You may really enjoy the book "Amateur's Mind" by Silman. It's not too far above your current level, and it really focuses on mindsets and thought processes.

Fish,

This is a much better game than the previous ones. You've moved up a class, where you aren't giving away free material and taking the free material offered.

Now, to move up another class you need to be able to beat a player who doesn't keep throwing free material at you, in other words you need to be able to beat your current self.

A couple moves jump out at me:


20.Rf1?!

Why not simply 20.0-0, (almost) connecting your rooks and getting your king to safety? Get your dark squared bishop off the back rank, connect your rooks, and start pushing those queenside pawns.

(Of course white has such a dominating position that practically anything wins but that doesn't make 20.Rf1 a good move)




25.hxg3?!

I guess this is fine, it doesn't lose material, but it sure looks odd. 25.fxg3 gives your rook an open file with tempo attacking the black queen, such a natural move to make. Instead you have to do extra work to make use of the open h-file and your f-pawn is potentially weak.

20.- I wanted to castle queenside after moving bishop, It thought queenside castle was better so I could advance kingside pawns? I suppose I should have focused on advancing my passed pawns?

I actually thought over 25 for a bit and I can't remember why but I preferred hxf3 and controlling the h file, also I know its wrong to think like this but I want to trick him into not protecting d pawn and maybe even taking f2 out of rushing/tilting,

Castling queenside isn't terrible, it's just not the obvious plan in my mind.

When I look at the position before 20.Rf1, I see that white is up an exchange and 4 pawns, a couple of which are passed.



So, the number one thing as white is to avoid an accident, it's the only way to lose that postion. I don't want to have an accident on f2 and I don't want to allow a knight fork for example.

The knight could be dangerous if it finds a home on f4 and I'd prefer not to play the weakening move g3 so I want my dark squared bishop to keep an eye on that square. This suggests d3 followed by Bd2 and 0-0. Then my king is safe, my rooks are connected and my bishop supports the queenside advance and f4, ready to trade for the knight if it tries to go to f4.

Then, I push my queenside pawns and there is no way to lose.

The exact order of moves depends on what black does but those are the moves that are crying out (to me) to be played. There are no doubt other plans that would work too, since white has such an overwhelming position.

Why did you want to advance your kingside pawns? What would you get from that?

The queenside is quite open. It looks more dangerous to me to castle over there than to castle on the kingside where you can keep your king safe.

Generally, passed pawns must be pushed. Not to the point of losing them, but they get very threatening and powerful as you continue to advance them.

mmm seems foolproof, thx

I'm so backwards I was going to defend my king with QS and push KS backed up by th rooks with flanks from queen and bishop...

I'm not playing too good again, some days I seem very aware others I don't

Anyway just curious- I won here on time but I'm wondering who is winning here, is white winning or is it a draw? Both have equal material value but black has 2 rooks.

Not trivial to evaluate. I'd guess it's drawn but Black still has some work to do. For instance, the first line that came to my mind - 1.-Rc5 2.Ra8+ Kd7 3.Rxe8 Kxe8 4.Kb4 is probably a draw but still loseable for Black.

I think I'm roughly around FishNoob's level and Silman's "Amateur Mind" is a bit challenging to get through. Maybe it's just getting used to the way chess texts are written...

Yeah like Kyle said above, "not too above your current level". It's not an easy book at all

Agree, Silman is awesome when you aren't dropping pieces and can get a reasonably good position out of the opening but then wonder what the hell to do on move 12.

Yeah, after reading "Rapid Chess Improvement" and a bunch of Heisman's stuff, looks like I have a LONG way to go before diving back into Silman...

bumping this thread since a) it's the best chess novice thread around and b) to link to http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8766. In the end of the article the current world champ Anand gives some insight on his thought process (not too different from what has been said here).

I second this. great book!