Sinse joining the site I have met a challenging competitor called jofaz and have proceeded to play many a game with him. The problem is that I have lost every one. Everytime I play black and everytime I lose in the closing stages. Is there any advice people could give me regarding what I'm doing wrong or how I could improve my endgame?
Game 935273
Game 924989
Game 923484
Originally posted by SupernoodleYour opponent has won a pawn or a piece in every one of your games with a combination A combination is a certain set of captures in a certain order to exploid an overloaded or attacked piece. So you need to watch for those. Always think about the pieces that are or could be attacked and what is defending them. Then ask yourself, can he do something to take that defence away. In the first game, you attacked his bishop with your pawn, but instead of moving away as you expected, he took your knight which made you take it back, removing the cover on your pawn. Always when deciding on a move, search for possible combinations, then play them out and see who gains material. Or if you have more time to put into it, you could play the move you're thinking of on the variation board, and then play every one of his possible responces (some won't take very long to figure out that they're not good).
Sinse joining the site I have met a challenging competitor called jofaz and have proceeded to play many a game with him. The problem is that I have lost every one. Everytime I play black and everytime I lose in the closing stages. Is there any advice people could give me regarding what I'm doing wrong or how I could improve my endgame?
Game 935273
Game 924989
Game 923484
Another thing you may want to work on is your pawn structure. In at least two of the games your pawn structure killed you in the endgame. Your pawn stucture is set in the opening and middle game, so in those stages, avoid things that will misplace your pawns, or you'll pay for it in the endgame.
Things to remember about pawn structure
1. Avoid doubled pawns. Pawns that are on the same column are difficult to defend and aren't very useful.
2. Avoid isolated pawns. Try to avoid having a pawn with no pawns in either it's adjacent columns. They are difficult to protect as well as they can't get support from other pawns
3. Avoid pawns pushed up too far. If you push a pawn up too far, especially early in the game, it can be difficult to defend and may be captured. This does not mean you shouldn't try for passed pawns, or push them when you have them, it just means that you should hold off on trying to get the queen until a few more pieces off the board.
Hope this helps a little. Good luck🙂
ark13's comments on pawn structure are good as general rules (there are of course exceptions) however I would expand the definition of combination.
A combination is a series of moves that wins either material or a positional advantage through tactics.
Tactics refers to forks, pins, skewers, double attacks, discovered attacks etc.
The first thing to work on is identifing each of the tactics in isolation. Find some tactical exercises (such as white to move and win a piece) and complete them. Once you feel you can easily find a simple pin and the way to exploit it move on to more complex puzzles, that is longer sets of moves to reach the answer and positions involving multiple tactics.
Some work on tactics improves play very quickly.