Not getting any better...

I've been playing at about the same level for years now. Rated in the 1300's. I've played alot and read a few books on chess, but I don't seem to be improving.

I have read that learning endgame is important at first. This is a topic I haven't studied much. Can someone explain to me why this is important for an intermediate player? Is this the right next step for me? And can anyone suggest where to start?

Originally posted by Patanjali
I've been playing at about the same level for years now. Rated in the 1300's. I've played alot and read a few books on chess, but I don't seem to be improving.

I have read that learning endgame is important at first. This is a topic I haven't studied much. Can someone explain to me why this is important for an intermediate player? Is this the right next step for me? And can anyone suggest where to start?

its not a matter of gaining more knowledge, but thinking about our thought process,
why we choose the moves that we do. The more i play chess the more i am convinced
that its not about making good moves, just avoiding making bad ones. You should try
to discover why you lost the games you are playing already, was it a tactical oversight?
practice tactics, learn to calculate. was it a positional oversight? learn to look at the
game from a strategic perspective, what are the dynamics inherent in the position.

BTW you wanna join my clan? free chess lessons and a poster of Amii Stewart for all
new recruits, like thunder, lightning!

Clan 25203

So my best coarse of action is to review past games to see where I went wrong?

I have set my hope on the advice in this article http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman47.pdf

If you look at the games you lost, or games you drew when you could have won, try to work out which move was the one that gave the advantage to your opponent. If it was a disguised attack, try and work your way back through and see when the plan was formed. I can only offer personal examples, so this is a game currently in progress (so NO commenting on where it will end up!). It is an example of a trap that the opponent should have seen...



As white, I would now go into future games expressly thinking about discovered attacks on my queen, even if the move itself is disguised (Bb4 looks silly in the above example because the Bishop can be taken, so without in depth analysis it would be discarded as an option for black). As several people have said here, the main thing is to Check All Checks, no matter how absurd they look.

Hope this helps

To build on that, as a result of being the victim of this manoeuvre I will now almost always move my Queen or King off the same file as an enemy Rook, even if there are two or three pieces in the way. Similarly, if I see an enemy Queen or King on the same file as one of my Rooks, I look at possibilities to see if there is a way to clear the pieces in between (even at the cost of losing pieces) so that the Queen can be taken or a series of forced checks can lead to an advantage or checkmate.

Little things like that can help make the difference...

Originally posted by Patanjali
I've been playing at about the same level for years now. Rated in the 1300's. I've played alot and read a few books on chess, but I don't seem to be improving.

I have read that learning endgame is important at first. This is a topic I haven't studied much. Can someone explain to me why this is important for an intermediate player? Is this the right next step for me? And can anyone suggest where to start?

I'm sure greenpawn will be here shortly with a comprehensive advice.

in the meanwhile, I'll look at the rating 1300, completely ignore your games, and say without hesitation that the reason is lack of tactics training. plain and simple. I'm sure you have loads of other problems too, but at 1300 tactics is gonna mask them all completely.

tactics, tactics, tactics. at 1300, 1500, 1700, you should be living and breathing tactics. every day, every night.


oh, and don't read any more chess books. they're predominantly waste of valuable training time and energy. procrastination. it's so much easier to READ about fun stuff and fool yourself to think you're 'studying', than actually doing the tedious and often torturous WORK that actually improves you. 🙂

if you're not moving pieces, be it on real board or 2d, you're not training.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
[pgn]
[FEN "rn1q1rk1/p2bbppp/1p2pn2/8/3PP3/1QNB4/PP1BN1PP/R3K2R b KQ - 0 12"]

{hi, consider this position, here you played, ...Bc8?? undeveloping your bishop, why? what led you to consider this move? almost any other developing move would have been preferred, ...Nc6, or even ....Bc6. Was it a misplaced estimation of whites attack, what in fact i ...[text shortened]... y attractive possibilities to prevent this} 12... Bc8 13. e5 Ng4
14. Be4 Nc6 15. Bxc6 *[/pgn]

As black In that position I feel that I would like to strike out at whites center with either ...e5 or ...f5 I'm not really worried about an e5 from white because I want him to make his center unstable and it would also loosen the long light diagonal for my bishop.

Is ...e5 tactically possible? No, it just gives up a pawn for nothing.

Is ...f5 tactically possible? Not right now because the knight is blocking its path.

So I would like to move this knight. My candidates are now ...Ne8 and ...Nh5 and since my king would be vulnerable after ...f5 (e pawn will be pinned) ...Kh8 becomes a candidate as well. ...Nh5 the knight can get chased with g4 and while this would weaken white I'm not sure as to how I can take advantage right now and it would interupt my plans and leave white with initiative so I will scratch that. ...Kh8 well this gives me more options to place my knight on the next move (Ng8 can go to d7 later after the bishop leaves and this knight is on a square where it has some nice potential) and is neccessary before ...f5 in any case so I think I would probably play ...Kh8.

So I need to study tactics? But you say reading is not the best use of my time. How then, do I study tactics?

Originally posted by Patanjali
So I need to study tactics? But you say reading is not the best use of my time. How then, do I study tactics?

chesstempo.com

Originally posted by tomtom232
chesstempo.com

I can't give you enough thumbs up this evening tomtom, you're on the money in each thread 🙂

Originally posted by tomtom232
As black In that position I feel that I would like to strike out at whites center with either ...e5 or ...f5 I'm not really worried about an e5 from white because I want him to make his center unstable and it would also loosen the long light diagonal for my bishop.

Is ...e5 tactically possible? No, it just gives up a pawn for nothing.

Is ...f5 tactic potential) and is neccessary before ...f5 in any case so I think I would probably play ...Kh8.

I suck at chess, i really do, i dont know why i play it. There is never any
improvement, its simply not worth the effort of trying, today after coming out of the
middle game with three central pawns against zero of my opponents i got swindled by
a super opportunist patzer with no understanding except attack this and attack that,
head in hands i asked myself why, there was no answer.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I suck at chess, i really do, i dont know why i play it. There is never any
improvement, its simply north worth the effort of trying, today after coming out of the
middle game with three central pawns against zero of my opponents i got swindled by
a super opportunist patzer with no understanding except attack this and attack that,
head in hands i asked myself why, there was no answer.

Lol I think you need to slow down and quit blitz. If you can't, I will have to start a BA(Blitz Anonymous) group.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I suck at chess, i really do, i dont know why i play it. There is never any
improvement, its simply north worth the effort of trying, today after coming out of the
middle game with three central pawns against zero of my opponents i got swindled by
a super opportunist patzer with no understanding except attack this and attack that,
head in hands i asked myself why, there was no answer.

Was this in a blitz game or was it CC?

Heck, I've beaten a CC 2000+ in blitz. It is very difficult to play good blitz chess. Blitz is much more of a coin flip game than long time control games.