I've gotten back to playing more 15/10 games again.

I haven't posted much lately but here's a game I just finished. Not a very interesting game. I was able to get a material gain pretty early then we just traded down and I beat him on the endgame. I feel like my end game is the worst part of my game, but I think this might have been my best close so far so I'm happy. Rating at 982 which is highest.

2. Qf6. Tired of defending the stupid Scholar's Mate moves. Here, let's trade queens. I want to try something different.

10. Bxd4. Hoping he takes so I can fork his King/Rook/Bishop. He moves his King over to thwart this but I think he should have played Nb3 instead. As it turns out I end up getting a pawn and Rook with my Bishop.

18. 0-0-0. I can see he's trying to fork my Rook/King so I castle to avoid this and also get my Rook to the D-file which is where his King is. Maybe somehow I can get that d-pawn with my L.S. Bishop if I can get my DSB out of the way.

20. Rxd4. A big trade-down when he's down material. Fine with me. I was prepared for this and hoping he'd do this.

24. Rxe2+. Probably dumb and unnecessary. Especially how super-inactive his LSB is. Thoughts? I know on the next move I can get my Bishop out of danger and capture a pawn as well as keeping him in check.

The rest should be pretty evident I think.

32. Kd7 attempts to keep him from playing Re8, and gets my King more active and able to capture his C-pawn.

His 35. Rxf5 seems really bad. He said he was "giving up" in chat.

44. Qh2. My last couple moves I wasn't sure how to close him quickly so I horsed around a bit. Here I notice I'm 1 move away from a stalemate and luckily was able to prevent this. But I had to sac my Queen. Not really a problem with how many pawns I have left and having a Rook still to defend, and his King is way on the other side of the board. From here it's an easy close.

On move 37 you had a stronger option than pushing a4.

Oh yeah Rbh2+

#

Mate? Doesn't he just move Kg3? Then I gotta back my Rook out of there but it's still a good move b/c it captures his pawn.

The king cannot reach g3 from h5 in one move. Rxh2 is mate.

Whoops I was looking at move 36, not 37. I think I just looked at the first pawn push.

Yeah move 37 I had mate for sure. I should have seen that.

In this position it doesn't matter, but it's very important in your development to recognize typical mating patterns. The one where the King is pinned on the back rank is probably the most common one in chess.

Many years ago I started writing an article on basic chess tactics, which you might benefit from. I don't plan to ever go back to it, so if you are interested, please take a look:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3q...it?usp=sharing

By the way, I never bothered writing answers to any of the exercises, but they are all pretty simple. If you get stuck, post your questions here.

No I should definitely be noticing that at my level. I wasn't paying close enough attention. I saw my pawn and just started going to get it Queened. But I don't want to waste time and I don't want to waste my competitor's time either.

Besides, it almost came back to bite me as I was 1 move away from forcing a stalemate a little later. That would have sent me into a rage. That would have never even been possible had I closed the mate-in-1 out.

I'll definitely take a look at your docs.

I'm a ****ing idiot.

Sigh. Maybe chess isn't my game :/

Alright these quick games make me feel a little better.

Quick win

This one felt good because I'm usually the one who played his line capturing with the Queen but I'm trying to stop it as it's a tempo drainer. It was good to make him pay for it. He tried to pressure my Queen in an act of desperation but luckily I took a moment to look for every possible move and saw the easy mate-in-1.

Rematch

He gets kind of desperate in the 2nd match and makes consecutive blunders that should net me +9 (Bishop, Rook, pawn, Knight) for my Knight. He resigns before this can happen. I'll try to write up some thoughts on my loss in a second.

This game was pretty sloppy on my part. Actually very sloppy for where I'm at. 13. g5 was awful. I should have pulled my Queen forward to free up the back row for my Rook. Later on I'll have to back my Knight back to its original spot, pinning my Rook in the corner. There were other mistakes, too but this one was really bad. No idea why I'm going for a pawn break here. I wanted to gain space up the exchange, but I mean that's not enough reason here. Especially when it's weakening King's defense.

He offered me a third match but I declined. Might break quad digits soon!

Ouch, that was about the only way you were going to lose that. It's a common trap/tactic and you will see it a lot, so might as well learn it now.

I'm wondering why 19.Qd2. Your queen is not attacked yet, and it's defending g2. Ah I see c2 was hanging. But you are up a rook, you should stay aggressive. He can't afford to trade pieces when you are ahead, so any time you threaten to do so, he will have to make concessions. This can work even when your just up one pawn.

I would go 19.Ne4, attacking d6 a second time. On ...Bh3 you just take Nxd6, and your queen defends the mate threat on g2 just fine.

If 19.Ne4 Rd8, you can still play 20.Nxd6. Do you see why?

Good game on the first one, every move perfect.

Second game, I didn't look at it too deeply, but the first move I would consider on move 13 is 13...e5. If he takes, you get ...Qh4+ in, and then you try to open up lines for your other pieces to join the attack on his wandering king.

Those were all thoughts I had. Just pussed out. I really thought I was going to win this game and told myself to just play solid and I would outlast him. Of course I blundered without knowing it. So I didn't even do what I was out to do.

Yeah I played Qd2 because I got scared he was going to wipe out my pawns over there. I wanted to protect g2 and I should have just played e4 to protect both squares. But then I was worried about him bringing his Rook onto that file, skewering me. Of course now that I look at it, that would have been Mate with Qxe8# anyway so he wouldn't even play that :/

You see I play Ne4 later (I did have my eye on the d-pawn and subsequent threats for a while). But playing it here was bad as I didn't even calculate his next 2 moves and that I couldn't defend them.

I've lost so many games where I feel like I had a noticeable edge during the midgame. It's frustrating. I am making small improvements though to my game over time so I guess I can't be too mad. I'm getting better at castling sooner and leaving my King an escape route (notice his was trapped).

But yeah this one hurt. lol.

You're going to be crushing people in this rating range in no time. You are getting a big advantage early in most games, then it just takes some experience to weather the cheap tricks.

Thanks - that's encouraging.

Groan. Another dumb loss. Move 33 is AIDS. "Hey when in doubt put him in a completely non-threatening check! And leave the coveted C2 square! Yeah bro!". And everything after that is either bad or forced. I ran out of time. He had about 8 minutes left. 15/10. Took a long time on some of my midgame moves because I thought I'd be OK. I thought near the end we'd be pushing pawns and stuff and our clocks would be growing.

A win here would have gotten me to 1004, first time breaking quad digits. :/

Other issues: I knew he was going to discover a check late by moving his Bishop but I didn't even stop to see what the hell his Bishop could threaten (my Rook). I just took his Knight. That is stupid. If I'm smart enough to realize he's going to discover an attack I should take the 2 seconds to see what other piece he can threaten.

I mis-clicked late when I went to bring my Queen back to the D-file. I clicked on d4 instead of d5, then noticed his Bishop could take me. I thought the click simply didn't register b/c my Queen didn't move and I thought I got lucky. Turns out I was looking at the wrong ****ing square. Time was running out but that shouldn't be an excuse.

I didn't even notice near the very end he had a mate-in-1 if I don't move my pawn up. I just happened to move my pawn up b/c I didn't know wtf else to do and I knew my King needed space (didn't actually realize I needed to prevent Mate-in-1, though. Just accidentally prevented it.

Again I felt like I had a large edge early/mid game but couldn't break him. I could not get my Bishop or Rook out of their damn original positions - which ****ed me.

The only moves I feel "proud" of are 25, 26, 27, 28. I took a long time before move 26 but realized this was a great square for my Knight. 27 prevents mate-in-2 (and I'm glad I noticed - as he left his Queen hanging for me). 28 is a good fork where I can win the exchange.

29 could have been better. I probably should put him in check with my Queen, or put him in check with the Knight. Will look at it later. I feel like just winning an exchange there and removing his mate threat with his Rook probably isn't capitalizing enough on my position. Sometimes against better players I'm too quick to just win an exchange instead of using more clock to search for a move ambitious line.

29. Be3 may have gotten me somewhere. If he takes with his Bishop then I fork his King and Queen with my Knight. That looks like it nets me 3 points with a 9 for 6 exchange. It also frees up my Rook to defend the 1st rank from his Rook.

Then I can wipe out his F-pawn with my Queen and also threaten his Knight. I'd be up a Queen + Rook versus Bishop, Knight, Rook.

During play I immediately saw the original fork but then noticed he could capture with his Bishop. So I shelved it and just took his Rook. Now I know to see if there is a way I can distract his defender by inducing a poor trade for him.

29. Nxd8 should lose to ...b5 (I think). If your queen were off the board, Black could mate along the h1-a8 diagonal, and ...b5 draws the queen away from its defense of at least one of the d5 and e4 squares. 30. Qe2 Qd5+ 31. Qg2 Qd1+, etc.

29. Be3 is good thinking. Now ...b5 (which should be mentally highlighted as a possible threat) is met by 30. Qxc5, and we have a lot of practical chances to mate if Black doesn't force a queen swap with ...Qd5+.

A close win I just had.

Moves 22 and 34 are dumb. Didn't even think move 22 just leaves me hanging. 34 was dumb since I left my important pawn wall hanging.

I was really surprised he traded both Rooks, since I thought I had better position to Queen a pawn.

Move 27 for me is kind of fun, and it's a move I wouldn't have recognized a couple weeks ago. Put him in check and he has to trade. Or he doesn't pay attention and I get his Rook. Nothing much came out of it but I'm at least glad I'm recognizing when I can put him in check with one of his blockers pinned to the King.

My end game was decent, I think. Once he was going to block my pawn on the right side of the board I was able to go mop up the other side and Queen my pawn in the nick of time. I probably made errors here but this was a really close match and I'm glad I could close it out.

This game was different for me as he opened with a lot of pawn moves so I was in a lot of unfamiliar positions.

EDIT: Move 46 is also stupid, as I had a passed pawn over there. Wasn't even paying attention to that side of the board anymore. Need to pay attention to that scenario.

b5... are you talking about putting my Queen on b5 square?

b6-b5

2 losses tonight, both to the same guy. First match I didn't feel like I did much wrong but it ended up being a bloodbath.

Second match:
I'm up a Knight and pawn after 25 moves then I go full derpmode and leave my Rook hanging. What a moron. DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP let me get this pawn and start planning for Queening!! HURURURURURRRR DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

lol. Yes I'm hard on myself. I actually was pretty happy with how I played this match until that stupid blunder. I also felt like this guy played me much tougher than someone with his rating based on what I've seen. It's just so disheartening when you play someone evenly matched and one mistake gets you killed. Granted this is a huge mistake. Annoying.

Endgame sucks as it felt like I had a chance of Queening 1 of 2 pawns but nope I ****ed that up, too.

I think move 12.Bxe7 is a slight mistake. I didn't even consider his Knight over there. I went ahead and took because I thought he either recaptures iwth his King or Queen. If King, then I've removed his ability to castle. If Queen, then his Knight is hanging. Though I'm not sure this would have been great since he can capture the weak e4 pawn with his Queen and possibly cause some havoc for me. And my Queen would be buried in no-man's-land. Bf4 might be best.

Move 26. should be Rec7, I think. This wins me a pawn no matter what (at least).

The key zwischenzug on move #8 is 8. Bb5+. If he interposes with the knight we win a pawn, and after 8...Bd7, 9. Ng5 looks annoying for him.

10. b3 is what I'd classify as an "empty threat." It's easily met by 10...Bxf1, which lets Black deprive us of our right to castle kingside (the safe side). I'd prefer 10. Bxe7 Nxe7 11. Bxc4 Nxc4 12. Qc3 (a fork of his knight and the g7 pawn). After, say, 12...Qa5 and a queen swap, I prefer our position. We can double rooks on the d file and control the d5 outpost with knights (this weakness is one of the reasons 4...c5 isn't good for Black).

12. Bxe7 looks best. I'd usually want to keep this Bishop; it's an active piece that can exert pressure on d6, and his own bishop is blocked by his pawn structure. But after 12. Bf4 g5 13. Bg3, moves like g5-g4 and Be7-Bf6 are coming, we're cramped, and his bishop is suddenly active. Our position will be hard to play.

17. Rfd1 .