Don't worry about openings. That's not why you are losing as a beginner. Just get your pieces out safely. Focus on not losing material for nothing and learning basic tactics.

It seems like 1.Qe2 the move you'd like to play in almost all lines and is the most immediately threatening. 1...de and there are too many pins with Rd1 and Bg5; 1...Be7 and e5, e6 looks dangerous; 1...Qe7 and maybe 2.Bg5 d4 3.Qa6 is possible. Not sure. Otherwise e5 and f4 and Black has to play a few moves to get untangled but you'll have to watch his c and d pawns. 1...d4 2.e5 and White's pieces can use c4 and e4 effectively.

I know it's some sort of tradition that positions like these go in the Low Content Thread but does anyone agree that a nice idea would be to start an "Interesting/Instructive Position Thread?" It would be less confusing to new posters and by next year we might have a nice big instructional thread to learn from without having to sort wheats and chaffs.

yeah, I think the BBV and Low Content threads overlap a lot as is, but there should be a thread for interesting mid-high content stuff that you don't want to make a new thread about for whatever reason. Anyone is free to start one.

val,

I want to develop my bishop and pin up that knight but he just plays dxe4 and I'm not so happy with that position. Re1 is possible but he again plays dxe4 and I am unhappy. I probably play e5 and start shoving my kingside pawns down his throat.

You shouldn't be, Nxe4 is a good reply (Qxd1?? Nxf6++ and Rxd1+). Even if that wasn't possible, Qxd8+ and Nxe4 would be a safe advantage for White.

hi guys,

quick question: imagine bad chess player who wants to learn. Is it worth my time to pay for chess.com diamond subscription (Im interested in their video collection?), or is youtube enough?
Or is it a waste of $?

thanks

personally I think its a waste of money if youre a bad player, there are enough free resources on the net.

If you want to pay for video resources, look into chesslecture.com. I second the recommendation to exhause the free resources out there first, though.

Does anyone have strong opinions on the usefulness of videos in general? It just seems so passive to me.

pause button ftw? but i dont have a strong opinion either.

Even if they are completely passive, I do not feel that one (at least I) need be active in order to learn something. Besides, you can choose your level of passivity while watching a video.

Wow, pretty sick day for Americans at the WCC.

I had a tricky rook endgame with a hidden motif during my Vienna tournament. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) both my opponent and I thought the endgame was totally won (which it is) in a trivial way (which it is not) so we both played rather quickly.



At first I decided to push my pawn and place his rook passively.

44. a5 Kg7 45. a6 Rc8 46. a7 Ra8



So far so good. Here I can indeed win trivially by playing 47. Kg4 and threatening to invade on f5. He can only stop this plan with 47...Kg6, but after 48. Ra6 he is in zugzwang: either 48.. Kg7 49. Kf5 +- or 48..h5+ 49. Kh4 and he loses the pawn with +-.

However I remembered the rule "Do nut rush in endgames". So I first improved the position of my rook:

47. Ra6?!

However, both my opponent and I overlooked a key defensive idea: 47...f5. After this, the position would still be won, but suddenly it is very complicated. I would have to play 48. Kh4 and bring the king to the queenside. This takes some time but wins eventually. Luckily he played

47... Kh7?! 48. h4?



Easiest move ever, right? He is basically in zugzwang and has to play Kh7-g7-h7, so I have all the time in the world to improve my position and then play Kh5-g4-f5, can't I?

When I checked the game with an engine, I almost fell off my chair. He can play 48... f5! now, and suddenly the game is only a draw, because I can't play the plan with Kh4 and bringing the king to the queenside as h4 is now blocked.

The most shocking thing is that even though I can take on h6 with check (!) and return with the rook this actually loses! 49. Rxh6+ Kg7 50. Ra6? (almost every other move still draws) f6! and suddenly I am mated. A very nice motif.

The game ended with 48.. Kg7? 49. Kg4 1-0

So I guess the rule should have to be "Do not rush in endgames unless it is necessary to."

This actually reminded me of a Tarrasch anecdote. He had published his famous rule "Always place your rook behind the passed pawn". So one day an amateur comes up to him and bitterly complains that he had followed Tarrasch's rule and lost because of it. Tarrasch looked pitifully at him and amended his rule: "Always place your rook behind the passed pawn unless it is bad..."

or "do nut rush unless in the right direction!"

Always play the right moves without playing the wrong ones.

Instructive positions thread!

noob game, several mistakes by both sides I think. I am white.

[Event "ChessCube Game"]
[Site "www.chesscube.com"]
[Date "2011.08.28"]
[Round "-"]
[White "aftersea113@chesscube.com"]
[Black "ballardi@chesscube.com"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1535"]
[BlackElo "1593"]
[ECO "C40"]
[Time "21:56:24"]
[TimeControl "900"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 3. Nc3 c6 4. d3 h6 5. Be2 Be7 6. O-O d6 7. d4 exd4 8. Nxd4 Qg6 9. Bh5 Qf6 10. Be3 Qe5 11. Qe2 Nf6 12. Bf3 O-O 13. Rad1 a6 14. a4 c5 15. Nf5 Bxf5 16. exf5 Qxf5 17. Bxb7 Ra7 18. Bd5 Nbd7 19. h3 Nb6 20. Bb3 Ne4 21. Qd3 c4 22. Qxe4 Qxe4 23. Nxe4 Rb7 24. Bxb6 Rxb6 25. Bxc4 Rxb2 26. c3 Rb6 27. Rb1 Rfb8 28. Rxb6 Rxb6 29. a5 Rc6 30. Bd5 Rc7 31. c4 Kf8 32. Rb1 Rc8 33. Rb6 f5 34. Nxd6 Bxd6 35. Rxd6 Re8 36. Kf1 h5 37. Re6 Rxe6 38. Bxe6 g6 39. c5 Ke7 40. Bc8 Kd8 41. Bxa6 Kc7 42. Ke2 Kc6 43. Kf3 Kxc5 44. Be2 Kc6 45. a6 Kb6 46. Ke3 Ka7 47. Kd4 Kb6 48. Ke5 h4 49. Kf6 f4 50. Kxg6 1-0

I'm going to analyze/comment on it, and if you see anything else, let me know! I've been doing a ton of tactics on CT lately, and I think it's helping.

Not really sure what the hell he's doing here, and if I had a way to put immediate pressure on his queen, I would. A better continuation might be 3. d4 exd4, 4. Bg5, possibly gaining initiative and regaining the pawn.

I think this is a mistake, as I realized later that d4 is better and would have allowed my development to happen faster, and it also hems in my light squared bishop.

Pressuring the black queen, just to see what he does, and gets my bishop more active. Possibly will have to retreat later, but not worried right now.

Prevents any ...b5 nonsense.

Will be followed up with 15. Rxd5 if he takes with the knight; also puts pressure on f7.

g4 looks like a nice spot for the black knight, so let's just stop that right now.

Rather than swap knights, I pin the knight with my queen, planning 22. Qxe4. Unfortunately, I didn't see that I just allowed my queen and bishop to be forked.

Forks my queen and bishop. Unfortunately for my opponent, this lets my bishop on e3 take the undefended knight on b6. I'm confident I can come out ahead if I play the next couple moves correctly.

My opponent realizes his mistake, and now I come out ahead. Time to simplify.

The rest of the game is pretty boring, but if my endgame skills were any better I probably could have forced him to resign faster. As it was, he ran out of time and I won.

replayer links while posting games plz

what replayer? I didn't think it would be all that difficult to just copy/paste into whatever you use. In fact, googling "chess pgn replayer," clicking on one of the first couple links, and copy pasting the text took me about 5 seconds.

amazing how you still didn't find the time to paste the link into your post. Do you really expect every one of us who might be interested in your game to load the game into a replayer?

yep. game score+replayer link is good, I'll give you feedback if you do the legwork for me

hey no need to be an ass. the time that it took you to type and post this undoubtedly took longer than it took me to load up a pgn replayer.

what replayers are best for game analysis? i'd be more than happy to do the 5 seconds of legwork for you if you'll give me feedback on my game.

edit:

http://pgnplayer.com/
http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor.html
http://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html

any of these work fine.

Board standard, unofficially, seems to be the one at chessvideos.tv

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-uploader.php

Thanks. That's all I was looking for.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=49493

Like you said in your notes, playing d3 and then d4 feels like a bit of a wasted tempo.

I'm not really sure 9. Bh5 got you anything. I think it could be argued (fairly convincingly, the more I look at it) that at the end of those two moves, your bishop is on a worse square and his queen is on a better one than where they started, which is never good. Off the top of my head, I sort of like Bf4 there.

And, like almost all amateur games, it was all moot because someone miscounted some tactics