Pawn moves kill me a lot. I like to think it's because I've spent a lot of time studying tactics, which mostly focus on pieces, so that's what's left for me to make a mistake with.

a3 looks obvious now that you mention it. I'll try to see it next time. After the game, my opponent said "if you didn't have that weak c-pawn I don't think I would have won." That should have been more of my focus.

It felt like Nc4 dropped the c-pawn. I might be wrong on that.

27.Nd6 doesn't seem to work but Firebird says you are much better after 27.Bg4. Even afterwards you seem to have been fine until you blundered with 33.f4?, by logically continuing the knight tour with 33.Ng4 you'd still be equal. 27.Bc4 was fine also but you unnecessarily released tension with 28.Bxe6+ (just like in the opening with dxe5)

Yeah, 33. f4 was just a pure, stone-cold tactical mistake. Born out of two things: 1) Not enough tactics training (never enough!) and 2) Just not having any clue as to how to proceed in the position, which is the pure, sweet primordial ooze from which tactical blunders evolve. Especially in time trouble.

One thing i've noticed is that you seem to define things a bit early sometimes. There's a saying "tension benefits the side that can relieve it more easily". A good example is opposing rooks on an open file. If you control the square on the file and your backrank, but the opponent doesn't control his, you can exchange rooks and oppose with the other one, while he can't do the same. In this case usually don't exchange.
I refer to the Bxg6 move in your QGD game where you exchange your bishop for a knight that won't run away anyways. Let him think about these tensions and try to improve your position in other ways, before finding a more suitable moment for the exchange. Getting more comfortable with tensions on the board is also a major milestone for chess improvement.

Also, be glad that strong players point out your mistakes here, but don't feel the need to explain them. Mistakes are made in chess, we all know that .

Thanks as always! My mistakes are the only thing I have insight on. Without explaining them, I'd have nothing to post

Let's try this one without comments from me first and see what people think:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=39521


[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2011.01.13"]
[White "jechess"]
[Black "KyleMayhugh"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1677"]
[BlackElo "1609"]
[ECO "C65"]
[Opening "Ruy Lopez"]
[Variation "Berlin defense, Beverwijk variation"]
[TimeControl "2700+45"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Bc5 5. c3 O-O
6. d4 exd4 7. cxd4 Bb4 8. a3 Ba5 9. b4 Bb6 10. e5 Nd5
11. Bc4 Nde7 12. Re1 d5 13. Bb3 Bf5 14. h3 a5 15. b5 Na7
16. a4 c6 17. Nc3 cxb5 18. axb5 Rc8 19. Bb2 Qd7 20. Ba4 f6
21. exf6 Rxf6 22. Rc1 Rcf8 23. Ba3 Nac8 24. Ne5 Qe8 25. Bb3 Be6
26. f3 Bc7 27. Nxd5 Nxd5 28. Bxf8 Rxf8 29. Bxd5 Bxd5 30. Rxc7 Qxb5
31. Qc1 Nb6 32. Qc5 Qxc5 33. Rxc5 a4 34. Rb1 Rf6 35. Rcb5 Nc4
36. Rxd5 Nxe5 37. dxe5 Ra6 38. Rd8+ Kf7 39. Rd7+ Ke6 40. Rdxb7 a3
41. Ra1 Kxe5 42. Rxg7 Kd4 43. Rxh7 Kc3 44. Rb7 Ra4 45. g4 Rb4
46. Rxb4 Kxb4 47. Rxa3 Kxa3
1-0

Some really quick thoughts (so likely all wrong...):
-Something seems wrong in that opening for black. I wonder if white could have played 6. Bxc6 and 7. Nxe5 successfully.
-Why 13...Bf5 instead of 13...Bg4? I believe the latter wins the important d4-pawn, and if not, it should still be at least an annoying pin.
-I'm seeing 22. Rxe7 Qxe7 23. Nxd5, and the fork wins back the exchange, which should leave white up a pawn.
-22...Rcf8 seems wrong given the pin it allows and black's pieces seem all overloaded. Maybe 22...Rd8 instead? Still lets the knight out and adds protection on the d-file.
-I wanted to try 35...a3. It should be better than losing a piece at least.

In the opening, you should strongly consider 4..Nxe4. After all, this is the whole point of playing 3..Nf6. After e.g. 5. d4 Nd6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 7. dxe5 Nf5 8. Qxd8+ Kxd8 you have reached the starting point of the Berlin endgame which is a respectable line for Black.

I saw in the database that 6..exd4 is basically never played (and therefore most probably bad), I guess because you just give up the centre without a fight. Just 6..Bb6. The pawn exchange is also bad because it gives White the extra option of playing e5 sometime. Without the exchange, e4 is still hanging.

Instead of 10..Nd5, an option is to play 10..Ne4 with 11..d5.

I hate 11..Nde7. You have to keep your position in the centre. If he had played 12. d5 you are toast. Just play 11. Nce7.

Thanks guys! Those suggestions make a lot of sense.

He's my first game from the Golden State Open vs. Leo the wunderkind where I got into severe time trouble deciding whether to make move 26 or go into the endgame. Should I go home, kill myself, or come back tomorrow?

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=39628

[Event "Golden State Open"]
[Site ""]
[Date "2011.01.14"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Leo"]
[Black "Allen"]
[ECO "D35"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 c6 7.Bd3
O-O 8.Nge2 Nbd7 9.O-O Re8 10.f3 Nf8 11.Bh4 Qc7 12.Bf2 Nh5 13.Qc2
Bd6 14.h3 Ng3 15.Nxg3 Bxg3 16.Rfe1 Ng6 17.Rac1 Qd6 18.e4 Bxf2+
19.Kxf2 Nf4 20.exd5 Nxh3+ 21.Kf1 Bd7 22.dxc6 Qh2 23.Rxe8+ Rxe8
24.Be4 Qh1+ 25.Ke2 Qxg2+ 26.Kd3 Nf2+ 27.Kc4 Rc8 28.Kb3 Bxc6 29.Nd1
Qg5 30.Bxc6 Rxc6 31.Qe2 Re6 32.Rc8+ Re8 33.Rxe8# 1-0

You always show good fighting spirit.

Nice play -- I was initially skeptical that 20...Nxh3+ was correct, but if it's wrong, White has to be more creative than I am at the moment. Although after 21.Kf1 Bd7 22.Bxh7+ Kh8 23.Bf4 Qh2 24.Bxh3 Bxh3 25.Qf2, White does seem better, the endgame after 25...Bf5 26.Ne4 cxd5 27.Qg3 Qxg3 28.Nxg3 being likely to involve Nxe6 in a few moves. (To give one too-long variation.)

24...Qg1+ 25.Ke2 Nf4+ 26.Kd2 Qxd4+ brings the knight back in play *and* grabs another pawn.

26...Nf2+ looks bad because of 27.Ke3. The self-pin against the queen is a little awkward.

Of course, 31...Qd5+ is winning for Black at the end. I sympathize deeply with wasting good positions by running one's clock down and then blundering while blitzing.

Of course, OBC tactics are a lot easier than OTB tactics.

Well, I enjoyed playing over the game, if that helps (though I did cringe at move 31). Then tension kept me on the edge of my seat.

I came back and won the second game with a fun attack. Got into some time trouble here as well so luckily he crumbled.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=39656

[Event "Golden State Open"]
[Site ""]
[Date "2011.01.15"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Allen"]
[Black "Carl"]
[ECO "B23"]
[Result "1-0"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4 4.Bc4 e6 5.Nge2 Qc7 6.d3 a6 7.O-O
b5 8.Bb3 Nxb3 9.axb3 Nf6 10.Nxb5 Qb8 11.Nbc3 Bb7 12.Bg5 Be7 13.f4
h6 14.Bh4 g5 15.Bg3 Ng4 16.Qd2 Qa7 17.Kh1 O-O-O 18.f5 d5 19.Bc7
Rd7 20.Nb5 Qa8 21.fxe6 fxe6 22.Qc3 d4 23.Qa5 Rf8 24.Rxf8+ Bxf8
25.Qb6 Rf7 26.Qxe6+ Rd7 27.Qe8+ Rd8 28.Qxd8# 1-0

Bc7! was nice and not at all obvious

I've been looking at it for like five minutes and I still don't get it.

Edit: Like 10 seconds after I posted that I got it.

A cool feature about that move is that the rook on h8 needed to be unprotected for it to work very well. Otherwise I couldn't follow up with Nb5 and Qa5 since I needed to skewer it after a capture on b5 and trades on a8.

I really like the first game (if you hadn't blundered), for most of the game I was thinking you were White and was thinking "this 'kid' seems genuinely talented, must look up who he is"

1) I vote come back tomorrow.

2) Out of curiosity, what made you decide to proceed and not exchange into an endgame?

Well I would have been a pawn up but my opponent would be fairly active so I would be pretty far from a lock to get the full point. Even so, with limited time on my clock, it was likely a better choice than calculating the variations involved with the odd looking 26...Nf2, pinning my own Queen. I didn't even do so great a job of that anyway as eventually I found lots of resources in the 27.Kc4 line which he played, although I couldn't see all the way, but for some reason I thought I could play Ng4 against 27.Ke3 which now doesn't seem to work at all.

I'm reminded of a quote by Anatoly Karpov which I don't remember verbatim but goes something like, "I'd rather go into an endgame with minuscule winning chances than go in for a beautiful combination whose variations don't yield to precise calculation." Of course, Karpov could easily calculate the variations in this position.

On the other other hand, when you play scary, aggressive moves our opponents, unlike Karpov's, are very likely to blunder and in fact that was the case in this game. I just didn't have the time to finish him off. So, who knows.

This is very true, and not something I do enough.

Bc7 is just beautiful!

23...Bd8 looks like a decent try for Black, after Bxd8 Rhxd8, black threatens Qb8!

Very nice game Allen!

Wtg Allen, nice comeback.

The saying is, a pitcher's character isn't shown in the at bat right after he strikes someone out. His character is shown in the at bat right after he gives up a home run.

This is similar to a chess player in a tournament. We've all had situations where we made a horrible blunder that we would normally almost never make. Sometimes this turns a won game into a loss or into a draw. It can be soul crushing in the moment, but we fight on.

I'm not surprised you exhibited the mental toughness to come back and play a great game the following round with your poker ability/experience/successes.

I was impressed by Bc7 not just by the move itself, but the creativity involved. Very nice!