my theory

At your level the best thing you can do is see the board. See the board and don't give your pieces away while taking the pieces your opponent gives you.

Try not timing out and your rating will go up too 😀, just saying.

Originally posted by Eladar
At your level the best thing you can do is see the board. See the board and don't give your pieces away while taking the pieces your opponent gives you.

Try not timing out and your rating will go up too 😀, just saying.

Yeah, and don't forget to use an analysis board to test out your moves before actually making your move on here. You can either set one up physically or click on the analyze board feature next to your RHP game in progress.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
At below 1000? It doesn't happen, and cannot happen. To attack, you need pieces. To defend, you need a position. To get a position, you must learn how to build one, and the best way to do that is experience. And how are you going to get that experience? Attack! Defending can and will come when you're ready for it.

Richard

Oh, I hadn't realized OP was under 1000. At that level, one's just gotta stop dropping pieces. Hell, you could say that about any level but under 1000, it's just a bad case of dropping pieces too often without a fight. Studying tactics is huge at this level. Nobody can say they are getting better at defence if they are dropping pieces before move 20 all the time.

If OP's tactical ability matches his intelligence, he ought to study ways to get better at defending(assuming he's actually an 1100 like he says he is without timing out so much). If it doesn't, he has to stop dropping so many pieces. When he can say "Hey man, it's not that I'm dropping pieces, it's that I'm failing to take advantage of tactics to win.", that's when he can work on his defensive abilities.

Time management becomes a serious issue at that point, and making better defensive moves allows him the extra time to calculate the tactics better. In this case, a good defense is a good offense. That actually brings up an interesting point: Is time management more important for players defending or players attacking? Not every player is solely one of these, and they will encounter positions that might go against their nature.

Of course, I'm just speaking from the perspective of a live chess player. I have no idea how it works in correspondence chess.

It's much easier to refute unsound sacrifices in correspondence chess. So I imagine it's a fierce positional battle in that kind of chess.

I still think the art of defence in chess is huge, and far more important than learning how to attack. Everyone has sharp lines that they prepare against you, and you must defend against them over the board/online.

I've never seen a more stressful way of playing chess than going straight for the opponent's throat. I feel time management is a huge issue for very aggressive players, because they have to calculate the tactics extremely well in the first place. "I might be down material, but I know I can finish off my opponent".

I have never understood the mindset of working so hard for the win and taking huge risks. But, to each their own. Both offence and defence have earned their respective world championship titles.

Originally posted by moggybogg
As a low rated struggling to improve player can anyone see flaws in my simple game logic...

put a pawn or two in the middle
develop my pieces
castle
aim as many pieces as i can at their king
move in on their king

what do people think

bogg

Don't forget, no matter how good you get, when you play people at your level, you will lose or draw about half the time -- and your level will fluctuate if you have any kind of outside life at all. Chess always involves mistakes. There is something to be said for the notion that the game goes to the player who is first to notice his opponent's mistake and finds a way to exploit it. A mistake that gives you a 2-pawn or minor piece advantage calls out for a tactic of trading material while setting up positions that give opportunities for another mistake. In such a situation, always have pawn advancement in mind. When I can do this I tend to win, and it always depends on not being the first to make that noticed mistake.

Originally posted by JS357
Don't forget, no matter how good you get, when you play people at your level, you will lose or draw about half the time -- and your level will fluctuate if you have any kind of outside life at all. Chess always involves mistakes. There is something to be said for the notion that the game goes to the player who is first to notice his opponent's mistake and find ...[text shortened]... this I tend to win, and it always depends on not being the first to make that noticed mistake.

Indeed, the number of games i have observed where players simply avoid all kinds of
complications and wait for their opponent to make a mistake is phenomenal, whole
games of moving rooks to e1 and shifting it back to a1, bishops moving up and down
the same diagonal, knights hoping back and forth, trying to provoke some weakness,
only to return in vain. It appears to me that the whole struggle is a like two people on
a log in the water, trying to unbalance the other while maintaining ones own balance.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Indeed, the number of games i have observed where players simply avoid all kinds of
complications and wait for their opponent to make a mistake is phenomenal, whole
games of moving rooks to e1 and shifting it back to a1, bishops moving up and down
the same diagonal, knights hoping back and forth, trying to provoke some weakness,
only to retur ...[text shortened]... eople on
a log in the water, trying to unbalance the other while maintaining ones own balance.

You are talking about the lumberjack sport of logrolling. I love to watch all those events in the lumberjack contest. It is more exciting to me than the Decathlon in the Olympics.

Originally posted by hamworld
Oh, I hadn't realized OP was under 1000. At that level, one's just gotta stop dropping pieces. Hell, you could say that about any level but under 1000, it's just a bad case of dropping pieces too often without a fight. Studying tactics is huge at this level.

Hell, it's even huge at my level. And I hate studying tactics, which is (part of) why I'll never get much better than I am.

I still think the art of defence in chess is huge, and far more important than learning how to attack. Everyone has sharp lines that they prepare against you, and you must defend against them over the board/online.

Oh, you're not wrong - but that's where your studies should lead you, not where you should start.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Hell, it's even huge at my level. And I hate studying tactics, which is (part of) why I'll never get much better than I am.

[quote]I still think the art of defence in chess is huge, and far more important than learning how to attack. Everyone has sharp lines that they prepare against you, and you must defend against them over the board/online. [/quot ...[text shortened]... rong - but that's where your studies should lead you, not where you should start.

Richard

I read once that the endgame is the best place to start to learn to play good chess. I have no idea if that is true, however I believe one should learn the overall idea of the game first regardless of what aspect of the game is studied first.