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I play a lot of chess at my job with coworkers on our breaks and before/after our shifts. I have noticed a huge weakness of mine is allowing a swift checkmate. Ive noticed with one person in particular I nearly always win if we get to a proper endgame but he continually checkmates me early on.
I have contemplated this quite a bit. I often don't see the checkmates coming or assume my king is safe. Usually he brings out his queen early on in combination with bishops and knights to attack me. This should give me a big advantage attacking his queen while simultaneously developing pieces. I do this and it works well, but I also don't know how to combat checkmates where the king is in a corner. I suppose a lack of experience is a huge factor, as well as no guiding principles to follow. What can I do to improve? Are there some general concepts worth mentioning? Maybe trying some chess puzzles "Checkmate in X number of moves"? Other suggestions? |
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With experience, most early sorties with bishop and queen aiming at a quick mate(Bc4 and Qh5 come to mind) can be countered easily, often with a gain of time by attacking a misplaced queen.
I would suggest getting some books on openings for beginners and then concentrate on basic opening principles such as development of pieces, king safety etc. You should also know some basic matting patterns to avoid falling into them or how to take advantage if you have an attack. A couple of beginner books that may be helpful are "Logical Chess, Move by Move" by Chernev, I believe and "Chess Master versus Chess Amateur" by Mednis. Bruce Pandofini has a nice book called "Power Mates" showing a lot of different mating patterns in quiz form from actual games. As you improve, you can try out Sillman's "Reassessing your Chess" (an excellent volume) and Vukovic's classic "The Art of Attack in Chess." After that you'll be the resident chess champ at work. Good luck! |
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Permanently Suspended |
You must start with a good opening and continually building up the safe moves must not allow your opponent to capitalize on easy targets. Never let the four way move checkmate you, block it with a pawn or a knight, etc as long as its safe & that the queen cannot go past to capture your pawn on the way to checkmate. Do not let your queen being captured early especially if your opponent has got the queen. This will make life easy for your opponent, its like suicide people often resign in these sarcumstances. The queen is the most versatile and dangers obstruction in the game. if u capture the queen and let your queen also die, that will make the game longer. Avoid starting with bad openings that will lead to disaster and will be difficult to recover the position in which you are in. I hope all this helps, i'll get some more ideas jotted down as soon as I come up with more ideas, for now good luck  |
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If you could post any of your games then it would make it easier to point it out what you are doing wrong.
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sounds to me like you understand the basics of opening theory... i'm interpreting 'quickly' checkmated as meaning in the middle game.
middle game is a balance of position and tactics. early on, it's easy to focus on your own tactics and not on position (at least it was for me). at the same time, it's easier think 4 moves ahead for yourself than 2 moves for your opponent. advice: 1.go through all the training lessons in chessmaster XI. 2.after opponent moves, ask yourself why did he just do that? (There is always a reason). if i missed my turn, what would he do next? what gaps does this new position leave? also ask: how can i stop his idea, and at the same time go forward with my plan? 3.if you can't figure out what he's up to, quickly check sacrifices (especially when 3 or more pieces are staring at your king)... 4.keep your pieces coordinated (rooks connected, knights in outposts, bishops on open files, queen relatively centralized and ready to jump in). other than these generalities (there may be a few more), not much can be mentioned... like ebu said, maybe post a few of your games. i'm not sure if he's willing, but he's probably the best person on this forum that can analyse your game and give pointers. (maybe if you ask him real nice) "Tactics require observation, strategy requires thought." (Max Euwe) |
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You are overestimating my chess abillities. I'm just a little bit advanced random mover
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I do understand the basic principles of opening. And by early mate i do mean eerly middle game, not fools mate, maybe 15 or 20 moves into the game.
I dont play to win I play for the joy and play to sharpen my mind and play to gain a life skill (chess relates to life) and because of this I dont have an interest in memorizing openings except in specific situations such as possibly this, to defend against a specific problem. playing chessmaster I play the computer at a rating around 1300 or so, same with yahoo chess (I know FICS is much better but havent had a chance to sign up) So I'm not really a beginner so much but I haven't played in tournaments etc. |
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i don't have the patience for memorization either... but through trial and error i have become familiar with only a handful of openings (that's all i need). i know 3 openings relatively well... really, it's 2. whenever i play, i force play into these openings.. and i see the same themes develop...and i'm almost always in familiar territory.. so i'm used to most traps, and i'm aware of many possibilities.
i would recommend finding a few openings that you like and playing them over and over again. when black, i play the sicilian. if 1.d4 then i play pirc defense. when white, the english (really, i see it as sicilian in reverse, so i don't have to memorize a new opening). i'm almost always in familiar territory.. except this one game i'm playing now... i got myself into a really cramped position... so i have to go analyze it and see what happened so i prevent it next time. anyway, i'm off topic... "Tactics require observation, strategy requires thought." (Max Euwe) |
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Settlers and Far Cry Moderator |
You should see the mess I got into with a tiny little chess game on our Arcade game site.
I was over confident as I thought such a small program wouldn't be very good, but it handed me my ass on a plate three games in a row.  I still managed to set the high score on it though, the site owner only managed to score 2 points, I must ask him if it was the first time he'd played chess, as I scored over 1,000 even though I lost.    Official Whisky taster and Herald to the Mighty Alderbranch. www.Maximum-Gamers.com Administrator "The clues are out there.....S.N.A.F.U." www.SettlersMaps.com www.Maximum-Arcade.com |
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ill try to respond to the posts here later ive been too busy so far, but thanks to everyone who responded.
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Hi Eternally,
Probably, the best thing you can do at your level is study tactics... If you are getting checkmated that early, you are probably missing tactical shots (both your own and your oponents) I would recommend seirawan's "winning chess tactics." We all (including myself) spend too much time on opening preparation. I think one should approach openings not so much as a way of finding a quick way to win, but as a way of finding a style you like. For example, if you like all, out wild attacks, the sicilian might be the defense for you. If you like a more stategic game, then maybe you will play the caro kann. Again, I would not spend too much time on opening prep, but maybe just find some openings you are comfortable with....i.e., ones that suit your temperment. I gave up the sicilian because I was tired of every sensation-seeking fool throwing their pawns at my k-side and occasionally breaking through.....With the sicilian, it is often an ok plan for white to pawn storm. So the sicilian feeds people who like these wild attacks on king....I prefer to play the caro kann against these king hunters, but it might also be reasonable for you to play the scandanavian (respond to e4 with d5). I find the pirc very hard to play.... I went from a 1300 to an 1800 player via tactical training. I am not so sure how to make the next step, but i am pretty sure it does not involve memorizing lots of openings.. It will probably involve alot of tactical and endgame practice, with some refinement of openings. best J
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I refuse to memorize opening moves. My goal in chess is discover and refine strategies, tactics , combinations, etc. If I do that, I don't care too much about winning. Memorization just isn't what I'm after, since I'm not going pro and i don't bet money on my games. I think I'm around 1300 myself. At least thats the level I play the computer characters on. Thanks for the advice. Basically I play chess for the pure joy of the game and because it relates to life and sharpens your mind for ideas usable outside of chess. I don't like the concept of memorization, And because of that I'm a big fan of Fischer random chess/Chess960. And really, chess variations in general, because they all get your mind thinking differently. Like playing where all the pawns are knights, or all of the pawns can kill to any adjacent diagonal square as well as move sideways and forward. Playing variations like that mess with your head. |
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U could try to not castle early on and leave this option so that you can shift out of a dangerous area. It requires some timing, but should have some effect. After a few games u should keep a keen eye for castling into a trap, if you are using this. I think that the best exercise for you is to try do some problems like find mate in 2,3,4 so on moves. Also try playing some games with the computer in wich u don`t care about the result of the game but try some early big attack of the king. It doesn`t matter if the attack succeded or not, just that u have some ideas of what could happen. What helped me most for this mates were the annotated games. It has a strange way of increasing your build in attack. Hope this helps.
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This doesn't have to do with memorizing moves, but understanding their meaning. That's what most opening books are about: presenting the concepts behind the openings. You can't just start and find things on your own even if you are the smartest man on the planet. You can't invent trigonometry, geometry and quantum mechanics on your own, that's why you have to study the already known knowledge. It took many decades for these ideas to develop and you can't just re-invent them in a few matches. Just take good advantage of the human knowledge and then try to adjust it to yourself. That's the process of learning more or less and judging by your name you already know that!       |
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Unforturnately, that's just part of playing chess. Just like you've got to know your plays if you play football or any other sport. Having said that, if you have access to a decent chess library, I highly recommend "The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings" by Reuben Fine. The opening lines are dated, but the basic principles are not. Also, Seirawan's line of books are good as well. He has a nice one on openings that gives a pretty good survey while following a Ruy Lopez main line (and Sicilian defense for black). He then recommends playing the Barcza so you don't have deal with any of it |
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A few more thoughts came to me so I'll throw them out there (and I'm bored this morning
):1) If you want to understand chess, study the endgame. Then, once you've studied that, study the endgame some more (seriously). Keres has an excellent book - "Practical Chess Endings", but there are loads of others. Seirawan has one as well (btw, it's worth the trouble of learning how to do a knight and bishop vs lone king mate). 2)If you're really stuck in the middlegame, Lasker has a 3 volume set (also in a condensed single volume version) that does a great job of explaining strategies and tactics. Again, Seirawan also has very good books on these subjects. Most importantly, keep a record of your games - steno pads work great and don't look too "nerdy" at work, and find out where you're making your mistakes. Are your opponents exploiting the same things over and over again? Some simple tricks can be hard to see until you really look for them. And as long as I'm recommending reading material, there's a book I can't remember the title of atm: something like 'Capablanca's Greatest Endings'. You seldom see the "pure" endings in play, so seeing how a master exploits small advantages in real play is a beautiful thing. |
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Maybe I should recommend and a book. Well, I would say "Looking for trouble" . Probably you are missing a lot of the opponent's threats and this book is focused exactly on that, recognizing threats and stopping them. I liked it a lot.
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that's what I'm trying to accomplish for a long time, and I'm only at 1600 yet. could you provide some more detail, please? how much time did you devote to tactical study (and if any, other studies?) per day? how much time did it take you to reach 1800? how often did you play? what tactics book or software did you study? etc. thanks in advance. |
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If you play with depth 6 visions and your opponent has a depth 7 vision then it is always possible to get checkmated too early. It could also happen if your opponent makes the perfect move with enough luck I guess.
Memorizing openings is the only way to move to the higher level (I don't like it also but it is very important) I see it like this: playing an opening is playing with the highest ELO rating possible in the opening sequence (it is like playing with ELO 3000+ rating within the opening sequence). ----------------------- Probably I would be the best chess player in the world if I was not blundering so much... |
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Thats true, and I am aware of that. It comes down to what out of chess. Some people want to win. some want boasting rights or fame or even money. I don't care about any of that. Of course I care about winning since its the object of the game but I'm not going to spend time memorizing lines to do so. My game will suffer a lot because of that. I'm aware of that. But I'm not worried about my game I'm worried about flexing my brain, wrapping my head around new concepts. I try to play chess variations as often as I can. I read books on religion, politics, psychology, future technology, anything that challenges what I previously thought or opens up a whole new train of thought. Basically my point is that the learning tactics, principles strategies of chess as well and keeping focused and alert and having patience to find the right move all have real world applications, while if memorizing openings does as well, I dont see it. |
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