from the nonstandard 1. e4 g6 2. Nc3 Bg7 3. Nf3:



A lot of beginners would jump at the opportunity to trade pieces and double White's pawns with Bxc3, but doing so (1) gives White the bishop pair in an open game, and (2) makes castling kingside a less than enticing prospect in view of the dark-square holes at h6 and possibly f6.

Sorry, I meant as white. I'd anticipate a better position for white if you can get rid of g7 with exchange.

If white has a chance to trade off a minor piece for black's fianchettoed bishop then it's probably good - unless it burns tempos and allows black to gain a development edge, or of course if there's a direct tactical reason why it's bad.

Edit: Or if it creates an undesirable weakness in white's position... or etcetera etcetera. The point being that it's not *automatically* good; circumstances of how the exchange is managed matter. But yes, all other things being equal, it's likely to be good if none of the exceptions are relevant.

Remember also that a fianchettoed bishop isn't always a good piece. In the position above, if the pawns get locked in the center and black's pawns get fixed on d6 and e5, often times that bishop just sucks back there, especially if black can't ever really make an f5 break work. The fianchettoed bishop is often a good piece, though. Always consider a piece's current and potential activity when assessing its value.

here's a short 30 0 I just played:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=90140

Not getting into openings much yet, I assume 4... a6 is supposed to lead to 5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. Nxe5 and I missed it like a tard.

I need a little help on the 10. Nxd6 cxd6 11. Qxd6 theory though. Intuitively it seemed Nxd6 was a smarter play, and I had it in my mind, but the queen being in the middle of nowhere kinda scared me so I played Ng7 and let my opponent blunder into resignation. After analysing it, it appears I made a pretty big mistake there too. Should I have just laid the hammer down at this stage and launched a full out assault with the advantage I had?

I think not getting into openings yet is best, but for the record you played this opening perfectly fine, per "theory", through move five, at which point your opponent deviated and took you into a realm where there is no theory. 5. ... b6 is a strange move, I'd have expected him to play b5 there instead. I definitely don't think it's worth looking too deeply at the theory of your openings, particularly when it's your opponent who deviates from established first, and not you. Stick to fundamental principles for now.

Edit: Do note, though, that while 5. Bxc6 was perfectly fine as well... maybe even better... it DOESN'T win a pawn after 5. ... dxc6 6. Nxe5 Nxe4! (wins the pawn back at the *temporary* expense of a knight) 7. Nxe4 Qd4 winning back the knight, and leaving material equal. White is doing well in that position, and very strong players have played it (like this game by Movsesian). Other very strong players who have had this position in the past have played 5. Bxc6 but then NOT followed with 6. Nxe5 (see Capablanca). And here's your move: Ba4 (see Blackburne)

My main point being that all the options were reasonable enough for great players to try them. Which means that at your level it absolutely doesn't matter which of those moves you make, so long as your choice is fundamentally sound and fits with basic opening principles. The fact that all those different options have been played by super GMs (and legendary players of yore) just illustrates why you don't need to worry about theory.

Wow thanks for the thorough reply - it's much appreciated. It is quite interesting starting to think of possible moves and 3-4 moves down the road regarding them. In this game pinning the N and B with my pawn was considered quite a bit but I felt control of that space was important (essentially why I played d4 instead of maybe a 'better' move).

I feel a lot of what I'm doing now is experimenting with situations and thought processes to see both good and bad short and long term results without caring about my wins. I think I prefer this approach for the time being, but could be convinced otherwise.

Is there a reason I shouldn't be opening every game right now with e4 as white?

You could certainly do just fine opening every game with e4 for your entire chess career, much less just right now. For the sake of a more well rounded understanding of different types of positions you might want to explore other options (d4, c4, Nf3) LATER (and then return to e4, hehe), but definitely just sticking with e4 for now is probably best. (See what I did there? "Definitely probably" ftw?)

The position after 10. Ng7+ Kf8 11. Bh6 Kg8 (the correct defense) doesn't pass the "What now?" test, and according to Houdini's evaluation, Black is actually slightly better after correct play from both sides--but just intuitively, White should have an easier go of it here, especially in a 30|0.



After 12. f4, Black's next few moves are a minefield of potential blunders.

10. Nxd6 cxd6 11. Qxd6 Qe7 leads to an incredible position.



I would have chosen this option in-game, but I wouldn't have suspected that White was +3 (!) after 11...Qe7 given perfect play from both sides. +1.75 or so would seem more believable.

Anyway, it's not a mistake worth losing sleep over, and Houdini's evaluations shouldn't always be viewed as the "truth" of the position--especially not in a 30|0, on a level where each side's win probability is highly correlated with the other side's blunder probability.

The real mistake, I guess, was not taking the time to calculate that the queen on d6 would be safe. Black can't safely attack it, and it has a clear retreat lane all the way back to d1.

Interesting moves. When I saw you check with the knight I thought you were about to get your knight trapped with no compensation but then you made a nice play with the bishop. Don't think I've ever seen this maneuver yet.

44% of your first 9 moves were with the same piece. Against a better opponent this will likely be a mistake. The good news is he wasted a couple moves by playing dumb stuff like b6 instead of b5 and then the pointless g6 later when he probably should just play 0-0. Even still, you were pretty developed so it's not so bad here. That's one thing good about the Ruy Lopez is it will get you developed and castled early. If your opponent wastes tempo then you're going to be ahead after just 3-5 moves. And you're able to work on attacking and mid-game tactics instead of paying for sins of poor development.

What do you mean by this? Can you elaborate?