Which part of your game gives you the most grief?
– Opening
– Middlegame
– Endgame
– Tactics
– Positional understanding
– Formulating plans
– Time control
– Stay focus during the entire game
– Finishing your opponents off
– Nerve
What have you done to improve on your weaknesses?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
I only play blitz games, usually a 15+3. My biggest problems revolve around time controls and the endgame. I often forget about the clocks and will let several minutes run off the clock without noticing that my time is running out until I lose on time! Of course the time trouble will often show it’s ugly head during the endgame. That being said my endgames can be rather horrible with our without time trouble.
Most of my middle game problems come from playing quiet unagressive players. I often have a hard time coming up with a concrete plan.
opening. caused by the lack of (actually, absence of any) opening repertoir.
I would say number 1 is staying focused during entire game and second tactics and last openings. The rest of my game is very solid.
my openings are perfect, my problem is the endgame and formulating plans.
Now, what can I do to imrove my shortcomings? Just lose enough games on time and eventually I will learn to pay attention to the clocks!
Even though I haven’t exhaustively studied opening theory I have enough knowledge at my level that for the most part I am happy with my positions entering the middlegame. Engames are hard to get practice at when most of the games I play are usually decided quite decivisely in the opening or middle game due to an outright blunder of a piece or overlooking a tactical shot.
HELP ME SUSAN!
I am coaching some kids Chess. I get them started reading Chernev’s “Logical Chess, move by move” but they (9 and 7) found it to be too hard. Is there another book I can use which is similiar but easier?
Thanks!
thenakedsingularity: GM Polgar put out a little guide to teaching chess to beginners that I found to be very good.
Check your email. I have emailed you my copy. I hope you find it useful.
All of the above a few more that I can’t quite remember. I tried to address the weaknesses with prayer and lucky charms without success. I still live in hope being the oldest person to become a Grandmaster.
I love the chess on the site but the politics leaves me cold I’m afraid.
overlooking counter attacking possibilties. to focused on mating and not protecting myself against counter threats. i also find it difficult when to try to break up the center and which pawns would be best to do this. which pawns can i move in front of my king without allowing the enemy to strike my king pawn wall. one more thing would be when to castle queen side. i always seem to struggle with which side to castle. i usually just resort to king side castling but id like to better understand when its a good time to queen side castle.
I play mostly blitz, so in order:
1. Bad blunder-checking
2. Poor openings
3. Planning when no clear weaknesses are apparent.
To be honest, the only one I am really working on is the last one, though in blitz at my level those kinds of positions are rather rare.
As for the openings, I mostly stick to the same basic openings and structures to avoid the worst mistakes. I am not willing to put in the work to get them up to par.
As for giving up material, well, I think I’d have to toally reprogram my thinking to fix that in blitz. In longer time controls, I hope I would manage to integrate a blunder-checking routine to prevent the worst mistakes.
My strengths, though nobody asked, I would say are creativity and being able to deal well psychologically with reversals in fortune, and enjoying playing all kinds of positions, from almost completely winning to almost completely lost.
I find most players get very stressed when they are winning or losing. I’ve saved many a half or full point against opponents who felt great pressure to convert their superiority, leading to mistakes.
I find it’s better to remember that chess is a hard game and if you have made a mistake, your opponent might too, just as it helps to accept that you might make a mistake as well.
If you accept the possibility you will make a mistake as a fact of life that is to be fought against but cannot be avoided entirely, I think you will make fewer mistakes in the long run, and recover from them better.
Most of the time its my openings.
Mid game I use to recover from a bad start and I really good at end game.
—
Abluestar.com
To improve my weaknesses:
Studying Spassky’s games and tactics!
Go over top 25 player games to learn latest openings and play methodology.
Convekta’s tactics/strategy programs.
Rybka’s latest program to practice against instead of Fritz and also use it as my engine in Chess Assistant Database.
I seem to have trouble planning longterm and calculating. In calculating, I’ll find something and after the dust settles I find I’m down a piece.
My grief: Openings
My love: Endgames
Formulating plans is my biggest weakness. After the opening moves, I’m never sure what to do.
I have trouble finding difficult tactical combinations a lot of times. I’ve been doing Convekta’s ‘Play as Tal’ and Kazimdzhanov’s ‘The Path to Tactical Strength. I seem to be horrible at playing as Tal. A book I’m planning to work more with is ‘Imagination in Chess’. That book is amazing.
I’m just starting out and have discovered that I’ve mastered ineptness in all aspects of the game.
In the opening, I try to follow maxims like “knights before bishops”, but haven’t a clue of how to recognize a good square for a bishop. At times I can castle to either side, but am unsure which is best.
Middle games lack any positional understanding or plans much beyond the next move. Currently trying to understand how play a difference in knights/bishops since it seems to occur frequently.
Endgames are usually a far superior advantage or disadvantage.
I am not fond of playing on the internet because most games are blitz. I need to learn how to think before learning how to think quickly. I try to do puzzles but probably not consistently enough to do much good. I prefer playing longer games with Chessmaster and analysis with Fritz. I feel that Chessmaster is a better program for a beginner like myself. I feel Fritz does analysis to similar depth faster. It also allows me to play a game and do analysis of a previous game at the same time.
focusing throughtout the game!!!
For me all categories need much
improvement, but I must say that
my weakness in openings has really
improved my tactical ability out
of necessity. I guess that’s why
common wisdom is to learn openings
later.
I also realize I need to work
on king protection/safety more
because when I play a computer, it
becomes much more apparent–So I
guess I should play the computer
more.
Another thing that using the
computer might help me with is that
I sometimes rely on psychological
stuff instead of playing the board
like I should be.
Anton