Keep a mental checklist
*“checks, captures, threats”
* Examine every move that smites (look at every check, capture, and threat),
and: Use inactive force.
Every time it is your move, you must ask “What are his threats? What
are my threats? How can I bring some more force into the game?”
*You should consider the following on every turn, starting with the most
forcing move possibilities:
- What options do I have to give check to the enemy king, and do they
accomplish anything?
- Am I in danger of being checked?
- Are there any pieces hanging or underdefended?
- Are there any tactics in the position? (fork, discover attack, pin, skewer,
deflection)
- What threats can I make? > How could my opponent answer them?
- Are there any of my pieces not really doing much > Where should I put
them?
- Can I occupy or control any outpost squares or open files?
- Can I restrict/blockade an enemy's knight or bishop with a pawn push?
Always enter the middlegame with a plan
*”force, time, space, pawn structures, king safety”
As the saying goes, a bad plan is better than no plan at all. Your goal after
leaving the opening should be to evaluate the position on the board, and
create a plan based on your pieces' strengths. Your plan should be centred
around identifying imbalances(weaknesses like hanging/underdefended
pieces) in the position, then placing your pieces on squares where they are
best equipped to exploit said imbalances.
Ultimately, your goal should be to strengthen your position until an
opportunity for a concrete attack presents itself.
Analyze all your games afterwards, especially your losses!
1. Read this section of the FAQ for instructions on how to analyze your
games well. Remember - it is better to play a few games each week
and learn from them, than to play a dozen and learn nothing. Going
over your games with a fine-toothed comb afterwards will help you
identify your mistakes, and with time, you will learn to avoid the more
common ones.
Try to understand why you made the mistake. Is this something
that comes up often in your games? Then extend this further: how can
you prevent this mistake in the future? How can you change your
thinking to evolve as a player and not make this mistake again? This
process will also develop your analytical skills as a player, and help you
to better evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your position in-
game.
2. Analyzing your games is easy, but time-consuming. You don't even
need an engine, and in fact, it's better if you don't use one
immediately. Replay the moves of the game and find all the places
where one side gained an advantage. An example of an advantage
would be winning material. Figure out why this occurred and what
you or your opponent should have done differently. Once you
have found all the instances of bad moves and why they occurred, go
through it again and look for potential strong moves that you
missed. What moves did you or your opponent miss that would have
given you or your opponent an advantage? Figure out why you
missed these moves so that you won't miss them next time.
Finally, once you have done these two things, you can run the game
through an engine and see if your initial analysis was correct, and also
find out what you missed entirely that the engine found.
The most important part is not to find the right move, but to
understand why it's the right move. That is the only way to learn
from your mistakes. This is just a guideline for analysis, but it works
(for most people) and I highly recommend it. Some even argue that
using an engine for analysis can be completely ineffective compared to
analysis without one when starting out. A chess engine cannot give
you any insight about positional plans, or the thinking process behind
why a certain move is correct.
3. Chess is a game of understanding, not answers. You’re not analyzing to
find the best move in any given position. What you’re actually doing is
analyzing your own thinking process. Going back through and
finding the critical points and asking yourself, “what led me to x
conclusion, what incorrect assumptions did I make, how can I adjust
my thinking in this type of position in the future so I don’t similarly
incorrectly evaluate this kind of position again”.
4. Understand why you lost and which of our opponent's moves
are connected with your opponent's winning plan or winning
sequence.
Then, try to identify the most important mistakes, why you
missed it, and focus in not repeating them.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nc3 g6 5.d3 Bg7 6.Be3 O-O 7.h4 Bg4
8.Bd5 Nbd7 9.Qd2 h5 10.O-O-O e6 11.Bb3 Bh8 12.Rde1 Bxf3 13.gxf3
Ne5 14.Rh3 b6 15.Bh6 Re8 16.Rg1 Qc8 17.Rhg3 c4 18.dxc4 Nxc4
19.Qd3 Na5 20.e5 Nc6 21.Rxg6+ 1-0
1)Why did I lose?
- My opponent made a sacrifice on g6 on the last move that would lead
to checkmate.
2)How did I lose.
- Here I have to find all the moves that prepared this sacrifice. These
are the rook moves on g-file (16.Rg1 and 17.Rhg3) the queen move
that put the queen on the same diagonal with g6(19.Qd3) and finally
the opening of the diagonal (20.e5)
3)What did I miss, what could I do better?
- Obviously I completely missed my opponent's plan. My opponent
doubled rooks played Qd3 and e5 and I still didn't realize that
sacrificing on g6 was his goal. Obviously I could play Kh7 and Rg8
enhancing the defense of g6 and preventing all this. Even at the very
last moment, a simple 19...Ne5 would have saved me from immediate
destruction. I only needed to understand his goals that were more than
obvious. There was nothing too sophisticated or too complicated.
Nothing I couldn't see.
4)What can I learn.
- In our example if I was the coach of this girl I would try to tell her that
when your opponent doubles rooks on a semi-open file that is directly
against your king you have to reinforce the attack point(in this case
g6) because sooner or later tactical dangers will occur. This simple
thinking process necessary to improve and it is an important lesson.
- With your thoughts on the game you can be more precise with your
thinking mistakes. You will know what distracted you or what made you
look in the wrong direction and you will, hopefully never repeat that
mistake.
How to analyse master games.
Analysing master games is very important as they will help you fix, enrich
and improve your thinking process. Most don't know how to do that and I
haven't found even one video that tries to demonstrate the correct way. This
is a guide for novices but I have seen even A-class players not knowing how
to analyse games.
I will try to do that with a specific example:
[Link]
When you want to analyse the game it is important to start from the
end. The first important thing to understand is why White resigned.
If you can't understand that there is absolutely no point to analyse the game.
The final position of the game usually contains important clues that can help
you as long as you know how to read them. In the above game the final
position has a Black pawn that has advanced till rank 2(one move before
promotion), queen and black rook doubled on d-file and a bishop on b3
supporting Rd1 which is Black's main threat. Exchanging queens doesn't
save White and if he doesn't exchange queens Black might follow with Qb2
and there is no way for White to avoid losing a lot of material. We can see
now that Black won because he created a passed pawn on q-side and
dominated the d-file. Also Bb3 seemed to be an important piece not allowing
White to challenge d-file with Rd1 and supporting Rd1 in the final position.
Before we move on there is an intermediate step that applies to
novices only. Play the final position against the engine and be sure
that you can win it. There is no point to try to understand complicated or
even simple strategic concepts if you are unable to exploit your material
superiority.
Now let's return to the analysis of the game. Once we have determined
the reasons of Black's win we are more or less ready to go to the
second part of the analysis. Usually, for a decisive result more than one
strategic advantages are necessary(the so called principle of 2 weaknesses).
The reason is simple. If the defensive side has only one weakness he/she
might be able to defend it but if he has to alternate his defense between 2
weaknesses his task becomes significantly harder, if not impossible. In our
example Black's 2 important strategic advantages are his passed pawn and
the domination of d-file. We want to carefully examine every move
related to these strategic advantages. Our primary goal is to
understand how Black exploited them.
The moves related to these advantages are: 15...c5 16...b5 19...Bb3
23...Rad8 24...Rd4 25...Rd7 26...c4 27...Rd3 29...Red8 30...R8d4 31...a5
32...b4 34...c3 36...Rd2 37...R4d3 38...Rd1 40...Qd4+ 41...c2
Now, these moves are of course pieces of a bigger picture and they have to
be examined as that but even isolated they can tell you an "interesting
story". Black first pushed back White's bishops but he didn't further advance
the pawns before he makes sure that his rooks are doubled on d-file. An
important lesson: Creating a passed pawn was not on its own enough to
create winning chances. The rooks had to be activated. Also important is that
d-file offered invasion points (d3 and d2). Without these, the domination of d-
file could be pointless.
What about the other moves? Well, don't assume that the other moves are
less important but it is usually more difficult to understand them. We need
more clues. Our goal is to go from the simple and easy to explain to the
complicated.
I mentioned the principle of 2 weaknesses. Which are White's 2 weaknesses
in this case? The first is the weakened b3 square that allows Black to
establish a bishop on it and dominate d-file. D-file is the only open file of the
board for quite long and the presence of the black bishop on b3 secures that
White will never be able to challenge it. The second is his pawn inferiority on
q-side. Black's 3-2 pawn majority on q-side can create a passed pawn much
easier that White's 4-3 on k-side or at least that is what the game proves(of
course you will need more games to decide if that is the whole truth, you
can't learn everything by analysing just one game).
A game analysis is more or less like a crime scene investigation (yes I am
watching too much CSI). There are hidden clues and finding them often will
require you to act like Poirot or Sherlock Holmes. For example:
Black plays 24...Rd4 and after 25.Ne2 he responds 25...Rd7. Why not play
24...Rd7 directly? Obviously because he doesn't want the white knight on c3.
But why he doesn't want the white knight on c3? Again obviously because
the knight either interferes with Black's "creating a a passed pawn" plan or it
interferes with Black's "dominating the d-file" plan. It can't be the first.
Maybe it is the first, the knight attacks b5 rendering a5 impossible for now
but the knight is also might jump to d5 cutting the connection of the 2 rooks
and reducing significantly Black's advantage. At this point we realise that the
advance of Black's pawns was not without cost. Black weakened d5 and it
can become a good outpost for white's knight. That explains the
unexplainable at first sight ...Qc8-Qe6 manoeuvre. Black wanted to keep d5
under control preventing the white knight from interfering in his plan. That
also explains the 30...R8d4 move. It renders Nd5 less effective.
After understanding why Black won and how he exploited his
advantages, comes the third part of the analysis. What White could
do better?
First we have to find out white's strategic advances, if any. One is the d5
square. If White ever managed to establish a knight on d5 it would create a
lot of problems. The second is his 2-1 majority on e- and f-file. Obviously an
f4-f5-f6 or an f4-e5-f5-e6 or f6 push could create a lot of problems. Black
could play f4 with tempo when Black's queen was on e5.
The goal of this post is not to spoon feed you so I won't explain each move.
It's a very instructive game and it would be very benefitial to try to analyse it
on your [Link] was the first master game I analysed on my own when I
was still a beginner and I did a pretty good job so if I can do it , you can do it
too. I think I gave you enough pointers. You can send me your analysis if you
want(or make a lichess study) and I will tell you what you did wrong.
Don't worry if you can't explain every single move or if you can't dicover
every single plan. That is not the point. The point is to start thinking and
start understanding how better players think. Analysis is a a skill that can be
trained. The more you analyse the better you will become in discovering the
clues. And you can always ask questions.
Finally note that this is the right method to analyse every game, even yours.
Remember the 3 phases:
1)Identify the reasons of the defeat(strategic advantages of the
winning side)
2)Find and understand the moves related to the winning plans
3)Suggest alternative defenses for the losing side.
Once you do these 3 you will be able to do a full, move by move, analysis
and explain even the moves that don't seem too relevant with the winning
side's plan.
"When you see a mistake and an obvious reason , try to find out what you
don't see. There is always/often something lurking in the dark that can
kill/hurt you in many ways."
I am trying to say that often a mistake is the result of several moves and
several reasons. But even if a whole game has gone wrong people tend to
focus in the last move tactic and the conclusion always is: “Study tactics”
So there we are. The simplistic interpretation of novices games has created a
widely spread myth that novices need tactics more than anything else. Do
they?
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Nc3 g6 5.d3 Bg7 6.Be3 O-O 7.h4 Bg4 8.Bd5
Nbd7 9.Qd2 h5 10.O-O-O e6 11.Bb3 Bh8 12.Rde1 Bxf3 13.gxf3 Ne5 14.Rh3
b6 15.Bh6 Re8 16.Rg1 Qc8 17.Rhg3 c4 18.dxc4 Nxc4 19.Qd3 Na5 20.e5 Nc6
21.Rxg6+ 1-0
A game between low rated girls that was "decided" by a
tactic(21.Rxg6+).But let's take a closer look to see what went wrong in that
game.
[pgn]
[Event "NRW-ch U14 Girls"]
[Site "Kranenburg"]
[Date "2009.??.??"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Cabalar, Rana"]
[Black "Kalmykova, Sofia"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1044"]
[BlackElo "1043"]
[ECO "B50"]
[PlyCount "41"]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bc4
{Theoretical monsters and opening freaks out there will tear their cloths
apart with this move but surprisingly it is a perfectly fine move. And why it
shouldn't be?}
3...Nf6 4.Nc3 g6 5.d3 Bg7 6.Be3 O-O 7.h4
{This is the first mistake. Clearly White has no objective reasons to believe
he can launch a succesful k-side attack. But they are 1000 rated kids and
their hero(or their father's hero) is most likely Kasparov so what will they do?
Grind down the opponent in a slightly favorable endgame that will last 7
hours or attack?}
7...Bg4
{Quite a reasonable reaction , it creates an annoying pin and stops h5 while
developing a piece.}
8.Bd5
{I assume white hopes that Black will take with the important for king's
defense Nf6. It's not a bad thought but what happens if Black simply ignores
the bishop?The bishop might not be very well placed on d5 and eventually
white will have to lose one more move.}
8...Nbd7
{One more time a good reaction.b7 is not really undefended as Black can
respond Rb8 and take b2.}
( 8...Nxd5 9.exd5 e6 )
9.Qd2
{Typical way to attack the fiancheto. White will try to exchange the other
important defensive piece(Bg7).}
( 9.Bxb7 Rb8 10.Bd5 Nxd5 11.Nxd5 e6 12.Nf4 Bxb2 )
9...h5
{Black tries to stop an imaginery attack and as always is the case , the
weaknesses the defender creates when he tries to stop an imaginery attack ,
makes the attack very real! We will discuss this important mistake
extensively.}
( 9...e6 10.Bb3 d5 {Breaking in the centre is most of times the perfect
rememdy for a flank attack. Even if that includes a pawn [Link] this case
Black will take his pawn back though.} 11.exd5 exd5 12.Nxd5 Bxf3 13.gxf3
Nxd5 14.Bxd5 Nb6 15.Bb3 Bxb2 16.Rb1 Qf6 {It is quite obvious that white's
attack is never gonna work and she is the one that has every reason to worry
for the safety of her king.} )
10.O-O-O e6
{Maybe not the best but a quite reasonable move. Black preapres d5 with a
tempo.}
11.Bb3 Bh8
{One more time Black tries to defend against imaginary threats.
The point of the move is to avoid the exchange of bishops but that's a
terrible waste of time. A better way was to play 11...Re8 and 12...Bh8 only
after 12.Bh6 and an evr better way to immeidatelly launch her q-side
counterplay.}
( 11...Qa5 12.Rdg1 Bxf3 {A rather forced exchange as Bishop will be in
danger to be trapped after the knight moves.} 13.gxf3 b5 )
12.Rde1
{Unpinning the knight and threatening to play something like Ng5 and f3 and
Black will have to accept unpleasant concessions to save his bishop(e5). }
12...Bxf3
{Very reasonable.}
13.gxf3 Ne5
{I can't say this move is bad , not even close. There are some things though
that worry me. Black still hasn't even started his q-side counterplay and he
offers white the chance to speed up his with f4-f5. Maybe the knight was
more useful on d7 , protecting Nf6 and maybe later protecting the weak
g6(after Re8-Nf8). }
14.Rh3 b6
{This move is a huge thinking blunder. I assume Black wanted to protect c5
so that she can play d5. So far so [Link] she will never play d5 and
without d5 this move is very slow(even with d5 it's slow). It was better to
organise her defense!}
( 14...Kh7 15.Rg1 a6 16.Bh6 Rg8 )
15.Bh6 Re8 16.Rg1 Qc8
{One more slow move at a point that it becomes obvious that the position is
going to [Link] changes mind an now she wants to prepare c4. There
were only 2 practical choices:
Play 16...d5 and hope that central counterplay will work or organise the
defense with 16...Kh7.}
( 16...d5 )
17.Rhg3
{Now just simple analysis tells us that since white doubled rooks on g-file his
target is simply g6 and he has 2 ways to do that: Either f4-f5 or Rxg6. So
what I needed to do if I was Black is to try to calculate these 2 options as
much as I [Link] becomes very obvious that Black has to do something with
[Link] Black has lost the golden chance to play Kh7 when she
should.}
17...c4
( 17...Kh7 18.f4 Neg4 19.Bg5 {is very unpleasant for Black.} )
18.dxc4 Nxc4 19.Qd3
{This is a very clever move for a novice kid. She idetified the target(g6) and
she knows what she needs to do(sacrifice a rook wwhen she can retake with
the queen. All she wants to make this work is play e5. }
19...Na5
{Black on the other hand continues to demostarte that she doesn't
understand at all what is going on. Not allowing e5 has become a matter of
life and death for her but she failed to decipher even the most simplistic
intentions of her opponent's moves.}
( 19...Ne5 {Loses a pawn but saves the position. White is better of course
but the game has a long way to go.} )
20.e5 $3 Nc6 21.Rxg6+ 1-0
[/pgn]
In the above game it is quite obvious that the final tactic was the result of a
lot of bad thinking , bad planning and bad calculation but if you show this
game to someone that pretends he knows he will most certainly tell you
"study tactics".
So what happened in this game? Which were the critical moments?
1. 9...h5.
Note that this move might prove useful in the long run but at this point was
unnecesarry and depending on what followed Black coud even avoid it and
win a valuable tempo in a sharp position. The problem with these moves that
are supposed to discourage the opponent from attacking is that they actually
do exactly the opposite! They convince him to continue attacking.
The subconscious thinking of the novice is that "since he/she defends I must
be doing something right". So here is an advice that has, not only playing,
but also psychological value:
"The more you ignore your opponent's attack the more he doubts about it
and the more the chances to change his mind are."
Even if he continues you will have the advantage that you committed as little
as possible in the side he attacks (of course careful because if you see real
threats, you have to deal with them) Learn to defend against real threats
because if you don't practice in identifying the real threats, you will never be
able to defend correctly. Defense is a difficult task on it's own anyway, don't
add imaginary threats too.
The other problem with that move becomes obvious during the game. Black
defends when she shouldn't defend and she didn't defend when she should
defend. As a general rule a novice considers it "passive" or even
"submissive" to make too many defensive moves. So when they must defend
they don't because they defended when they shouldn't.
2)19...Na5
This move clearly proves that Black couldn't even see white's very obvious
intentions. White put one rook, on g-file, then a second rook on g-file and
Black didn't see that g6 is a target. Some will say "yea because of tactics"
but I will disagree. The problem is deeper. When your opponent puts a rook
or doubles rooks on a file you have to examine all possibilities that are
created on this file either sacrificial or not(that's more or less one of the most
important rules of analysis for novices). This applies at any point of the game
and at any position. It's one of the most simple, one of the most basic things
one needs to do in every single game. You must do that a habit. Always
examine possible sacrifices on the file no matter how unreasonable they
might seem. Eventually you will automatically know what is dangerous and
what is not and you will be able to do the same with every piece. When a
bishop changes position examine the diagonals. If 2 or more pieces attack
the same square then you have a potential sacrifice. Examine it.
People think that with tactics can solve everything or can improve every
aspect of their game. If only was that easy. Analysis of your games and
careful examination of your mistakes will improve your tactical thinking
process and that alone can prevent 90% of the tactical dangers before they
even appear. The only real problem is, you have to play long time control
games and you have to spend some time analysing them. That is
unfortunately less fun than solving puzzles but in the long run, extremely
more beneficial.
I don't say tactics are not important, of course they are. I am only saying that
they are not important until one is in a position to guard himself from the
obvious "punches" the opponent will launch at him. Truth is, you can learn
that with tactics but it is a slow process that leaves gaps. And that is why
people wonder why high tactics training rating doesn't correlate with playing
strength.