I believe that pretty much everyone had felt the terrible experience of droping pieces in otherwise beautifull game. Two days ago me and my friends decided to make a chess tournament belong us five. I am pretty convinced that I am much better than them in any aspect of chess; openings, strategy, tactics, endgame, everything. But my biggest problem is that my concetration often totally falls apart.
So when I played blitz game aganist them (10 minutes) in every single game I gained the clear advantage after first ten or fifteen moves but I blundered so bad that after practically winning position I gave three queens in three games for free. For example if my opponent pawn is on f3 I put my queen on e4, and proudly say "checkmate". It is so idiotic that is almost unbelievable.
Is there any way to systematically check every move, some routine for avoiding such stupid mistakes? What are your experiences? It happens so often to me that my rating is certainly 200 or 300 points below my actually playing strength. It kills every joy of playing, I constantly lose from weaker opponents, and it gets too frustrating
Please help !
I agree with you, but I am not talking about knowledge of the game, it is pure concentration problem. It has nothing to do with chess knowledge, I am talking about so obvious mistakes that would be noticed by 700 or less rated player. It like when you lose so much of the concentration for an instant to put your socks in refrigerator instead of closet, temporary complete absence of concentration and conscens. That is why I am asking for some system to avoid it. Thanks for that link :-)
Originally posted by ivan2908I do that nearly every game, but i'm a beginner.
I believe that pretty much everyone had felt the terrible experience of droping pieces in otherwise beautifull game. Two days ago me and my friends decided to make a chess tournament belong us five. I am pretty convinced that I am much better than them in any aspect of chess; openings, strategy, tactics, endgame, everything. But my biggest problem is that m ...[text shortened]... playing, I constantly lose from weaker opponents, and it gets too frustrating
Please help !
Originally posted by zebanosame thing here. especially in blitz. -in cc I do play 'real chess', but in blitz I suddenly degenerate to the 'hope chess' or even 'coin flip' level. it's strange how you often already know the solution, but it takes something like this article to point it out to you. my situation with blitz is exactly what dan was talking about there, I play well 90% of the moves, but then suddenly throw it all away by not even trying to work out how I could answer my opponent's answers. which leaves me to a fully deserved 1200 currently.
Thanks for the link. Interesting read. I must admit that is part of my problem right now.
my question to the intermediate and better blitz players is: do you actually consciously try to work out the 3rd ply, even if there's not time to do it exhaustively like in slow games? -I realize it'll become subconscious after a while, but did you do something structured like that at some point? or did you just 'try to focus better' or 'tough it out' for hundreds/thousands of games until you gradually stopped doing those mistakes? or did something else get you up the blundering beginner stage?
Maybe it would be good to develop a self-checking system, it should became a part of me as a player to ask myself automatically before every move: "Is that square defended?!"
We all know basic rules of chess, but often happens that while we calculate several moves ahead, search for tactics, trying to develop subtle strategy in complicated positions we forget the most elementary and obvious things.
Originally posted by ivan2908As you pointed out this is not necessarily a chess ability problem. It often is a result of tunnel vision where you are concentrating on one sector of the board to the exclusion of the rest of it. The easiest way to avoid the kinds of errors you are talking about is to do a board scan. After you opponent moves, and before you move, do a scan of the ranks, files and diagonals. This will help you see that the square you are about to plop you Q down on is covered by that B lurking several squares away. Practice with each move and it will become automatic.
Is there any way to systematically check every move, some routine for avoiding such stupid mistakes?
I don't have problem with vision, I spot things fast and accurately. the problem is my nonexistent thought process in blitz, which makes careless oversights possible. I almost never have time trouble either. I just miss the simplest things because I don't check the variations, at all. 90% of time my intuition is correct, by that 10% makes the outcome completely random.