Complacency.

This is the sort of thing I am hoping to weed out of my game if I am going to make a serious contender for the 2008 championships.
I think my new years resolution should be to triple check every move before I make it.
My worst blunders of the year:

Game 4348747 My latest loss, being a nice clean two pawns up and moving too fast - I saw the combination a few seconds after making the move but had to hope that it was missed, unfortunately I hoped in vain.

Game 4115262 Played a bit of a bad opening, but managed to get enough initiative to win a piece and get an ongoing attack. Unfortunately, I decided that I could afford to sacrifice most of my army cause he couldnt stop the mate....or could he?

Game 3967889 Completely missed that I was losing a piece in a position that I felt was going quite well for me.

Game 4066325 The most unspeakable blunder I have ever made - I looked at this game for a microsecond after winning the piece and didnt even remember that the square I had just come from was now under attack.

Game 4151508 My most rapid loss ever - 13. Rb1 would have seen off blacks attack, instead I castled streight into mate.

Thanks for sharing! Good Luck with your New Year's Chess Resolution! I am still pondering my resolution. "Quite smoking" has been really succesfull for a number of years. The fact that I never started smoking might have helped a bit.

Originally posted by Tyrannosauruschex
This is the sort of thing I am hoping to weed out of my game if I am going to make a serious contender for the 2008 championships.
I think my new years resolution should be to triple check every move before I make it.
My worst blunders of the year:

Game 4348747 My latest loss, being a nice clean two pawns up and moving too fast - I saw ...[text shortened]... pid loss ever - 13. Rb1 would have seen off blacks attack, instead I castled streight into mate.

Nice to be reassured that my own oversights aren't (necessarily) the result of complete idiocy -- a salutary reminder for players of my (considerably lesser) status who are on occasion a little too hard on themselves. Not that self-reproach isn't appropriate -- it can also be salutary -- but an unrealistic and excessive negativism is not conducive to developing chess skills either.

BTW, Re Game 4151508 after 13.Rb1 what would you have done if 13...Bxb2 ?

Originally posted by Mark Adkins

BTW, Re Game 4151508 after 13.Rb1 what would you have done if 13...Bxb2 ?

I was thinking Rxb2, Qxc3+ Rd2 and black is a piece down. He is forced to retreat the dark square bishop instead, and I will get to castling on the kingside.

Game 3962792 14...Qxh4, such a nice mate. too bad the recapturing pawn is left to h4, so that Bg5 can block the rook. 😞

Game 3532370 ...eeeh, a pawn fork. 😳

Game 3249025 this is one of the worst. dropping a queen for the QGD-type of Bc3+ I've seen so many times before, and avoided... :'(

Game 3249020 uh oh, I forgot I didn't have Ba6+ anymore, and ran out of checks. well, at least it was a complicated game...

Game 3172872 walked right into a K+Q knight fork. messed up the game before that already, but at least the other stuff I saw coming but underestimated. the fork I simply missed totally. 🙁

Originally posted by Tyrannosauruschex
I was thinking Rxb2, Qxc3+ Rd2 and black is a piece down. He is forced to retreat the dark square bishop instead, and I will get to castling on the kingside.

Does Black have any kind of attack after the sequence you gave, followed by ...Bd7, ...Rc8, and (possibly) ...e3 -- or some combination thereof?

Originally posted by Mark Adkins
Does Black have any kind of attack after the sequence you gave, followed by ...Bd7, ...Rc8, and (possibly) ...e3 -- or some combination thereof?

Quite possibly, but at least I can make a game of it and not get mated in under 15 moves.

Just lost this game. The worst is that I thought I was a piece up before e4. Game 4248810

Originally posted by wormwood


Game 3532370 ...eeeh, a pawn fork. 😳

Can't you get out of that (a pawn down, but at least not a piece) after e5?

I'll post mine shortly.

Originally posted by GalaxyShield
Can't you get out of that (a pawn down, but at least not a piece) after e5?

I'll post mine shortly.

Wouldn't Qxc5 get the knight?

Originally posted by Green Paladin
Wouldn't Qxc5 get the knight?

Doh. Yeah, it would. Oops. 😛

Here's an interesting game consistent with the "mea culpa" thread:

Game 4368250

After playing 25.Nxf5 I spend a great deal of time analyzing various lines, especially those involving 25...Bg6. After two days of this without making a move, I became impatient and instead of completing my analysis, I logged on because I wanted to play chess. 25...Nf6 was a line I had considered but only slightly because I considered it to be inferior after 26.Qh6 Nh5 27.g4 and didn't expect my opponent to play it.

At the point where I was set to make my 27th move my opponent used his Jedi-like "mind" powers (dark side, of course) to cloud my judgment: somehow I erroneously and instantly became convinced that 27.g4 was a weak move. Instead of stopping to think about this properly, I blitzed out 27.Qg5+? and gave away a won game.

Black's only sensible reply to 27.g4 would be 27...Bg6, but 28.gxh5 Bxf5 29.Qg5+ wins the Black bishop; it then allows Bxe4 and leaves Black in a very bad position.

Conclusions:

(1) Chess teaches patience.
(2) Don't play opponents with quasi-magical powers. If you do, and they use them, put a curse on them.