Making Good Moves Doesn't Matter...

...all that matters in chess is avoiding mistakes. Discuss.

Nope. The most important thing in Chess is to avoid big ups and downs in your rating graph.

User 325628

And a big Texas "Howdy" to you. Reverb. Aren't the Bluebonnents beautiful this year?



😉 😀 😛

They are quite nice. Maybe our out-of-state (or out-of-county) friends don't realize that the beautiful bluebonnet flowers along our highways are almost single-handedly attributable to the former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, who saw to it that the highway right-of-ways were seeded for years and years with wonderful wildflowers of all varieties. I wish some of the foreign players I've competed against here could come and visit us in Texas someday.

Trying to avoid mistakes I suspect would cause one to play bad moves in a useless kinda way.Perhaps h3 or a3 to often instead of activating your whole army maybe.

One might lack direction or purpose to ones moves if they were why not instead of why kinda moves.

You avoid mistakes by making good moves, surely?

I also think that one should try to avoid flexible moves since that kinda accidentally makes folks drift.
Flexibility and useless are almost the same thing.

Originally posted by National Master Dale
I also think that one should try to avoid flexible moves since that kinda accidentally makes folks drift.
Flexibility and useless are almost the same thing.

Why is flexibility useless?

Originally posted by orion25
Why is flexibility useless?

Indeed - having a plan is a good thing, but being able to change that plan if the opponent doesn't make the expected reply is also important - and something I find very hard to do OTB.

Originally posted by National Master Dale
I also think that one should try to avoid flexible moves since that kinda accidentally makes folks drift.
Flexibility and useless are almost the same thing.

Heh - way to up the "huh?" factor, every good thread needs that. Here is Barry Schwartz on TED talking about "choice"

I realize choice is not quite the same as flexibility. Or uselessness. But could be close 😉


Edit - by the way, the opinions of the shorts wearing speaker do not reflect the opinions of me. Just stirring the pot

Originally posted by Reverb
...all that matters in chess is avoiding mistakes. Discuss.

What better way to avoid a mistake than to make a good move?

Originally posted by SwissGambit
... than to make a good move?

And when you see a good move, look for a better one. 🙂

Originally posted by National Master Dale
I also think that one should try to avoid flexible moves since that kinda accidentally makes folks drift.
Flexibility and useless are almost the same thing.

Since your profile mentions your Master rating, I would really like to hear your thinking on this if you could expand your remarks, please.

Are you saying, "don't play moves that could fit into more than one plan" or something like, "play moves for a specific reason, not on general principles"?

I think of white opening 1Kt-f3 as a flexible move, but certainly far from useless, but you may not have meant opening moves. How about bringing a Rook to the d/e file without a specific target? That is flexible in that it might attack an uncastled King or guard a passed pawn or invade the 7th rank any of which seems useful to me.

Best, Steve

Originally posted by MontyMoose
And when you see a good move, look for a better one. 🙂

Exactly. Bad play results from laziness. I should know. Just look at some of the games I've lost lately. 😞

but making pointless moves is a mistake

I don`t mean flexible moves are bad.

I mean trying to play flexible moves has an accidental bad effect.

Its having flexibility as a goal that inadvertently has unfavourable consequences.