# chess training game **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [July 31, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684 "2010-07-31T15:01:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/81 "2010-08-07T17:39:09Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > Peek, are you referring to Bg5 instead of Be3? **Mal** can say his response, but I’d guess he might have still traded off the knight for your bishop on e4. There was the chance you might have missed that you needed to capture with the rook instead of the queen. The trade seems to favor Black, too : His knight is stuck defending that mate threat, and your bishop controls more space. Not to mention that he’s already up in material. > > Or just chase the bishop away with h6 if he wants to keep the knight. That might actually be a better move. What, 19. Bg5, h6? I think I still keep the edge if White plays 20. Bxh6, gxh6; 21. Qxf6, Bxh2+ but I was thinking in terms of 19. … Nxe4; 20. Rxe4 (forced, as you say, and I wasn’t assuming \*\*peeker \*\*would overlook it), Bd4; 21. Rxe8+, Rxe8; and I have an extra pawn, better development and the two Bishops. **peeker** , discussion’s helped if you use correct notation and move numbers - readily available under the “moves” tab and the default display on the analysis board. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/82 "2010-08-07T21:37:36Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > i think what this game taught me is that i get so worked up in if i do this then he does that kind of nonsense. whereas the really good players seem to be more concerned with position and a focused strategy. and please, i know i will butcher this, but something along the lines of i am going to control the xfile. and if i do that good things will happen as a matter of course. > > at the end i got too focused on catching up on material that i totally spaced the positional stuff, which ultimately is what cost me. i mean the material stuff would have bitten me in the ear at some point, but not to the extent that the lack of looking at squares and diagonals did. > > jeebus, i stink. Losing the pawn early on left you chasing the game materially. **Chessic** may be right that you could gain some counterplay, but I think it’s safe to say that if 4. 0-0, Nxe4; 5. d3 led anywhere worthwhile for White, there’d be some book on it somewhere. Then you let yourself fall behind in development. I don’t think it was a good idea for your Queen to hit the centre of the board so early. By the time move 11 rolls around she has done nothing and she is starting to look short of squares. At that, I had more trouble than I expected taking advantage of her position, and invested a lot of time and planning in the hope of inconveniencing her on the K-side before I noticed the annoying mating threat on h7. 1. a3 is just too passive, though. 12. Nc3 looks sounder to me, though it rules out Qe3 if I play c5 as you then have to beware of d4 forking Queen and Knight. But in a position like this you can’t really spare the time for the pawn manoeuvres while you still have unmoved pieces and all of mine are in play. That’s just asking to find yourself on the wrong end of some tactics. I could - and perhaps should - have opted for a nice peaceful trade of Queens on move 13. That lets me set quietly to work to exploit my extra pawn. But I was working on the principle that when you’re already ahead it’s best to look for ways to maximise your advantage. So since 13. … Bd6 gave me a free move to keep my pawns moving, I thought I might as well go for it. But there was still no breakthrough on the cards. Only on move 19 did it really go pear-shaped. I don’t think 19. Bg5 was all that bad - to add to my earlier note on the subject, I think 19. … h6; 20. Bxf6, gxf6; 21. Qxh6 is giving you a little something back even though I don’t have to fear an immediate attack - my powerful Bishops are keeping you from bringing in reinforcements and you can’t mate me with the Queen and Bishop alone. 19. Be3 was a mistake pure and simple, though, but not as big a mistake as 21. Kh1 and 22. g3. That was where the strain got too much, I guess - you were a mite hasty over those last few moves and I sensed your heart wasn’t in it. Don’t be too harsh on yourself, though. Three months ago I played a number of second-rate moves against you, by **Chessic** ’s analysis, and I beat the squit out of you. This time you lasted longer and played much better, and that counts for plenty. After all, you ain’t seen me try to play golf. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/83 "2010-08-08T14:54:38Z")
> [@peekercpa](#): > > ok, when you say a sensible time limit, what would that equate to? > \ > > also, just another silly question. do you approach a game with a different philosophy depending on their rating? > > what i mean is do you go “this sucker doesn’t have a chance” vs “oh noes, it’s annand” and play differently? 1. Think in terms of an hour or two for a game - minutes per move, at least, not seconds. IIRC the league time limit in my club days was 36 moves in 1 1/4 hours, then another half hour to finish the whole thing (using chess clocks - look up if necessary). Then you at least spend some time thinking through your IMPLODeS checklist. 2. Yes. Versus Anand it wouldn’t matter what I played, or what opening he chose. Versus **glee** I would pick the soundest line I could think of, and preferably one I know well, and I’d still expect to lose. Versus **Chessic Sense** , the same principle, but I’d give myself a good chance of a win or draw (we might well draw often in regular play). Against unknown opposition I generally choose something not too committal until I’ve formed an opinion of their ability. Against a known weak opponent I’d often play something speculative in the reasonable expectation that if it gets complicated, I’d do a better job of keeping my head. I have some commented games over on gameknot you can check out for an example of what I mean. And against my six-year-old, I remove my Queen before play and don’t pay very close attention to my moves, because I know he will drop pieces left, right and centre. (But give him a few years…). In our just-completed game I played fairly simple chess for two reasons: I stood to drop a bunch of grading points if I didn’t win a rated game against you, and yet I wanted the game to be an instructive one from all angles. There are some opening lines where strategy more or less flies out of the window and it’s just a question of who can keep his head best in a godawful scramble. For instance, if you’d played 3. Ng5, Bc5?! is well-known for being thornier than Sleeping Beauty’s castle. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![peekercpa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@peekercpa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peekercpa)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/84 "2010-08-08T15:11:36Z")
ok, i understand that the higher the rating is the better the player is. i see you are rated at about 1,800. is there a formula that calculates how much up or down you go depending on the result against another rated opponent? additionally, do you get this up or down movement depending on what he opponent was when you started the game or at its end? and you mention you wouldn’t have a chance against annand. why is that? also, what would be a wild assed guess as to what his rating would be in this format? or is this the universal format that is used everywhere by everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/85 "2010-08-08T16:21:56Z")
Yes to the first part of that - and it seems as though the opponent’s rating at game end is used. (I had another game against someone with a rating in the 1700s when I was still lower, and he politely asked towards the end of the game if I would mind beating a few other people before our game ended. I told him I was winning as fast as I could. He’s still my highest-rated victim as **Chessic** is higher rated but, for reasons of his own, made our game unrated when he challenged me. Anand has a FIDE rating of 2800, which is colossal, and I would no more expect to get a half-point off him than you would expect to halve eighteen holes with, say, Tiger Woods or anyone on that circuit. He’s simply too strong for me on all areas of the game. Even if I managed to get out of the opening without a hopelessly losing position - and you can take it as read that he has encyclopaedic knowledge of hundreds of lines which have been thoroughly analysed by computers and human grandmasters alike - and even if I made it through the middle-game without getting mated or suffering crushing material inferiority, I would assuredly fall victim to far superior endgame technique. He could play sixteen like me at once and it would be astonishing if he didn’t win all his games. I’m not sure how the [chess.com](http://chess.com) grading system equates to FIDE ratings. I probably am not far from a genuine 1800 FIDE rating as that would be broadly commensurate to the mid-120s ECF grading I had back in my playing days, and I was still improving season by season when I stopped playing. But that still leaves me a little shy of English county standard, tho’ I did once sucker-punch a genuine county player who is still about the place and graded in the 150s. As previously mentioned, though, I’m sure I’m stronger on [chess.com](http://chess.com) than I would be over the board. (But the opposition ought to be, too.) ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/86 "2010-08-09T20:43:21Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > > [@peekercpa](#): > > > > i think what this game taught me is that i get so worked up in if i do this then he does that kind of nonsense. whereas the really good players seem to be more concerned with position and a focused strategy. and please, i know i will butcher this, but something along the lines of i am going to control the xfile. and if i do that good things will happen as a matter of course. > > you can’t really spare the time for the pawn manoeuvres while you still have unmoved pieces and all of mine are in play. That’s just asking to find yourself on the wrong end of some tactics. Malcandra gave an excellent example of the appropriate type of thinking on the subject. It is, indeed, essentially “if I accomplish this tenet of proper play, good things will happen as a matter of course.” One of those tenets is “develop you pieces early” for which the penalty is getting skewered and forked left and right by your enemy’s unopposed pieces. As for recommended reading, I like “Chess explained, move by move” by GM John Nunn. It’s a little advanced, but like hanging out on the Dope, you learn from people that talk over your head. I also like anything my Jeremy Silman, from “Essential Endgames” to the seminal work “How to Reassess your Chess”. Re: IMPLODeS Acronym. There are times when I actually DO go through the whole process. It’s very though-clearing. I use it when my chess sense is fizzled and I can’t decide what to do next. I talk out each step very clearly and hopefully that yields me a plan. There have been times where it made a not-so-obvious move shine like the midday sun, such as sac’ing a bishop for a pawn and having a totally dominating position where the opponent just stews in his own mess as I slowly tighten my vice grip. I’d say I use the acronym in it’s entirety probably once a game, usually around move 15. As for the rating system, 300-400 points is usually a guaranteed victory. So take my rating of 1600. There’s a guy out there who can beat me every time we play. Then there’s a guy out there who can beat that guy every time they play. Well Anand beats _that_ guy every time they play. That’s how good he is. The upside is that if I were to play myself from when I first started studying, my present-day self would win every time in a merciless slaughter. So improvement isn’t impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684/87 "2010-08-09T20:44:37Z")
For more info about rating systems, look up “Elo rating” for the actual math behind it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-training-game/548684.md?page=4)