Many players would've overlooked 10. Nb5. To spot it, you pretty much have to ask yourself "How does 9. Bf4 change the board state?" The relevant answer is that it adds another attacker to c7. The correct follow-up question is "Can White attack c7 again?" at which point Nb5, a fairly annoying threat, should become visible. 9...a6 preempts it.

12...Qb6 loses the game (the awkward-looking 12...Nb4 is necessary), but I'll file this one as a tactical error.

11. Ndb5 is the sort of strong, winning tactic that ChessTempo practice will help you spot. As played, 11. Qg4 doesn't do much; the queen has no targets on the kingside. After 11...h5 I'd rather just retreat to a square like e2. g5 is an advanced square but it isn't useful in this position.

16. Qf6 doesn't look good. Black can defend the f7 pawn at will, and the queen might be inching closer to a self-inflicted trap.

Not sure what 17. Bg3 does.

I get the reasoning behind 18. Ne2, but 18. 0-0-0 should be better. Black isn't in a position to launch an attack just yet. Your queen needs to extricate itself from that cubbyhole ASAP, though.

19. Bf2 is good--the pawn Black munches isn't valuable.

I love 21. Nc1 conceptually (the idea is to either get to c5, or to support the bishop on c5 from b3, right?), but it seems too slow.

26. Bxf5 gives Black play along the g- and h-files, otherwise it'd be fine.

27. c3 doesn't do much. I'd improve the position of your knight or one of your rooks instead.

29. Rfb1 is better, because the rook doesn't do anything on the e-file. From b1, you can start to build pressure against the b7 pawn.

30. gxh4 is the move that loses. Opening up the kingside to Black's rooks leads to tactical demolition.

3...Qd7 is bad because it interferes with your development. d8 is a better square if you don't want to play Qa5.

6...b5 is what I'd call a "cheap trick"; no one decent will fall for it, so it simply weakens your position. This move is probably responsible for the ugliness that follows, but you fought back well (and White missed an outright win: can't see how Black survives after 14. Ba3).

41...Rg8 probably isn't the losing move, but combined with e6-e5-e4, it shows that your plan isn't correct. Your first priority should be grabbing one of White's pawns. Your second priority should be stopping them from advancing far. Advancing your own pawns can't work, and it isn't too hard to calculate: mentally advance the e-pawn, giving White a "pass move" every time it's his turn. White simply exchanges once you get to e3.

I spent a long time trying to play out all the possibilities here once I realized my queen was in serious danger of being captured or trapped. I surely considered Nb4 but I can't remember my thoughts on why I didn't play it. What happens if he follows with c3? Followed by b4?

13. c3 axb5 14. cxb4 Q*.

Moving the knight again, after c3, doesn't work.

13. c3 axb5 14. axb5

discovers a rook attack on my Queen as well as my rook behind it. If I move my queen he captures my rook and looks like he'll demolish my back row, or at least pin my bishop, right?

If I play 14........ Qxa1 15. Rfxa1 Ra8xa1+ then he's got 2 minor pieces he can defend with. And I get to back my knight on B4 out of harm.

This is why I didn't play Nb4, now that I am remembering. I guess that is better, though. Looks like I come out 13-10 in material gain, though he maintains his Queen. I think I failed to consider that I can back my knight out and probably added it as 13-14, a small material loss.

Oh well. Overall I was pretty happy with these games. Though I never really put much pressure onto either of these opponents, I felt like I held my own pretty well for my skill level. When I entered the tourney and saw some of their ratings I got really scared.

Yesterday was a bad chess day. I think I went 0 for 3 on the tactics trainer, and I got my first few tactics problems on chesstempo wrong. Later I decided to play a match and got stomped.

Here's a really bad loss. I'm growing tired of the Scandi. I just don't handle my queen very well, so this time I tried to back it all the way back and then it's just like you're steps behind from there on.

13. Bxb4 is me being cute. I think I can sac then play Nxb4 followed by Nxd3 and have some fun with it. I fail to consider that he has time to move his queen off that d-file and get his rook over do the d-file in time to pin my knight. Sigh. In the end the material exchange ends up even, but I immediately have to move my Queen off the d-file, and his rooks are both ready to attack. So positionally, it ended up sucking bigtime. I also cannot castle either side.

18. Nc8 is me being worried about him playing Nd6 and forking my K/Q. I wasn't even paying attention to the mate in 1. He also can simply play Qxb7 and I'm in a world of pain.

Oh well, there wasn't much hope for me here once I got cute.

Tonight I played this match, a pretty decisive win. This one is fairly interesting for me, as it played out atypically from my end. For starters, I'm black and we open 1. e4 e5. I sac a bishop pretty early and get into an interesting position. Not sure if it was smart or not but it was fun and my foe ended up not being able or knowing how to handle it, so that's cool.

3. Bb4+ is dumb as it hangs a pawn.

9. Bxf2+ is where I get cute. He must capture with his king, which means he's kind of exposed, and of course unable to castle at all now.

10. Nxe4+ Another sac! Kind of. I get his bishop and develop my queen to a useful square.

16. Bf5. I want to chase his knight off if I can. Attacking with my d-pawn may be better, I dunno. Anyway I want to get my knight to e5 so I want to first make him move his knight defender.

He plays 18. Nd5 which is dumb. He should have anticipated my next move of Nxf3+ which wins a minor piece and gets my queen closer to his king. I've got plans for Re8xe4+ which looks crushing. He anticipates this and moves his queen off the e-file for now. Just another time-waster without mounting any attack.

From here I didn't exactly know how to close, but he helps me along by allowing me to win a knight and pawn on the next several moves, and trades rooks. I'm definitely concerned about a back-rank mate threat.

For some unknown reason, he appears to want to trade queens. I first capture a pawn before trading off. I'm up 3 pawns and a bishop.

26. Kf8. This is to negate a cheap back-rank mate. Moving a pawn forward is probably better though as it would suit the endgame better. However I can also now move my rook over to threaten a trade.

Losing my bishop is massive lols. I had accidentally clicked pre-move. I didn't even realize. I went to go move my bishop but then my pawn moved forward haha. From here he makes me prove I won't stalemate him I guess. I had over 2 minutes left. He had like 12.

Anyway 1122 is a new high.

Game 1 (loss):

Your analysis of Bxb4 is pretty much spot-on.

The f6/e5 sequence, your 6th and 7th moves, wastes time that is better spent on development. White's lead in activity gives him an almost immediate winning advantage with 9. d4, but he misses it. d4 (or d5 for Black) is a thematic move in king-pawn openings, and the side that can play it often should, even when it doesn't lead to a direct win.

Giving up the light-squared bishop with 10...Bxf3 also isn't recommended; you have light-square weaknesses, and your lone remaining bishop is "bad" (i.e., impeded by your own pawn structure).

Game 2 (win):

Yeah, I'm not too familiar with this opening, but I think Nc6, d5, and d6 are decent (thematic-looking) third moves.

You can play 9...Nxe4 immediately. Taking the queen is impossible because of mate-in-two (Bxf2+ followed by Bg4#), so you win a pawn and the bishop pair. As played, the sac seems too ambitious--you don't have the piece activity to justify it.

16. Ke1 removes a defender from White's a1 rook (hard to notice without actively cataloging changes in the board state), and allows the tricky tactic 16...Nxb4, which looks really gross for White. The queen has to move and protect against Nd3+, but then Black plays Qxc3 and threatens another fork and White can't stop it, so giving up the rook immediately with 17. cxb4 might be best. I like the idea behind 16...b5 though.

Not sure if 18. Nd5 is best (it could be), but White needs to play the intermediate move 19. Kf2 to hold on to the piece. After that he should have a clear advantage.

26...Kf8 is fine.

Cool point about 16. Ke1. No, I did not notice that.

I worded this so confusingly. In case anyone didn't understand me: Qc2/Qb3 are followed by the fork Nd3+ (the first fork), Qa4/Qb4 by Nd3+ and then Nf2+ (the second fork, aka "another fork"), and Qb1/Qd1 by Qxc3 with the idea of Nd3+ and then Nf2+ ("another fork" once again). There might be a mate in there too. Looks rough.

Sigh. God I hate endgame. This was 30/0 and I was down to like 3 minutes somewhere in the early 30s moves. Other guy of course uses like 3 minutes of clock for the entire game becaue he's badass. I don't understand why these people play 30/0 if they take 3 seconds to make a move? It's not like he was crushing.

Kind of a boring game. I make a decent move to go up material on move 21, but by move 36 I'm way down on time and have no ****ing idea how to utilize my pawn advantage. I ****ing hate endgame. Dude doesn't do anything interesting all game other than take 3 seconds to make his moves and ends up beating me. Whatever.

I'm sure my opening sucks dick. Don't think I've seen his opening ever so I had no idea what to do.

f6 is no good, but the rest of the opening appears fine. White's g3 is bad--he can make f6 look ridiculous with 2. e4.

9...f5 just impedes your bishop's mobility.

19...Nxd4 loses material. White missed the simple 22. Qc5, holding on to the extra piece.

27...g6 > 27...Be6, because you don't want to tie a piece down to the f5 pawn's defense when you can use another pawn.

Time was an issue, but by move 36, most of your next 7-8 moves can be near-instant king moves, a march all the way to d5. Everyone plays the endgame imprecisely at this level, so whoever has a better grasp of the principles will probably outperform their position's evaluation. You normally centralize your king, so that doesn't appear to be a leak, but you'd do better if you didn't advance pawns without a good reason (e.g., they are legitimate promotion threats: passed pawns; and majorities, like White's kingside majority from move 43 onward). Moves like 36...c4, 38...e3, 42...e3 (instead of 42...Kf5), and 50...h6 are what lost the game.

You are aware you dropped a knight for a pawn a few moves earlier, right? And he can play 22. Qc5 to make your life difficult.

Oh yes, I am most certainly aware.

I spend a LOT of time on moves 5-30 in general. Especially this game for some reason. Probably because his opening and my f6 is not familiar for me.

I literally had no idea what to do on move 19. Capturing c4 appeared bad for me and I spent probably 3 minutes alone on this move trying to figure out what to do.

So sometimes when I'm getting crunched for time and I'm just not sure what to do I'll play a move like this. I'm sure it's bad but hey, I'm bad. I do stupid **** sometimes. I don't know what to tell you.

And yes he can play Qc5 but the other good news about playing players -50 to +200 is that they are usually roughly as ****ty as me, and won't recognize those simple moves that will make my life difficult. In this game, after move 21 I ended up with a slight material edge.

Losing a knight like that on accident isn't something I do very often anymore at 30/0 so if it was an accident I would have mentioned it.

13. Qb4+ is dumb. Another move where I just didn't know what my next move should be. I had plans of using my knight and queen to attack c2 but couldn't get the queen to the c-file. This move just lets him move 2 pieces without me making any progress. Sigh.

You should really stop playing f3 and f6 in the opening!

+1
The only value I could see in playing it now is to gain understanding of the game through seeing how bad it is for you.

Here's a match with a few abnormal quirks in it. I end up winning but a better player or someone paying closer attention probably makes me pay for my blunder(s).

30/0 I end up with about 10 minutes left and he's got like 22 of course.

11. Nxe5. I wasn't sure about this. I feel like it's sub-optimal but not too terrible.

14. Rxd5 is a blunder. This was dumb. I meant to capture with the knight and after the trade end up with my rook there attacking his queen. Sometimes when I think of combination moves I am last left with the thought of the final move in my head and I end up playing that one instead of the "in-between" or first move. Jesus. That leak alone is probably worth 50 elo.

17. Nf6+. He played a time-waster move followed by a blunder with c3. I double-check him and of course fork his queen and king. I'm surprised he didn't note this possible discovered check when I played the rather unambiguous Qc4. So I end up getting super lucky that I sac'd the exchange and had my knight on d5.

19. exf5
20. fxg6

I sac my knight here. I can save it but I get cute and collect 2 pawns' compensation as well as ruin his kingside pawn structure, and free up the 4th rank to make Qh4 possible with the long-term plan of Qxh7#

This is probably a mistake but I do enjoy moves like these as they make the games a bit more interesting and it's fun to see if things end up working out.

23. Bxh6. Thoughts? I'm leaving my rook to die but this one gets some action going for me. I'm not sure I care if he buries his rook back on a1.

I get a little cute at the end checkmate. Those tactics trainers made me want to use my pawns! lol.

Guy had chat disabled but after the match he gave me my first trophy for "devastating move" for 17. Nf6+. Pretty neat of him. I tried to send him a reply but I can't since we're not friends.

11. Nxe5 is good; it weakens Black's pawn structure and interferes with the line of sight of his fianchettoed bishop.

23. Bxh6 must be the strongest move, because of 23...Rxa1 24. Be3+ Kg8 25. Bc5 and mate is inevitable. But unless you saw either this or a variant of it (like 24. Bxg7+ Kxg7 25. Qh7+ Kf6 26. Qf7+ Kg5 27. g3 followed by mate, or 27. g7 followed by winning the rook for a pawn at the very least and probably by mate not too long afterwards), you were essentially playing a fancy move and just hoping it'd work out, which is a reliable way to lose or draw games that are won.

Here's a win I squeeked out. Thought I was gonna let this one get away. 30/0 I have 3 minutes left he has 18.

I meant to play 1. e4 e5 but out of habit I played the Scandi. lol

Endgame is pretty bad here. Feels like I'm crushing but I don't make much of it. Thank God I had Ng5 available at the end.

Moves 20 through 28 all feel really good for me. I really wanted to get my bishop involved and keep it from being pinned to my rook (which also needs to get involved). I go from activating these pieces to threatening mate to gaining a minor piece in 8 moves. This is really where the game changed. 21. Nd8 I was lucky to find. A better player doesn't let me gain this much leverage though. Don't know why he doesn't play something like 25. Bd7. Or Bf1 or just move a pawn forward. Of course, he took about 8 seconds to play this. I make bad moves, too, but at least I take my time before making them!

lol at him playing 43...g4

That was me

I told you my endgame sucks. Should I have gone after his final pawn with my knight instead?

sorry I meant 44. b4 which essentially gives you the win - apologies

nice win in a bad spot though - on move 24 you look in pretty bad shape

He took literally like 3 seconds to play 27. Rxa7 which blunders via loss of his bishop.

I don't understand why someone sits down to play a 30 minute match then treats it like a 5/2 game. Why sit down for what ends up being 40 minutes just to rush into a terrible move like this? He's got time to back his bishop out but no he wants to eat a pawn.

My 32. Ne5 is dumb. I realize shortly after I play it that his simple f4 sucks for me. I should have played Nd6, which protects the same pawn and also threatens his rook.

7...Bd6 runs into an annoying response like 8. Nb5. e7 is a better square for the bishop.

9...h5 is positionally unsound for more than one reason: (1) it wastes a tempo when you're already lagging in development; (2) it weakens your kingside pawn structure. Pawn structure is serious stuff. You can't unmove pawns, so ill-advised pawn pushes are often among the worst moves in any given position that don't outright hang material.

You played the endgame fine. But the rook maneuver in moves 38–40 could be a manifestation of a conceptual leak. You'd rather get behind the passed pawn, so the immediate 38...Ra1 is best and most simple.

25. Be2 is really really bad, you shouldn't feel good about moves 20-28 just because you avoided losing a completely winning position.

what in the actual **** is 1. ...f6? are you that afraid of Ne5 or something?

i know a lot of people are probably going to **** on me for saying this, but i think you need some sort of opening knowledge. studying openings (and by extension games from those openings) was probably worth about 400 points in going from 1100-1500 for me. just learning all the theory in the evans and max lange and petroff and nimzos and KIDs and grunfelds and najdorfs and dragons and winawers and caro-kannots, etc. exposed me to so many different tactics and themes and ideas that i was able to start recognizing them and applying them to my own games. i remember playing a 1200 and 1400 in one tournament when i was still 1050 and blew them off the board when they played accelerated dragons because their school's coach didn't expect them to ever actually transpose into a yugoslav and they tried doing slow **** with a6 and b5 and ended up with zero counterplay while i was just like "well herp derp i know what to do here! h4 h5 vaminos!" and won without breaking a sweat. when you study these openings and study high level games in these openings, you learn a lot of things about what squares are weak and interesting ways to maneuver and attack those weak squares. particularly, since i bet a decent number of your games start out with 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4, studying typical giuoco piano, pianissimo, evans, and max lange games would be very helpful. don't worry about memorizing theory, but definitely pick up on what moves are typical and what you should be striving for (but if your opponent hangs a piece, feel free to take it before continuing with your general plan).

hell if i could figure out my performance rating with dragons, certain sicilians, and evan's gambits, it'd probably be 300 points higher than everything else (cough c3 sicilians cough).

i'm not advocating buying 30 different books of different openings and memorizing variations (there'll be plenty of that in years to come!) but i think right now the very best thing you can do is buy this book and study it. it's a really good survey of pretty much every opening there is and only goes ~10 moves for most of them and is not particularly dense and theoretical. it's a fairly enjoyable read and it's how i learned my first openings and how to actually get my pieces working in relative harmony and actually get a footing on the beginning of the game, which i think is something that you're lacking. considering you're still ~1100 or so on chess.com, i'm sure not many of your opponents will know enough for actually memorizing the lines to be very helpful, but actually having a foundation of plans and methods of development is vital to playing good chess. if you don't have a concept of developing your pieces in ways to work together, it doesn't matter how many tactics you study because you'll be stuck in inferior positions, and as the fischer adage goes, "tactics flow from a superior position." there are also a couple of chapters devoted to opening "solutions." while the solutions aren't really solutions in as much as they are things you can basically always do no matter what, it'll give you ideas of good, solid development plans that will give you a good footing to then play chess with, and as you get better as a player, you can start to figure out which openings best suit your style of play.

but don't stop studying tactics, because everyone needs to get better at that.

No I agree with you there. Most of my games at this level are still opening straightforward e4 e5 or e4 d5 so there hasn't been a "need" for me to start digging into openings yet. But when something is played that I don't recognize it sucks because I just try to guess at what is right and not blunder. So yeah, I agree with you. I should start studying these because as I get higher up (I'm 1134) I will see a wider range of openings.