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its times like this where I wonder why I still play tournaments.
I think ive gotten to the point where It doesn't matter how much I study, work on endgames , study openings due tactics, I cant even manage to progress anymore.
ive tried to find my problems and I cant so what can I do at this point?
its times like this where I wonder why I still play tournaments.
I think ive gotten to the point where It doesn't matter how much I study, work on endgames , study openings due tactics, I cant even manage to progress anymore.
ive tried to find my problems and I cant so what can I do at this point?
Hello Henri, if you like we can chat. I used to be a 1300 player until my 30s, and then within a few years cleared 2000 (I'm back down to 1800s, but I'll always be way better than where I THOUGHT that I had plateaued back then. If you like, email me at arismarghetis at rogers dot com. I'm recovering from surgery, so it might take me a couple of days to reply. Regards from "late bloomer" lol
Hello Henri, if you like we can chat. I used to be a 1300 player until my 30s, and then within a few years cleared 2000 (I'm back down to 1800s, but I'll always be way better than where I THOUGHT that I had plateaued back then. If you like, email me at arismarghetis at rogers dot com. I'm recovering from surgery, so it might take me a couple of days to reply. Regards from "late bloomer" lol
its times like this where I wonder why I still play tournaments.
I think ive gotten to the point where It doesn't matter how much I study, work on endgames , study openings due tactics, I cant even manage to progress anymore.
ive tried to find my problems and I cant so what can I do at this point?
In this game, you simply did not concern yourself with keeping your king safe. As the mother of my most successful student says, "You have to protect your house." 7.Bxe6 is already slightly suspicious. You are opening the f file for your opponent which means that you will have to deal with the rook as well as the minor pieces and queen in any kingside attack. Your opponent actually played badly but was rewarded because you fell asleep for a move or two. You were up two clear pawns with your opponent having very insufficient compensation. 16.Bxc5 was probably a key inflection point. You removed an important defender of f4. You are up two pawns. You should not be opening lines for your opponent to use for attack. A move like 16.b4 should have been considered to encourage your opponent to take on e3 and thus add your rook and queen to the possible defense of your kingside. If he retreats to b6 at least you have eliminated the b2 point as a source of concern and you have closed the b file while continuing to allow the possibility of capturing on f4 if the black knight ventures there.
Meh, it looks to me like you're completely winning until 20.Rad1. So from this game you learn a new tactical idea (Rxg2 followed by Qxh3) as well as the dangers of pawn grabbing (the b7 pawn isn't necessary to go spend 3-4 moves). Successful game if you look at it through the prism of "I learned something" and stop thinking about "I should win all the time".
its times like this where I wonder why I still play tournaments.
I think ive gotten to the point where It doesn't matter how much I study, work on endgames , study openings due tactics, I cant even manage to progress anymore.
ive tried to find my problems and I cant so what can I do at this point?
I think there is one essential rule of thumb you should learn from this game. This is: never let your opponent attack your King with Queen plus two other pieces. This is simply too much for your King most of the time.
After 19...Re6, your opponent threathens to play 20...Rg6 with Queen, Rook and Knight all attacking your King. This is a very strong threat that should be addressed, because you just cannot allow this to happen. After 20.Nh4!, the Black Rook cannot go to g6 anymore and everything is fine. The main point here is to realize how strong is the threat 20...Rg6 and play accordingly.
Meh, it looks to me like you're completely winning until 20.Rad1.
I ran this game thru Stockfish-10 and it agrees. SF thought 7.Bxe6 was your best move by a good margin and that 16.Bxc5 was tied for best move. Just before 20.Rad1, SF had the position at 3.2 pawns in white's favour. After 20...Rg6, SF had it at 3.3 in black's favour.
All this reminded me of this YouTube video I stumbled across a few weeks ago. It's about calculation (as in when not to) but the example is about King safety. Carlsen's opponent (W) had done lots of calculation on a potential move by Carlsen (B) that could win material on the Queen-side. Carlsen did very little calculation on this potential move because he simply calculated that W had 4 (or 4.5) attackers on the King-side and he had 4 defenders ... which would drop to 3 if he went off on a Queen-side adventure ... so didn't bother calculating it deeply. King safety was more important.
(apologies: the forum converted my simple link into the big blob below. You'll have to click within it to see the video.)
I ran this game thru Stockfish-10 and it agrees. SF thought 7.Bxe6 was your best move by a good margin and that 16.Bxc5 was tied for best move. Just before 20.Rad1, SF had the position at 3.2 pawns in white's favour. After 20...Rg6, SF had it at 3.3 in black's favour.
All this reminded me of this YouTube video I stumbled across a few weeks ago. It's about calculation (as in when not to) but the example is about King safety. Carlsen's opponent (W) had done lots of calculation on a potential move by Carlsen (B) that could win material on the Queen-side. Carlsen did very little calculation on this potential move because he simply calculated that W had 4 (or 4.5) attackers on the King-side and he had 4 defenders ... which would drop to 3 if he went off on a Queen-side adventure ... so didn't bother calculating it deeply. King safety was more important.
(apologies: the forum converted my simple link into the big blob below. You'll have to click within it to see the video.)
Computer evaluations are fine if you are capable of playing like a computer. Bxe6 is a slight error whatever the computer says because it adds an attacker for black in the form of the rook on f8. I recently won a game when my opponent did this to me and the computer kept claiming the game was equal right up to the point that I won by playing a series of natural moves based on throwing everything at the white king. This process was greatly assisted by the presence of the open f file. In this game, the opponent played badly and moved the rook off the f-file but still eventually had the right idea. Bxc5 was a great move from a positional point of view as black's pawn structure was horrible and would have been hopeless if the game ever made it to a rook ending or a king and pawn ending. By allowing the opponent to outnumber the defenders it was pretty clear that it would soon become impossible to defend.
As a matter of fact, in my game the first attack did not actually result in checkmate as the white king was able to migrate to the queenside but the opponent also doubled the pawns on the queenside with Be3xBb6 and so the rooks were able to switch back to the other side and open the queenside as well, eventually leading to the win.
It is a mistake to rely on computer evaluations which require that the players who are 1500 or 1600 players to play at a 2800 level in order to support the result that the computer is claiming. Grandmasters annotate games and give us rules of thumb which may not be exactly precise but they are rules of thumb because they have some element of truth which are ignored only at our peril. The computer sees the thread of a tightrope as a big wide beam to be easily negotiated while the human is overwhelmed by the odds of making four or five correct moves in a row.
Last edited by Vlad Drkulec; Saturday, 9th March, 2019, 02:32 AM.
I believe Vlad is 100% correct. But as a practicing pluralist (unfashionable these days), I also believe that relying on computers might not be a mistake.
Ideally, you would have a coach to point out the rules of thumb, principles, motifs, etc as you analyze your games. But sometimes, when you've found a free hour in an otherwise busy life to analyze a game or two, it's just you and the cat sitting there staring at the board.
You're lost.
You can't (yet) recall by yourself all the rules of thumb, etc to do a decent job evaluating positions by yourself. You can't call your coach for an impromptu midnight training session. Maybe you can't afford a coach. And Fluffy's rating is much lower than yours so she's of little help. You desperately would like an opinion on at least the relative value of candidate moves. So, what to do? Well, the computer is there willing and able to offer you its opinion at any time of any day.
The computer's opinion is not the final verdict of an infallible power. It is just another opinion. But one that is at least worth considering because it might be right. Note that computers express their opinions in a way different than coaches. They'll give a precise numerical value for a position (good) but not the reasons why (not so good). It is possible to discover some of the reasons (especially if tactical) by taking the computer down some of the variations to see what it thinks of subsequent moves. But you'll still need to do some thinking on your own (but that's good!).
Oh, one important thing about using computers: some UIs, like Fritz, will default to showing just the engine's top 1 move or variation. It's easy to change that (click the magnifying glass icon with the "+") to show, say, the top 6 or 10 candidate moves. That way you can see if there were several moves/plans (including yours) that are more or less tied for first or if its top 1 move was clearly "the" better move, in its opinion of course.
Computers are great at pointing out blunders overlooked by you or your opponent. Like 20.Rad1 above, these will have large swings in the numerical value of the position. They can also sometimes help when you lost gradually. If one of your moves changes the value of a position by, say, 0.2 or more, that's a good place to look to see if you followed or violated a rule of thumb, principle, motif, etc. There might be nothing but ...there just might be something. It's worth a ponder. Between you and Fluffy, you might identify a reason or, at least, may want to go re-read a section of that Silman book on your shelf.
At least you won't be lost, not having any idea where to look.
I believe Vlad is 100% correct. But as a practicing pluralist (unfashionable these days), I also believe that relying on computers might not be a mistake.
Ideally, you would have a coach to point out the rules of thumb, principles, motifs, etc as you analyze your games. But sometimes, when you've found a free hour in an otherwise busy life to analyze a game or two, it's just you and the cat sitting there staring at the board.
You're lost.
You can't (yet) recall by yourself all the rules of thumb, etc to do a decent job evaluating positions by yourself. You can't call your coach for an impromptu midnight training session. Maybe you can't afford a coach. And Fluffy's rating is much lower than yours so she's of little help. You desperately would like an opinion on at least the relative value of candidate moves. So, what to do? Well, the computer is there willing and able to offer you its opinion at any time of any day.
The computer's opinion is not the final verdict of an infallible power. It is just another opinion. But one that is at least worth considering because it might be right. Note that computers express their opinions in a way different than coaches. They'll give a precise numerical value for a position (good) but not the reasons why (not so good). It is possible to discover some of the reasons (especially if tactical) by taking the computer down some of the variations to see what it thinks of subsequent moves. But you'll still need to do some thinking on your own (but that's good!).
Oh, one important thing about using computers: some UIs, like Fritz, will default to showing just the engine's top 1 move or variation. It's easy to change that (click the magnifying glass icon with the "+") to show, say, the top 6 or 10 candidate moves. That way you can see if there were several moves/plans (including yours) that are more or less tied for first or if its top 1 move was clearly "the" better move, in its opinion of course.
Computers are great at pointing out blunders overlooked by you or your opponent. Like 20.Rad1 above, these will have large swings in the numerical value of the position. They can also sometimes help when you lost gradually. If one of your moves changes the value of a position by, say, 0.2 or more, that's a good place to look to see if you followed or violated a rule of thumb, principle, motif, etc. There might be nothing but ...there just might be something. It's worth a ponder. Between you and Fluffy, you might identify a reason or, at least, may want to go re-read a section of that Silman book on your shelf.
At least you won't be lost, not having any idea where to look.
Lol cats name is Lucy and I do use SF for looking at my games and ill try to figure why was this move bad and why is the computer mov good, or ill use it for opening prep
and not sure how you know what I have on my shelf
I hope you keep playing, it was fun playing you in Hal's Guelph tournament. Losses seem to be an excellent learning tool. I would have not put much thought into 19. Kh2 vs Kh1, but looks like there are lots of tactical defensive resources if Rg6 since the Rook doesn't take with check. Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
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