I would recommend that you start by playing completely untimed games, against opponents as strong as you can manage, and once you’ve got that, then start imposing time constraints.
I empathize with SiXSwordS here because I haven’t yet found a resource to help me understand openings rather than memorize them. Things like how respond to a Fianchetto, etc. Too often you’ll find books that give line after line in tedious detail rather than explaining in a few pages the various strategies and counter-strategies and pitfalls.
“Pawn Structure Chess” - Andrew Soltis
“Chess Openings for White, Explained” - Roman Dzindzichashvili, et al.
“Chess Openings for Black, Explained” - Roman Dzindzichashvili, et al.
“Art of Attack in Chess” - Vladimir Vukovic
The latter isn’t so much about openings as it is about checkmating, but he certainly doesn’t just speak in lines. The book goes for pages and pages without any actual moves being made; he just discusses the themes and concepts of certain overall patterns that occur in many lines.
I think that’s where I’m at.
The idea of pursuing a rating (rated games are automatically timed, but one can set the clock) is what got me interested in playing timed games.
I wouldn’t say I’ve “GOT IT,” but I have spent time playing opponents as strong as I can manage and have been trying to improve by playing stronger opponents.
A little clarification overkill: I haven’t been playing without a clock, I just ignore it. Playing an unrated game, the clock just goes negative. Sometimes I’ve won (or lost) and the clock is into negative hours.
And thank you for the book suggestions Chessic Sense. Even without trying to play timed games, I’m always interested in improving overall and understanding what’s behind those moves that are too often just listed as “Queen’s Gambit” etc.
Thanks for the recommendations!
SiXSwordS,
I think we need more information to judge where you are and how to help you.
Please could you post one of your games?
And could you add what you have ‘memorised’ :smack: about the Queen’s Gambit?
(Also do you know the basic checkmates v lone King i.e. Q, R, B+B, B+N?)
For general information, the Queen’s Gambit is a widely-used, respectable opening. It starts:
- d4 d5
- c4
and then there are five book choices:
-
- … dxc4 (Queen’s Gambit Accepted)
-
- … e6 (Queen’s Gambit Declined)
-
- … c6 (Slav Defence)
-
- … e5 (Albion Counter-Gambit)
-
- … Nc6 (Tchgorin Defence)
I was about to PM glee on another matter, thought of mentioning that I used to play chess, back in the JFK-LBJ era, and decided to share-and-tell publicly instead. Since one of three games I (vaguely) remember involves Queen Gambit, I’ll post in this thread.
I was never very good, but was “First Board” on my high school team four years in a row. There are three games I vaguely remember. (1-1-1 for me, win/draw/loss, so I’m not bragging! 
)
[ul][li] At our high school we almost all played P-K4, but the First Board of neighboring high school played Queen’s Gambit when he was White. I read Opening Pitfalls and knew there was a simple early line, where White can win a pawn easily … but Black zaps back with a less obvious piece capture. Playing Black in the inter-school match, i got into the line, but White didn’t grab the Pawn. Afterwards I asked “Saw the trap on the pawn capture, hunh?” He responded “What pawn capture?” :smack:[/li]
[li] I once played a game against Julio Kaplan who was at the time the Junior World Chess Champion. In the late middle game I spotted a subtle trick and made what I thought an exceedingly clever play. He’d been spending about one second per move, but he stared at the board for almost a full five seconds after my clever move, gave me a quizzical look, then made the right play. I resigned a bit later.[/li]
But I was just one of twenty-odd players he was playing simultaneously. We went on to become friends. I tutored him in Freshman calculus. (I was not qualified to ask him to tutor me in chess.)
[li] About a decade later, when I’d long given up chess, I found myself on an airplane next to a guy playing himself with a miniature board. I challenged him to a game … and caught him in a Philidor’s Smother Mate. 
Yay!![/li][/ul]
I haven’t posted a game because I’ve been trying a different approach based on advice. I’ve started with the timer at ten minutes with (I believe)a 3 second delay, against an opponent I can handle. Then I’ve played against the next best on their list, generally ignoring the clock.
It’s been awhile since I’ve studied those. I am reviewing these: Ten Basic Mates.
[/quote]
I’ve tended toward the Declined (I often play as black) following with Nf6 or sometimes Nc6 (assuming white plays Nf3, which has been then tendency, although it looks like Nc3 is the classical line). Be7 and then, if I’ve already moved the Kside N I castle. Otherwise, I would generally play Nf6 and then castle.
One of the issues I’ve realized is that the same “character” will play their opening in an almost scripted manner, so a certain amount of memorization works. But when I play a different “character” with a different “script” I pay the price.
I’ll try to play a 5 minute game I can post where I run into mating problems…
Sorry I haven’t posted a game for all y’all to sink your teeth into yet…
I have realized that a major flaw in memorizing any opening is that traps become too, too easy to fall into. And then, once you’ve seen them it is to hard to do anything about it. Often, avoiding the trap is as bad as hitting it.
On opening I memorized for several moves was the Pirc defense.
I liked it because I could castle quickly. but there are lots of pitfalls as it is a “passive” defense.
Still trying to get a good game to let y’all shred.
It sounds like the chess program you’re using is an exceptionally poor choice for learning on, since things like that will train you into bad habits. You probably want to try a different program; there are probably thousands to choose from.
I’d like to respectfully disagree. Unfortunately I’m incapable of respect. 
But seriously, I think Chessmaster is very good. Some people do play the same variations time-after-time at lower levels.
Also, I may be misstating the situation somewhat. One character will play a script 8 times and then suddenly play a different move.
Also also: I am putting together an embarrassing moves list for everyone to rip on, so–if you want to rip on me–just wait twenty minutes or so.
Well, I can’t seem to put together the post of the game so I guess that’s a bad sign…
I am trying but this isn’t working for me:
try
It’s the moves, but you can’t play it out. My opponent is rated 790.
As you probably realize the game moves are contained in the URL, and I think it isn’t working because of some syntax or other error there, I don’t know where (I tried truncating it to the first several move and it works - link)
Sorry to hijack, but I just thought of a chess question: Is there a name for this opening: moving the Queen’s bishop’s pawn up 2? (BTW, please translate that into “chess” while you’re at it)
English Opening. ETA: Assuming you are talking from White’s perspective.
Link. I just swapped out e1Q for e1=Q.
On the game, if you are having trouble finishing against that sort of play, you probably need to work on mating patterns, which would involve the easy endgame mates (queen+king v king, rook+king v king), and easy middle game mate in (some very short number) problems.
Yes, I was asking from “smoke”'s perspective. BTW, the chess notations in the link broke my brain! (I’m not a chess expert)
They’re pretty straightforward. Note the numbers and letters in the margin of the board - they’re rank and file coordinates. So each move is recorded as “something” moving to a named square. For pawn moves, no “something” is given. (1. c4 means “on the first move, White moves the QB pawn two squares up” as that is the only way a “nameless” White unit can reach c4). For piece moves, an initial letter is given in capitals, but N for kNight to distinguish from K for King. (1. … Nf6 means “We resume coverage with a Black move, Knight to f6)”.
/end aside
I echo TATG’s comments - Black obviously had a quick win by the end of your game but didn’t know how to achieve it. Checking at once with the new Queen wasn’t the best, you should be cutting off the White King with Qf1 and then bringing a Rook into play to first drive the King off the g-file then mate on the h-file. Mate with a Queen and Rook is easy - go and practise it.
Also, quit playing to really short time limits as the amount of stuff you will overlook is disheartening. Only the other day I was playing Chess Titans in a quick game and I won the computer’s Queen only to lose it back again, and more, not because the computer was playing well but because I wasn’t paying attention.
Specifically on endgames, practice (as mentioned above) is good, in terms of good books the stock standard is probably “Pandolfini’s Endgame Course”. The way the book goes is to show lots of positions, and how to mate from said position. I mention this because of the below link, which is a contrast, having few positions which are all of a different sort.