4 Questions from a new player

Game example cont...


20.Qxe7? the white queen looks to take some pawns, but I would have definitely played 20.a3, stopping my rook getting into the attack by defending the pawn with Nb1, in turn defended by the Qe4
20…Qxb1+ a basic mating strategy - I’ll force the king down the board, perhaps eventually using 1 or more of my pawns to aid the queen & rook in the attack. I still have the other rook & the as-yet unmoved Nb8 as well
21.Kf2…Rxa2+
22.Kg3…Qb3+
23.Kh4…Rxg2
24.Qxd6…Rxh2+ this should be over very soon & I plan to bring my Rf8 into the final assault as well
25.Kg5…Qg3
26.Kf6…Re8
27.Qd7 white actually has a possible mate in 1 (QxRe8++) – would have been embarrassing!
27…Nxd7++
0-1







In Summary:

White played the early opening reasonably well. 5.Bd3 was a small mistake compounded by 7.Bb5+ & 10.c4? as outlined above. He should have tried to mobilize more pieces in the first 10 or 12 moves & retain some sort of solid pawn structure, even at the expense of being a little more modest.

Because he was over-extended with the knight & light-square bishop & made strange pawn-pushes, white began to lose positional control & created space on ranks c, d & e which I tried to exploit.

White also had to worry about trying to protect several pieces at once & seemed to be attempting forcing moves, even when piece development or repositioning was called for. He found few good squares for his pieces & seemed hemmed-in for most of the game. The Bb5 could have been a problem for me, especially if white hadn’t played c4, but Bb5 was allowed to be taken on move 14.

I tried to play a compact but flexible game based on a solid pawn structure, & the swift counter-attacking chances that come from a Dragon-style setup.

White overlooked a skewer on move 10 & made a misjudgement in the center, losing an exchange & putting the game beyond his reach unless I made a terrible blunder, by move 16 or so.

After that it was simply a case of forcing the enemy king back toward my other pieces & pawns for checkmate.

Squelchbelch vs Gortron (game 2)
Game 3198800 (unrated)

1.e4…e5
2.Nf3…Nc6
3.Bc4
In playing 1…e5 black allows me free reign to play one of several favourite openings. After 2.Nf3…Nc6 & Bc4 I’m thinking Evans gambit if black plays 3…Bc5 (Italian), or Fried Liver Attack if he goes 3…3Nf6 (2 knights) - the 2 most likely responses
3…Nf6
4.Ng5…d5
5.exd5 now if 5…Nxd5 I can play the very dangerous Fried Liver Attack; 6.Nxf7!?...Kxf7 7.Qf3+! & black has to be very careful indeed to avoid an early disaster
5…Bg4? This is not what I expected & is a very bold but misguided move, attacking my queen, ignoring the attack on his Nc6
6.f3 now black has 2 pieces under attack
6…Bh5? Black should have played 6…Na5 attacking my light-square bishop, but has blundered away his defensively strong Nc6, opened the diagonal for my Bc4 & will only have doubled c-pawns to show for it
7.dxc6…bxc6
8.Nc3…h6
9.N(g)e4 centralizing the knight …Nd7
10.d3 opening the diagonal …Bd6
11.Be3 the most active square for the bishop …0-0
12.Qd2 aiming for a possible bishop sacrifice at the h6 square with Be3 & un-pinning the f3 pawn from Bh5

I plan to castle away to queenside then push pawns kingside to aid in a big attack with several pieces

Game 2 cont...

12…Qb8 threatening b2, so 0-0-0 makes even more sense now
13.0-0-0…Qb7
14.g4 starting my plan to attack & cramp black’s KS …Bg6
15.h4…Bh7
16.h5 now the h6 pawn is locked & black is treading on thin ice
16…R(f)b8! Threatens Qxb2# if I am very careless indeed
17.Bb3…c5
18.R(d)f1…Rd8
19.Bd5 pinning queen & rook …c6
20.Nxd6 now I can take Bd6 & attack the queen looking to play Bxf7 next move …Qc7
21.Bxf7+

Black is in dire trouble

21…Kh8
22.Nf5…Bxf5
23.gxf5…R(a)b8
24.Bxh6! now for the kill …gxh6
25.Qxh6#
1-0






In Summary:

Again my opponent played the first few moves logically & the first mistake was 5…Bg4 allowing me to develop & attack early on.

After gaining a plan to castle QS & attack with pretty much everything on the KS, black was stifled largely because of early lack of development, with queen & both rooks never getting into the game. Also, black had to try to deal with the doubled c-pawns but never got to grips with this positional weakness.

Black never really got out of the starting blocks, although interestingly had a potential mate in 1 at move 16.

All in all, black was simply overpowered after losing time & going a knight down in the opening, then not reinforcing properly on the KS as the game progressed.

All of this might be a bit overwhelming for a beginner. What I did was searched google for different websites on tactics and openings, this gave me a good base of knowledge. I have only ever read 2 books on chess 1) Weapons of Chess by Bruce Pandolfini and Winning Chess Tactics by Yasser Serwain. I started out by playing one opening frequently until I understood the basics and then branced out from there.

You have to understand how to checkmate... it is vital.

You have to understand how to use pawns to protect pieces and how pawns can be very powerful in the right situation. You also need to know that every time you move a pawn you create a weakness.

here is a good site for tactics: http://www.chesstactics.org/

Originally posted by Gortron
Hello everyone.

I am new to Chess and this site. I've known the rules of chess for a long time and played on occasion but lately I'm wanting to play more and more and when I am not playing I am thinking about playing. I'm starting to study strategies and things like that. So I am pretty much getting serious abou Chess. Anyways...

Instead of making ...[text shortened]... ing in mind I am fairly new to this and my games could be full of mistakes.


Thanks.

Originally posted by ChessJester
All of this might be a bit overwhelming for a beginner...