Yes great answer

3.-Qxd5 has a structural problem.





Notice how your pawn is more actively placed after exd5 and your bishop can develop more comfortably.

The queen isn't doing anything useful on d5 anyway and is a potential target.

That's the sort of thing that happens when people play too many games at once -- 37. The rest of his play was significantly stronger than 1400 chess.com correspondence, but there's literally nothing more important than not blundering.

A+

I came up with something in this game. After like 52 moves I found Kc8, ignoring my hanging knight. I quickly resigned before he could take it. LOL.

Here's kind of a cool match I just played.

I'm sure it's rife with mistakes but here are my thoughts:

8. Castle queenside. He's undeveloped on his Queenside and his LSB is locked out by his pawns. His LSB and Queen are also one move away (e7-e5) from bearing down on my g and h files. And his king is on the other side of the board so I figure I'll focus the attack over there.

10 ....Nd7 this blocks out his LSB from doubly attacking the g4 square so I push my pawn forward and put his H pawn to the test. He takes or he moves forward and I play Nxh4.

13. g5 I took a while here. My pawns and knight on the f and g files are awkward and weak. I debated between f5 and g5 here.

16. Rhg1. Can't remember why I played this but it looks bad now. I think I didn't want him to play Bg2 but I can just move my Rook over then if he does. Weird. I may have not wanted him to get to f4 or something.

17. Ng3. I spent a couple moves getting this Knight over here but I am putting his knight to the test and it seems he basically has to trade here, which does a lot for me. Strengthens my pawn structure and frees up the H file.

18. ....Bxd4 scared me a bit as I didn't see he could win a pawn there. And he's threatening my Rook, which I wasted time getting onto g1.

19. Nf3. I realize this looks awful as I'm basically sac-ing the exchange. But I think this does a few things for me. I'm threatening his hanging piece with my KNight, so he's got to do something with it so I'm basically welcoming the exchange loss. Moving this knight frees up the 2nd rank for my Queen to easily get to h2. His bishop could play something wild like Bxb2+, getting 2 pawns' compensation for the piece, and being able to follow it up with Qb6+ and basically making me have to deal with an attack on my now considerably weakened Kingside. His DSB is also his strongest piece right now and is defending h8, which I don't like. h7 is still weak but he may have time to play f6 then Rf7. So I think I'm happy here to sac the exchange.

21. Ne5. Seems like a good square for my knight, which also now threatens his Bishop. If he plays Bh5 I simply play g4 and win the piece.

22. Rh1. I don't care that he's threatening my bishop. I save time by moving my Rook in position for the final kill.

24. Qh2. Looks like he's dead now. He can stave off CM by playing Qd1+ or Qd2+ or something and just sac his Queen and follow it up with Rd8 or something but I'm obviously going to win from here no matter what line.

Nice.

When you castle on opposite wings, you can sac pawns to open up files. 10. f5 is already looking good. It's not even a pawn sac, actually. 10.-gxf5 11. Qg5, and you win one back. The h3-g4 plan looks good too though.

Both should be good. I like 13. f5 better though. 13.-gxf5 14. gxf5 should lead to a quick win, and it isn't as clear after 13.-Nxg4 but that can't be good for him. And if he does nothing, fxg6 is opening up lines. I'd look out for f4-f5 and exchange sac ideas on every move they're possible here on out. 13. g5 doesn't try to open up lines as fast.

Your kingside pawns are fine as long as they can advance freely -- they are sacrificial lambs at this point anyway.

Yeah, I like the sac. I'd play it quickly in blitz/rapid. His bishop is a lot more useful than your somewhat superfluous rook (you only need one rook to attack at this point -- either you're getting to h7 with a rook+queen battery or you're not).

Bxb2+ would "weaken" your queenside (it's still called the queenside even though your king is there -- the positions are relative to the initial king location), but look at his pieces. His queen is there, but it'll take him several moves to get anything else into mating position (three moves with the pawn, but you can defend that in one move). Don't just assume that an exposed king is a liability -- your opponent needs the piece activity (somewhat more piece activity than "practically nothing") to back it up.

He has 22.-Kg7 followed by Rh8 if needed, and I don't know how you win from there, so either the exchange sac was unsound or you missed a quicker win. Oh yeah, that took me way too long -- you need to play 22. Qh2 first, to meet 22.-Kg7 with 23. Qh6+ and then 24. Rh1.

Oh yeah I see that now. I should have played Qh2 first. I even spent some time trying to figure out which piece to move to the h-file. I think I left my Queen there since it's an extra defender of d3 but that seems overly defensive at this point.

I was really surprised he never addressed his somewhat immobile King, even when it was obvious what my plan was. He just kept moving his Bishop and stuff with these empty threats. This is a 1300-1499 tourney I'm in and I went 2-0 against this guy. He gave me a trophy. Yay. lol. Overall I'm 2/3 with 3 matches to play this round.

I'm up a minor piece after 13 moves in my 2p2 match play. I was playing poorly but he hung a piece and now I'm trying to force trades and hope to beat him in the endgame. We'll see. Would be cool if I could get a point on the board for 2p2 early, especially since I'm one of only 3 underdogs of the 10 matches.

Here's a game I just played in correspondence on the 2p2 team.

The opening is super wonky even for me. Somehow I think I wound up in a crushing position. Here were my Notes that I saved for possible lines starting from around move 20. If I didn't have a forced win I think I had an easy material gain for sure. I feel like 20...Bc6 is crushing, and of course I planned to follow it up with b5 to get his Queen off the 4th rank and then capture his e4 pawn, which threatens mate in 1 as well as Qxe2 (bishop). I felt like his 19. Nxc5 exchange was awful. It frees up that file for me and I can win at least a pawn on h3 if he doesn't waste tempo moving his Queen off this file.

If Queen captures pawn on c5 then If he takes Bishop with Rook.

21.b4b5
22.Qxc5Qxe4
23.f3Qxe2
24.Rf2Qe1+
25.Kh2Bxf3
26.gxf3Nxf3+
27.Kg2Qg1+
28.Kxf3Qg3+
29.Ke2Rhe8+
30.Be3fxe3
31.Qf5+Kb7
32.Rf3Rd2+
33.Kf1e2#

If he captures pawn then If he takes my Bishop with Pawn on f3.
21.b4b5
22.Qxc5Qxe4
23.f3Qxe2
24.Rf2Qe1+
25.Kh2Bxf3
26.gxf3Nxf3+
27.Rxf3Qe2+
28.Kg1Qxf3
29.Qf5+Kb7
30.Qxg5Rd1+
31.Kh2Qh1#

Another f3 line
21.b4b5
22.Qxc5Qxe4
23.f3Qxe2
24.Rf2Qe1+
25.Kh2Rd1
26.Qf5+Nxf5
27.Rf1Qxf1
28.g4Qg1#

If he retreats Q to b3
21.b4b5
22.Qb3Qxe4
23.f3Qxe2
24.Rf2Qe1+
25.Rf1Qg3
26.Rf2Rhe8
27.Bd2Rxd2
28.Rxd2Nxf3+
29.Kh1Qh2#

If he then backs his Queen up to the 2nd rank on move 26:

21.b4b5
22.Qb3Qxe4
23.f3Qxe2
24.Rf2Qe1+
25.Rf1Qg3
26.Qc2Nxf3+
27.Rxf3Bxf3
28.Bd2Rhe8
29.Re1Rxe1+
30.Bxe1Qxe1+
31.Kh2Qg3+
32.Kh1Rd1+
33.Qxd1Bxd1

If he backs up Queen to 2nd rank then tries for lame check attempt.
21.b4b5
22.Qb3Qxe4
23.f3Qxe2
24.Rf2Qe1+
25.Rf1Qg3
26.Qc2Nxf3+
27.Rxf3Bxf3
28.Qf5+Kb7
29.Qf6Rd1#

Chess is complex. Jesus.

That's probably your best game yet. 20.-b5 immediately wins too.

24. Rf2 Rd1+ 25. Kh2 Qe1 is faster.

25.-Bxf3 actually loses to 26. Bxf4, which threatens mate on c7 and your queen.

26. Bxf4 is a better try for him, but that loses quickly anyway. 26.-Qg1+ 27. Kg3 gxf4+ 28. Kxh4 Rxa1 is nice and simple.

24.-Rd1+ is a lot simpler, but this works too.

28. Bd2 allows a mate-in-one, and in the second line he should try to defend the mate on move 29.

In all of these lines, you can stop calculating after 23. f3 Qxe2 -- you're up a piece and have a strong attack, and you don't need to calculate the mate until it's on the board. The energy would be better spent on another game.

Usually it's better to look wide instead of deep; 15-20 ply lines are generally overkill* unless both sides have a bunch of only moves at some point. Here, you want to make sure to keep looking at all of both sides' forcing moves early in the variations, in order to spot sequences like 25.-Bxf3 26. Bxf4 above.


*I have calculated even further than that in correspondence, but the positions were even wilder than this. Here, you win a piece fairly early, which makes it pretty clear-cut.

Rei, thanks. Yeah I also saw the Rd1+ lines. I didn't paste them in my notes because, as you said, it was kind of overkill at that point. It was evident that I was going to be crushing regardless. But I definitely saw those possibilities.

The bishop takes pawn on f3 variations were pretty silly. I should have deleted them once I had the better lines but I try to "think wide" as you say and see what kind of nonsense I can cook up. But the main takeaway is that I didn't notice it being hurt by Bxf4, so I need to learn a little something there.

I did make sure to notice some desperate check moves he had with his queen or other pieces but none of them seemed to matter much as they just left his Queen hanging.

I always assumed people calculated this wide and deep in correspondence games but I suppose I can take it back a bit. I seem to spend more time in strong positions b/c I'm afraid of losing the advantage. Or the tempo advantage.

Lately I've been practicing pushing my pawns forward when we castle on opposite sides. It seems to be doing me well so far - though I got a bit silly in another game where I had pawns on like e4 f4 g4 and h4. Looked funny. But yeah the amount of space I control on this board is absurd. I basically control c4 to h8.

Did you consider 7...Bxb2, and if so, why did you choose against it?

I think I gave it a cursory glance. Typically the alarm goes off in my head once I see him develop that defending bishop. But yeah I failed to account for my Queen being on that diagonal as backup.

8. Bxb2...Qxb2
9. Qc3...Qb6

Looks like it wins a pawn. That's if he plays is ideally, I think.

One thing I'm working on with tactics is asking myself the very simple question "But can he?"

Because in spots like this I often stop at "but if I capture that pawn then he just gets my Bishop". I actively work on asking myself "But can he [recapture without consequence]?" If I had, I would have seen that he can't because then Qxb2 and he has to play it perfectly to not lose his Rook. I mean not that he can't recapture. He better. But you know what I mean. He can't recapture and be winning material.

Here's another 2p2 team win I just had. 2-0 now in team play. Both as black, both resignations.

Intro is obviously stupid, and after 8.e5 I was like "Welp, this sucks."

11. Nf5 just hangs a minor piece. I went through all possible variations of which piece to take first and I think this was correct to take the hanging piece first. No matter what he does it looks like I win a minor piece.

13. ....Bxb1. OK, so I know my f7 pawn is weak, but playing Nh6 seems kinda passive. I know "to take is a mistake" and I'm not sure I love taking here but I liked it enough to play it. I'm up material and it's an equal exchange. One thing I hate is it gets his Rook activated now as he doesn't have to waste tempo developing his Knight before he can move his Rook. The c3 square he can't get to with his Knight, either, so maybe I should have not played this. But I think the final determination was that I knew it forced him to castle Kingside and his kingside looks pretty weak.

I recognize my a7 pawn is weak but if he takes it I play b6 and appear to trap his Bishop.

15. ...Nh6. g4 looks nice, and this defends the pawn.

17. ...Nxc4. He just gives me another piece as he obviously has his eye on Bxg7. Don't care.

19. Bxh8 seems like the worst move for him. I thought he might play Bxh6 and simply lose an exchange and not a net minor piece. I capture his Bishop before winning my Knight exchange.

23. ...Ng4 I think is an innacuracy. After I played it I realized Bf2 forces a Rook exchange and wins quicker. (If he plays Rd1 I just play Re1 and force the Rook excahnge on e1). And if he captures my Bishop with the Rook then it's all over with his weak back rank.

24. ...Re2 wins his Rook in 1 move, and the game shortly thereafter.

I feel like he played very poorly for his rating. Esp. in a 3 day/move corr game.

13.-Nh6 looks good. Improving one of your worst-placed pieces can't be bad.

I'm pretty sure White won't be able to avoid trades for long, so I'm playing 13.-Nf6 (better than 13.-Nh6; I'd rather castle kingside). 13.-Bxb1 is an exception to "trade pieces when ahead". It's such an iffy trade -- surrenders the bishop pair, gives up an active piece for an undeveloped one that won't be active in the near future. In a blitz or rapid game, there's a time value to liquidating more quickly, but there's no need to rush here. You can take 60 moves to win, not a big deal.

White kingside isn't weak. An attack wouldn't have any bite in this queenless middlegame.

At least you didn't play 13.-Bxf4. That move is a dumpster fire. I mean, it works, but to play it, you have to calculate all of this (at the very least):

13.-Bxf4 14. Bxf4 Nxf4 15. 0-0 Bxb1

a) 16. Rxf4 Bg6 (only move) 17. Re1+ Kf8
a1) 18. Rf3 (with the idea of 19. Rfe3 and 20. Re8+) Nf6 -+.
a2) 18. Ref1 f6 (18.-Nf6 and 18.-Nh6 run into the annoying 19. g4 (idea of 20. g5), so I wouldn't waste energy calculating them) 19. g4 Ne7 -+.

b) 16. Raxb1 Ne6 17. Bxe6 fxe6 18. Rbe1 Ke7 19. Re2 Rd8, and we're in time to defend the e-pawn, -+ (17. Rbe1 Ke7 18. Rf2 Rd8 19. Rfe2 Rd6 is sort of the same).

That isn't even a lot, but up a full piece for nothing there's no need to tempt fate.

I didn't mean his Kingside was weak in absolute terms, but I thought it was weaker than his Queenside, based on his disconnected pawn on f4. Though now that you mention it, him castling Kingside might not be bad b/c it immediately gets his King behind a pawn, and gets his rook on a potentially open F-file. Whereas castling long leaves his King slightly more exposed on the C-file. Please elaborate if you will on this subject as it feels like an opportunity for me to learn something.

Yeah, I also considered that trading a bishop for his knight on move 13 is probably wrong as the center of the board is open, so my bishop should be more valuable than his Knight. I forgot to type that in my post but I definitely considered it at the time.

After I played it I told myself "2p2 is gonna hate this" lol. My spidey senses are strong enough where asking "will 2p2 hate this?" might not be a bad question to ask myself. lol.

Mostly I think I fruited out. I haven't been playing chess a long time and I'm not very well-versed on finding ways to force even exchanges. It's just not a mode I've had the opportunity to operate in much so far. I think I'll get better at being patient as I play more chess. But I got up early and I was kinda scared to play waiting moves and end up blundering when I saw a relatively even trade (for my skill level).

On move 23 what would you play? Bf2? I wish I had played it last night. Not because I was worried about not being able to win, but mostly because I think I wasted time by not playing it and I didn't want to wait another day or whatever for him to resign.

Here was a quick 10 minute game I just played and won. I had 3:43 left to his 5:50.

I feel like I'm getting faster, at least. Playing the computer and PlayMagnus app has helped a lot with learning.

I hate my position after 5.e5. Hate when that pawn gets this deep but I think I went after it well with my Knight.

He missed 11....Bb4+ which looks to win a pawn on c3 and swaps out Bishops but gets his Queen on my weak C-file and immediately theatening my other bishop. So I'm glad he missed that.

I thought his 22....Ne5 was pretty good. Had to retreat I think.

His 24th and 25th moves both sucked donkey.

I like my little 27. Bc4+ in-between move I found. It buries his King back in the corner thus leaving him with the threat of back rank mate, which ends up happening after a cool finish.

He could have played 27.-Nf7, after which he's still losing but somewhat more slowly*. 27. exd8 is simpler.


*28. Qd7 and now:

a) 28.-Bc6 29. Qd6 and the knight falls along with everything else.
b) 28.-Qc8 29. Qxc8 and then, regardless of how Black recaptures, 30. Rd8(+) feasts on the pins.
c) 28.-Bxg2 29. Qxe8+ Qxe8 30. Rd8 Bc6 31. Rhd1 (Black has literally no constructive moves, so 31. Rhd1 gains a tempo over immediately taking the queen) a5 32. Rxe8+ Bxe8 33. Rd8, with a nice double pin, winning the house.

That's kind of complicated for a 10-minute game (I'm mostly writing it out as an analysis exercise and because the lines are pretty), so the more patient 28. Rhg1 would be a much better idea, practically speaking. Black can't even play 28.-Rxd7 due to 29. Qd8+, and now 29.-Qxd8 30. Rxd8+ and mate, or 29.-Re8 30. Bxf7+ Kxf7 31. Rd7+, simplifying but keeping the attack going strong.

Pretty instructive video.

Had another correspondence win this morning, from a 1300-1499 12 man tourney I'm in. My rating is up at 1522 now, which is 51 points higher than the next highest. I was 1490 when I entered.

This game got incredibly complex for me. It was kind of a weird position where I was crushing so hard that at points I had so many moves I could have played (though none might immediately jump out at me). I racked my brain pretty hard on this one and I did end up making a couple moves that I didn't like.

This is the guy who plays 260 games at once and takes 24 hours to make 1 move, so I really wanted to smash him.

First 6 moves I just tried to open as simply as I could, since he was allowing it.

7. Ne5 is probably premature. I didn't think he'd exchange right away. Just really liked that square for my knight.

13. b4. He's just castled opposite me so again I'm going for a big push on this side.

14. Bg3. I have time to play f3 followed by Bf2 or Be1 if he pushes his h-file pawn to try to trap my Bishop.

18 a7. I took a long time before playing this. This is what had immediately come to mind but I kept looking for something better but ultimately decided to just push it one more time.

19. Ba6+ I don't love this move. I took a long time againt o figure out what to play but I think this is bad as it forces him to tuck his King (which I probably don't want).

20. Nd3. Again, took a looong time here. Decided this square isn't bad for my knight. It gets him into action and clears up my back rank for my Rook eventually. I like the c5 square.

20....fxe5. I had been eyeing this for a while and had dreams of playing exf6 forking his Queen and Bishop (though he can just recapture), but clearing up the diagonal to c7 for my bishop, but really him entrenching his pawn on e5 isn't great for him. It kind of clogs him and removes a square for his knight and bishop. So I'm not too upset here.

23 Ra6 is a miscalculation (I planned on attacking his knight with everything I've got and knew he can't get his final defender (the queen) to d7 to defend (because my knight takes queen), but I legit failed to even realize he can play Qe8. Like, seriously. C'mon man. This explains the next several moves.

25. Be2 is a shot in the dark. My play went awry and I notice I can skewer his Queen if he doesn't see it THIS move to defend. I thought for sure he would but nope. I had been eyeing these diagonals for a long time at this point so this wasn't just something I stumbled upon.

28. Bh5. No reason to just leave that piece hanging, since his Knight gets an exchange at best on th next move, so I simply retreat to h5 which prevents him from gaining space on the h-file and also keeps a nice check threat on this side of the board. I had also considered retreating to Bb5 or something.

I expected him to go ahead and exchange knights on the next move, and I found a possible mate so I set Conditional moves for the next 4 moves and went to bed last night. Woke up and saw I won and assumed he just resigned but it was a checkmate so I correctly anticipated each move he'd make starting with Nxc5. Pretty cool.

Rei, I will definitely give that video a watch later. Gotta go nap right now since my son is sleeping. Gotta time these things.

19. Ba6+ looks fine. I'd pile up on the knight immediately afterwards: 20. Bb5 followed by Ra6, Qa4, and then c4 intending either cxd5 or c5, or Nb3-c5.

I started following this game when you said you were doing well in the other thread. Investigative variations (which is basically exploratory calculation done to get a sense of whether a plan is plausible) suggested that Black doesn't really have any defense to this.

The thing with 20. Nd3 is you have to make sure that Black can't just play 20.-Nxa7, because that pawn is one of your biggest positional trumps atm and its existence makes Black's life a lot harder. Once again, investigative variations showed that he's losing anyway, but I wouldn't leave the pawn hanging on principle.

20.-fxe5 isn't bad for Black's position. He can play e5-e4 if he needs to open up the long diagonal or the e5 square anyway, he prevents you from opening the h2-b8 diagonal at will, and he clears the d6 square for a rook to defend the knight if you pile up on it.

25. f4 is a good move. It threatens fxe5 and ... I don't want to waste a long paragraph typing up the awesome things it does when they shouldn't be hard to figure out once I say that it's a good move.

25. Be2 prepares an eventual b5-b6 push, redeeming it somewhat. Purely as a cheap trick, I don't like it of course.

Are you playing 1500-1700 quads next? You might end up stabilizing in that region if you cut out all the hopeless piece-for-pawn and piece-for-two-pawn sacrifices.

Like this move



which is somewhat comparable to resigning.

Yeah I got stomped in that dumb knight sac game. At the time I thought hey I get a pawn, expose his king, and negate his ability to castle! lol. Guy ended up destroying me.

I wish I had seen the "pile up on the knight" plan when you said but honestly I didn't even notice it until a couple moves later.

Yeah, I definitely saw he could take the a7 pawn, which sucked. That's another reason I didn't like my bishop check after I played it (though I saw this hanging pawn before I played it).

Yeah I didn't mean his fxe5 was bad. And I definitely hated that it took away my control of the d6 square.

25. f4 was given considerable consideration. My game write-ups are long as they are so I leave some stuff out but yeah it's super obvious what this does for me.

I also recognized the b5-b6 push once I played Be2. One thing I was worried about after playing this was him playing h5. I may have had something with Qd1 afterwards but it would have been a big change to my plans for sure.

Uggg, here's a very disappointing game for me. Both of us made mistakes at several turns. I offered a draw and he accepted. It's a tourney game and a draw guaranteed I move on whereas a loss does not, so whatever. If it was a non-tourney I may play out. I also didn't want to be responsible for delaying the first round if it came to that.

It ends up as a Queen+Pawn endgame, which I don't have much experience with at all. This made my head hurt. In fact, we both had 2 queens and 2 pawns on board at one time. I won't talk much about early and midgame moves because the endgame was complex.

11.Qxb2. I swear I thought this won me at least a pawn and Knight. It's like I didn't even notice he can play Nd2. Groan. He develops and now my Queen is awkwardly placed.

15.Na5 ...Qxe3+ is an astounding pair of failboat moves. 24hour/move time controls. DERP LOOK AT DAT HANGING PAWN. What an idiot I am. I didn't even notice this until days later when reviewing the game from the beginning.

20.c5 Nothing else is clear here so I figure I might as well improve my pawns.

I thought my moves 22-25 were pretty good. Won 2 pawns and a minor piece and am now up 3 pawns and he's still got that weak back rank I'm desperately eyeballing.

Move 28 I wasn't sure about. Had 2 options. I thought keep the King centralized and in front of the e pawn.

29. Qb6 is a stupid waste of time. Like he's going to trade Queens.

Move 30 is where I feel I went terribly wrong. My other option was Qb1+ followed by gobbling up his 2 central pawns while he gobbles up a2 and c2 (with check). For some reason I didn't want to do this. I thought it was needlessly aggressive at the time and told myself just be patient and he'll either resign or you'll Queen another pawn. a7-a5 seemed non-terrible at the time but my Queen has to stick around to defend it anyway so it just wastes time and he gets to hide his Queen which really made things more difficult for me.

31. Qb4 is also bad. I think I should have played h5 or something. I considered it at the time. Would have come in handy to have a super strong pawn structure (from the back rank perspective) on that side of the board. This will come back to bite me.

37. Kxd3. Wow, just wow. Of all the variations that stem from this move, the 1 I failed to account for was e5+, which almost made me resign (mostly out of anger at myself).

I thought it was going to continue 38.Qxf6...Kxe4 39.Qxd6... then it's not so clear for him. I legitimately just didn't even notice the pawn move with check. I don't get it.

Before he played move 39 I think I determined that his best play is to not take either pawn but push his pawn on the e-file but I can't remember anymore. If he takes either pawn then I have tricks up my sleeve I think.

39.exf6 is bad for him. I anticipated him playing it and thought maybe I could fork his King and pawn, which I do.

If he takes exd6 I have Qb8 which pins his pawn, then I think Kd5 or something. Can't remember but it wasn't so clear for him.

His 41.Kg1 is correct. If he plays Qg3 I get his passed pawn, at the cost of a worse pawn. If he plays g3 I have a perpetual check which you can bet your ass I was taking. If he plays 41. Kh1 same thing. Kg1 I looked for a perpetual check but it's unclear and looks like a super boring way to continue.

41...a3 I realized I had time to push this pawn since he has to waste a move getting his Queen in a better position. Sweet.

43...a1=Q+ I debated taking his Queen on f8 first but that ends up leaving my d6 pawn weak. So I think this is the correct order to exchange Queens.

If he plays 45.Qf1+ forcing the Queen trades then I have a win after pushing my King and c-pawn forward. If he pushes his hpawn forward then I just push c-pawn and beat him. Unfortunately he doesn't play it.

It feels like I have the advantage at the end since my pawns are better than his but I have to waste a move getting out of check Kc6? and I just don't have a great idea as to how to proceed. He probably doesn't, either. Whatever. Don't deserve to win after leaving his Knight hanging anyway. And how badly I mangled the endgame. I really blow at endgame concepts. And missing that pawn move with check that he pulled on me was unacceptable. I can't even believe I fought back to a tie after that. I bet he's even more mad than I am.

Do tactics that are as simple as capturing a hanging piece come up in chess.com's free exercises? If not, that might be a problem. Exercises used to train pattern recognition should on average be pretty easy by the solver's standards.

chesstempo has an absolute crapton of these. If you want to improve quickly and don't mind shelling out a small sum of money, get a premium chesstempo membership and train by solving low-rated tactics until you can solve them very quickly. Emphasis on "very quickly".

E.g.,



I think it'd be a huge mistake for someone who can spot the solution to a problem of this difficulty in ~3 seconds to think they are ready to put the "easy problems" aside for good and permanently move on to harder ones.

0.5-1 seconds would be the desired target. The actual solve time would be somewhat higher, because it factors in mouse movement time.

Best move imo, you have to clear room to advance the a-pawn. 30.-a5 is fine too.

31.-Qb5 is the simplest way to go. Qb4 and Qb5 have the same idea but 31.-Qb4 doesn't work concretely after 32. Qc8.

After 32. Qc8, you should accept that you erred and play 32.-Qb6, after which Black can repeat the position once.

You shouldn't give up any pawns, even though you have a big surplus. White won't have any counterplay while you have them, and I think that sacrificing pawns in this position reeks of impatience. The comp might give away a pawn or two and mate on move 70 or whatever, but for a human it would be better to play like a nit and mate on move 80, maybe sacing pawns but only when you're about to queen.

In this position, you should avoid continuations that require more than a few moves of calculation, and anything resembling a grand plan.

Yeah, White wins after this, but luckily he messed up.

39. exf6 is good. After 39. e6 Qe1, he needs to play 40. Qf7 to help the pawn forward, but you have a perpetual check.

40. f7 is his mistake. He should play 40. Qd3+. 40.-Kc6 41. Qf3+ and 40.-Ka5 Qxd6, and now the pawn can't be stopped. Getting two queens first = immediate mate in this position, at least for White. 40.-Qc4 and 40.-c4 lose even more simply.

Sometimes, yeah. I find most of the tactics are quite convoluted and I question when a game (that I play) would ever end up looking like the problem presented, where far too often like 6 pieces are attacking eachother simultaneously. My openings are still very basic Ruy Lopez or Queen's pawn type openings. I kind of wish you could sort by problems that tend to arise in these games and not 20 pieces that appear randomly splattered across the board.

I'd say within 1.5 seconds I spotted the tactic you presented, Bishop pinning Rook. Rei, I had 24 hours to make this move and I even took my time. It's not an issue of speed. It's an issue of carelessness. Which is weird considering how much time I take before making my move. The tactic I used later in this game with my bishop winning 2 pawns and simplifying the game by removing a minor piece for each of us suggests a tactical skill level beyond "is this piece hanging?" I'm not a complete idiot - I just seem prone to the occassional giant blunder, as is my opponent apparently (hanging it in the first place).

I have gotten better at asking myself simple questions like "but can he?" when at first it appears "but he can just recapture". This has helped a lot. I think I need to go even more simple and on every move ask myself "is he hanging any piece?" Then of course "Do I have any checks or mates?" "Does he have any checks or mates?" etc.

I know you've been telling me this since the beginning. I just need to get in the habit of doing it more often. I'm skilled enough where if I simply captured his knight that early in the game it should be a fairly easy win for me. So the good news is, if I plug this leak I probably gain like 50 points in rating alone (again, a theme you've been pitching to me for months).

Do you think my draw offer was bad? I felt like I might have had a tiny edge but I played it out several ways and it seemed like we would just be queening within 1 move of eachother or crap. And honestly after he blundered the game by letting me fork his pawn I was happy to get a half point (and guarantee Round 2).