Game 3

This site is awesome. Particularly the annoted games help me a bit. I look at how my pieces and my opponent' s pieces develop far more critically. Instead of just developing pieces. I was able to defeat another 1800s rated player. (1839 rated).

I missed yet another tactical opportunity but it wasnt a game losing mistake.




I am currently analyzing the game by fritz,. I may or may not post the results.

Ok I analyzed it with Fritz,.. and Im beginning to notice a pattern. My errors skyrocket mostly from the late middle game to the end game. Any suggestions on improving that?

superb depth of analysis for a five minute game.Did you mange that level of thought process during the game?.Or did the moves come naturally and it i only aftertwards that you align them to th themes we are studying? I confess my qick games are closer to the second.

Yes, I was able to do it during the game, but as white just didnt exploit my blunders near the end. He really could have played a much stronger defense at the end. My errors just skyrocket... and it always happens after I achieve superior positions with my pieces and I develop a poor strategy to continue. In this game my a pawn strategy was horrible. This is why I like the annotated games.

As for your area of weakness. According to Karpov the late middle game is entirely about endgame technique. It is about the creation of endgame advantages. The endgame itself is simply a matter of turning them into points. So do more boring endgames I suppose.

Thanks for that info. Any websites designed to stregthen endgames? Doesnt seem until later on in my 1 year training will I have access to it.

If you want to train on endgames, i found a very convenient way to do it, just take a tactical puzzle whose solution is to win a piece or a positionnal advantage, not one that leads immediately to a mate.

Then you play the resulting position against a strong computer. Normally the tactical puzzle let you in a winnable position, so you should be able to win it even against the strongest GM or chess engine in the world !

You will notice however, that this is not an easy task if the advantage is minimal, and sometimes even when the advantage is comfortable, but you will sharpen you endgame technique quite well.

If you do not have such tactical puzzle at hand, just pick any suitable game on internet you know the result, and play it against the computer from move N, where N is the beginning of endgame.

FEN : 3b2k1/5ppp/p2p4/1p1Np3/4P3/2P5/PP3PPP/6K1 w - - 0 1


For example, take this position from a J.Hasbun video on ICC, and play white against a computer.
According to him, despite the appearance, black is dead lost here...

I also posted some times ago a large collection of my own endgames on the forum with some comments, you might be interested in. But of course these are of lower play level, anyway you can pick up a position, set up against the computer and train.
https://icsdiscussion.forumotion.net/general-chess-discussion-f4/selection-of-endgames-t150.htm

Awesome! Thanks I'll try it.

Temposchlucker has good ideas on endgame training, about how he wasted too much time on implausible endgames (basically compositions) rather than stuff on practical endgame planning (my old coach, an IM, would always start my endgame lesson with a position and then ask me, before he let me touch a piece, 'What is your plan?'):

Endgame training:
http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-search-for-ultimate-coat-hanger.html

Endgame maxims:
http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/2007/07/gathering-endgame-maxims.html

The conclusion of Temposchlucker's first post is that the following book is really helpful for practical advice:
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Chess-Endgame-Strategy-Hansen/dp/1904600441

I agrees with you on the first sentence, in fact when you are confortable with endgame technique then you can speed-up middlegame (i mean exchange pieces) so you end up with a favorable endgame for you.

Thus more than practicing difficult endgames, what's profitable is to recognize in advance which endgame is winnable and which is not, but i also think that comes with endgame practice, have to find the right dosage.

On the other hand you absolutely need to be able to manage a winnable endgame, else all the good strategy you show in middlegame is ruined at the end and your elo will have difficulties to rise up.
I can assure you, that i saved an incredible number of "lost" games, just because my opponent was poor in endgame.

I like the endgame maxims above

you can speed-up middlegame (i mean exchange pieces) so you end up with a favorable endgame for you.

This can be illustrated with the position i presented a few posts ahead, this is middlegame.
If black is to play then we can say that Be6! is good move, while Bxg4? is bad.

- Be6, Bxe6, fxe6 and knight is chased away from its outpost.
- Bxg4, Qxg4, Qg5, Qxg5, Bxg5, a4, etc... follows exchange of the rooks on the open file
And then we are in the dead lost endgame for black we studied in the other topic.

So the game is already decided a lot of moves before the endgame, this is why it is important to recognize winnable endgame patterns to avoid doing a move like Bxg4 which seems natural, but nevertheless extremely weak.

That is a great example of the comment I made earlier from Karpov. If you know the endgame techniques then these positions are relatively easy to solve. I stress relatively as I reckon I would have taken a long time to come up with the answer .