No, no, I don't know.

I didn't say Qa5 was bad. I said it was only the second time I played it. And playing it means you also need to know how to follow up - which I clearly did not. If I play it again, I will try to be less dumb in follow-up.

"But you can see I waste too many moves with the queen early." was not an indictment of playing Qa5, but an indictment of how I followed it up.

Sorry, I should respond to this. Saying "I don't know" is dumb. I made the move, I can tell you what I was thinking.

It looks bad to me and I don't really know *why* I opted for it. I believe that I didn't expect him to capture. "Why would he capture when I can just recapture, centralize my queen, and put him in check?" I probably thought. And pulling this pawn out 2 squares allows me to develop either bishop.

But now knowing what kind of trouble I got into I don't think I'll do this again.

Not a very interesting game since black gives away a piece whenever he can, and you take some of them.

Move 6 you should have taken the undefended e-pawn, Move 7 Nxd4 was better than Ng5 as you end up two pawns up after 7...exd4 8 Qxg4 dxc3 9 Qxg7 Rf8 10 bxc3 and the h-pawn is falling too, and I don't see how black improves on that.

Move 14 you should not give away your queen for a pawn

Also, 4 d3 is a bit passive. I assumed everyone at these levels play 4 Ng5 in that spot, I'm sure I would as if the opponent doesn't know how to defend he's virtually lost straight away.

Btw I can't believe you were seriously thinking of resigning against someone rated 1087 when you had a rook and four pawns for a Queen after Ng6 and taking the rook (assuming he thinks really hard and moves his queen instead of playing Bc5)

Here's a win I had earlier tonight. It must have been "Hang Your Queen" day. Dude donates his queen.

My close is really sub-optimal. I can't believe how much damage he did with what he had left. Absolutely pathetic. And he wasn't rated that much higher than me. I should have steamrolled him. And I was down to like 3+ minutes left at the end to his 8. 30/0

I feel like I play poorly sometimes when I'm up big. I'm looking to trade pieces whenever I can but I have so many pieces on the board compared to my opponent that it seems like I end up getting forked. And I can't remember the last time I was able to develop my DSB as black. I really hate this trend of getting my DSB and rook trapped as black.

I have been castling almost exclusively Kingside as white and Queenside as black (aka always castle 'to the right'). But maybe the requirement of having to move an extra piece out of the way to castle queenside (the queen) loses me that tempo that could get my Bishop out. I dunno.

Pyro, move 6... Is it basically always correct to take an undefended pawn if you can't see anything worse coming out of it for you? I am probably undervaluing pawns. My mentality is typically to castle as soon as I can.

Move 7... After I made my move I saw what you're talking about and thought it was probably better. Though I didn't calculate it all out.

Why 6...h6?

18...Rc8: You should trade down, but 18...Bg7 first followed by castling is more patient and precise.

25...Qd5: 25...Qd1+ wins the rook after 26. Kg2 Qd5+. If 27. Kf1 Qxb7 28. Kxe2, grabbing your knight, 28...Qe4+ wins White's knight.

34...Nxf4: 34...Qf1+ wins the knight after 35. Kg4 h5+

Castling kingside as a default (i.e., unless queenside castling is thematic in the specific opening being played) with both colors will serve you well at higher levels. It is usually safer.

It's correct here. It doesn't matter whether it's always correct because you're allowed to play differently in different situations

Since Black obviously has no attack - you don't even need to calculate anything, just look where his pieces are - and you can castle in a move or two anyway and there's nothing he can do to stop it, and it's a key central pawn not some dodgy flank pawn, then yes, take it. Black will probably castle since he needs to do something about f7 (what else could he do, maybe d5 but there doesn't seem to be anything in that?), and you can then kick his now unsupported knight away easily enough with Be3 if you want to (his d4 Knight isn't doing anything anyway), or just castle yourself.

I think the main thing holding you back from pushing on to 1200 is that you usually don't calculate - I mean at all. Your justification for your moves is too often:

"3. Bc4. I only pull it out to Bb5 if he's moved his d-pawn."
"My mentality is typically to castle as soon as I can. "
"Let's play this and see what happens"

Your comments rarely involve looking at what move your opponent will play next, how you will respond to that, etc. IMO (though I'm not any good, and have never coached chess) the only way to improve is to look at concrete continuations and see what will happen. Of course in the opening you need some general theories, but not *too* general. A theory 'I will never play Bb5 unless my opponent has moved his d-pawn' is clearly too general, if for no other reason than that almost every top GM prefers 3. Bb5 to 3 Bc4 in that position.

A new best win over a 1202. "Hang Your Queen" Day apparently a 2-day event.

6. h6. He had a lot of heat on g5 square (knight, queen, and bishop) and I didn't like it. I was also very cluttered Kingside and long-term maybe this helps free up space on this side.


"25...Qd5: 25...Qd1+ wins the rook after 26. Kg2 Qd5+. If 27. Kf1 Qxb7 28. Kxe2, grabbing your knight, 28...Qe4+ wins White's knight."

I love this. This is one of the next steps I can take. I definitely am capable of seeing this type of play now that you point it out to me. That would have been a really fun cleanup.

"34...Nxf4: 34...Qf1+ wins the knight after 35. Kg4 h5+ "

My original thought was to play Qf1+ here and win his knight. But then I considered he can play Kg4 and I didn't realize putting him in check with my pawn would screw up his knight defense. Pretty careless calculation on my part. I exacerbate the problem by capturing a pawn with my Knight, thinking I could still pull the move off then realizing after this play that I can't. Really bad.

I also miss 36. Qxf3+ somehow. I must have started fruiting out when I saw him move his pawns and was low on time.

Pyro, I calculate. It's just that I still spend a lot of time looking at 2-4 different moves I can make and trying to quickly figure out which is best. I'm not at the stage where it's apparent to me what the best or best 2 moves might be. If it was I could spend more time calculating deeper lines with those 1 or 2. As it stands, I waste a lot of time simply trying to figure out conceptually which piece I should move next - and to which square.

In my correspondence games I will regularly open a Word document and literally list each move I'm considering and then write out the lines. Or if a piece (like my queen) is under attack and it's vital to save it (duh) I'll list every single possible square to move it to and the conceptual pros and cons for each instance, as well as anticipated lines that would follow. Also of course I list possible moves like blockers or re-threats, if sensible.

It is super obvious to say that for me to get better I need to get better at quickly calculating deep lines. But to say I don't do any calculation is unfair.

When I first started and didn't understand openings I would spend a minute plus trying to figure out what my third move should be or something. My openings are getting way more standardized (down the road I'll try branching out more) so I can rattle off the first several moves pretty quickly. This helps me during the middle game to have more time to devote to tactical calculation.

I'm pretty sure it's just an ongoing event below 1200. Players between 1200 and about 1500 are simultaneously celebrating "hang your minor pieces" day. This guy probably just forgot that he was at 1202 instead of 1198, and so hung the wrong piece by mistake.

The funny thing is I used to empty-threaten my opponent's queen too often and it never really paid off. I would hang my queen a lot but it was much more rare for my opponents to do so. Earlier this week I empty-threatened a queen and it didn't work and put me in a worse position so I remember telling myself "Stop empty-threatening their queens. It doesn't work on these guys." and basically intended to shelf the play entirely.

Now like 3 dudes have hung their queens in the last 2 days. The only reason I made this play here was because it threatened his queen but also naturally developed my knight anyway.

It could be a useful move once he plays Ng5. It's not the best use of time until then, though.

9...Qb5 feels like a misclick (a failed attempt at playing Qa5), so 4...f6 is probably the worst "real" move of the game. In these sorts of 1. e4 e5 positions where Black errs with f7-f6, the d-pawn move that's almost mandatory is d2-d4. It's going to be quite hard for Black to castle and develop comfortably, so grabbing central space and threatening to open up the position is in your favor.

After say 5. d4 exd4 6. Nxd4 Nxd4 7. Qxd4 d6 8. Nc3, a huge % of Black's natural developmental moves are outright blunders. The innocuous-looking 8...Be7 loses to 9. Qd5 (with the idea being Qf7+ and Qg7), 8...Bh6 to 9. Bxg8, and 8...Qe7 to 9. Bxg8 Rxg8 10. Nd5, etc. Black's other 5th moves lead to tightrope positions too. Needless to say, positions where it's easy for your opponent to blunder are generally good for you.

Why didn't you like his pressure on the g5 square? What were you afraid he would actually do with that?

Not really sure. In 2 knight moves ("workin on our knight mooooves..") he can fork my Q/R if he wants to lose 2 points of material but remove my ability to castle. He probably doesn't want to do this, though.

I realized when answering Rei that my concern is pretty unfounded. Still, I'm going to type out the precise thought I had at the time the move was played even if I now know it to be dumb.

This waste of tempo is probably the reason why I didn't develop my DSB. It's crazy how the higher you go, the more likely 1 waste of tempo can hamstring you for almost the entire game - assuming your opponent makes no blunder.

I hate reading this thread when I'm so far behind this level lol

motivation to move on up I suppose

Grando, have you started playing matches yet?

You are intelligent enough and seem ambitious enough that I doubt you are that far behind me.

When I was in the 700s I would get stomped by players in the 800s and thought they were so good. Now that I'm knocking on 1100 I can say my level isn't much higher than the 700s. It's just I'm that much more careful here and there and that much more efficient spotting forks and whatnot that I should be able to whittle them away by game's end.

I'm just eradicating a lot of the inefficiencies and blunders that were common. I hang my queen less and less often. I pin my queen to my king less often (almost never now). My opening is more standardized and familiar (I basically always open 1. e4 as white or d5 as black). I do this so that I can get familiar with these games and typical early positions I'll see. I hang minor (knights and bishops) pieces less often. I'm developing sooner. I'm more wary of "cheap" checkmates against. End game is less terrible.

Basically when you start, the good news is you might have several areas you can improve in. Improving marginally in several areas will make you better a lot quicker than you think. Stuff just starts coming together slowly but surely.

The opening and how you develop your minor pieces is very important. If you open solidly, you will make your victors at least have to put up a solid effort to have beaten you.

Got an old college buddy to sign up on chess.com and we played a correspondence game. I beat him relatively easily. Back in architecture school about 10-15 of us would play pretty regularly to blow off steam and he was basically the Magnus Carlsen of our group - though we didn't have an elo system or tourney structure - it was just pretty obvious that he was the best. This was 14 years ago. I asked if he's played at all since then and he said he played a few games against his niece a few years ago but "think I remember everything".

He had never played chess before but once he learned the rules and moves like I said he was routinely beating the rest of us who had all played it sporadically or often outside school. Once he learned the rules I basically couldn't beat him, so I was curious to see if I could beat him now.

Back then I thought he was amazing but a week or two ago itt I think I mentioned that, looking back, probably none of those guys would have been 1000 on chess.com standard.

He screwed up in the opening and I gained a minor piece then he opted to trade queens so I did and then just traded down for the rest. I won an exchange in the endgame and it was basically over. I checkmated him with 2 rooks and he just had a couple pawns left. He committed suicide with his final rook once the game was pretty much gone (he thought - I think he could have played on).

For having been completely out of practice I think he actually played OK and he's probably rated about 780-830 or so. I'm hoping he puts effort into it because I think he can get pretty good if he does.

Anyway here's the game.

yeah the midgame is straightforward to me, but just wanna get some opening theory down before hopping in

your e4/d5 strategy is my initial plan as well

I've not had too much time this week to do anything - I'll probably put down the bottle tomorrow and give er a go

Heh, one of the guys I work with is rated about 1400 on chess.com. He asked me how to get better and I said, "don't put your pieces en prise and if your opponent does so, take them. That should get you to about 1800."

But that was at bullet, not standard. Surely in a 30 minute game everyone can notice those things

"Hey now, not putting your pieces en prise is HARD with only a minute on the clock!" says the player rated ~1350 on chess.com bullet, who agrees 100% with your assessment

Up to 1092. 4 standard 30/0 wins in a row. I think I've gone up 76 rating points in my last 17 matches. I definitely feel like 30/0 is helping me - thank you to who(m)ever suggested it.

I think I played this solidly. The opening was a bit different from what I've seen and it's probably a bit clanky on my part. He gets out to a decent space advantage but isn't really developing his minor pieces. I lock him down somewhat well then he goes for a trade that frees me up a bit. Still, a few of my pieces are rendered pretty defensive and my Knight seems to be the best option for roaming about. I'm patient and grab a pawn while I can. I *think* my final move is correct. I can see he's planning a big attack on f6, and at first I worry that I need to defend it. I don't think I can anyway. This way I fork his Queen and Rook, winning me an exchange no matter what he does (I think?) even if he plays the in-between move of putting me in check with his Knight I can probably just move my king to the corner. If I take with my Rook it looks like I lose an exchange. He ends up blundering then quickly hitting Resign before I capture his Queen. He had 22 minutes left to my 9 at game's end. Here was the ensuing chat:

ChessKing9577: fun game

NathanLaz: no, u suck , way to slow

ChessKing9577: Sorry

ChessKing9577: try the 15/10 games

ChessKing9577: Your cheap tricks won't work at 30 minutes

3...e5: .

4...Bd6: Too passive. Your bishop wants to be developed to the active c5 square, so 4...Nc6 is the most flexible way to defend the pawn. The immediate 4...Bc5 is enticing, because White can't grab the pawn. One possible continuation: 5. Nxe5 Qh4+ (always be on the lookout for potential Qh4/Qh5 tactics when your opponent plays f3/f6 in these positions) 6. g3 Qxe4+ 7. Qe2 Qxh1 8. Ng6+ Be6 9. Nxh8 Nc6 followed by castling queenside, planning to take advantage of White's horrid lack of development and to exploit potential tactics along the e-file, should give you a significant edge.



(Position after 9...Nc6 in that line.)

The material is even, but that knight on h8 is done for, White is 5+ moves away from completing development, and you only have to castle and play Nf6. Nc6-d4 could win even more material.

This line isn't easy to calculate (7. Qe2 Qxh1 looks very dangerous with all of White's potential discoveries), though, and White has stronger responses, so it's not mandatory at all. The stronger tactician would probably just quickly win via blunder.

You can also play 4...Nf6 and invite 5. Nxe5; you'll win back the e4 pawn anyway. The idea is to open up the position while White is uncastled and contending with that f2 weakness.

The chance to pounce on that weakness quickly disappears, however, because White builds a strong pawn center and eventually closes the game.

5...Be6: 5...Nf6 (or even 5...Bg4) is better.

8...Bxf3: This trade favors White. 8...Bh5 maintains the pin, and you can swing it back to g6 eventually and pressure the e4 pawn.

10...g6: 10...Kh8 deals with the Bh6 threat without weakening your kingside.

16...g5:

Solid game overall.

What about 18 f6? I wasn't sure about this. I think his obvious plan is to bring his Rook down then over. But my queen is currently defending that pawn. I moved the pawn forward to defend and free up my Queen but I'm not sure if this is a tempo waster since his Rook has to make 2 moves to attack it anyway. Still, I felt f6 was a good square to get this pawn to, anyway, as it defends 2 pawns and gives my queen a teeny bit of added mobility along the e8-h5 diagonal if I ever want it. Not to mention, as stated, immediately frees my queen up whatsoever, apparently.

This match felt like he kept flinging poo at the wall and I kept thwarting it, then he got frustrated and blundered. His chat corroborates, this, I think.

His 24. Nd5 is tricky as my queen is being attacked but I really had to stop and think about each square to move it to. e8 would cause me trouble as Nf6+ is in play. d7 is bad because he can fork my Q/R on the next move. b7 is bad as I'm losing protection over f6 square. This is the type of move that, in a 15/10 game, I feel like I'd make too hastily and end up losing an exchange or worse.

18...f6 isn't great, but it isn't horrible or anything. It gives White potential tactical shots along the a2-g8 diagonal after Bc4, which shouldn't be dangerous but just complicate things further for you. The threats it prepares against are mostly either harmless, bad, or very difficult for White to achieve (unless you decide to move your king side to side for 5-10 moves). At the moment, your knights prevent White from even attacking g5 safely, and b7-b5 will push away the knight with tempo if it hops to c4.

18...c6 is better; it challenges White's advanced central pawn and should open up lines on the queenside for your rooks.

Side note: if White responds to 18...f6 with 19. Be2, it's clear why 19...Nxe2 is positionally awful, right?