GameKnot: annotated chess game - Improve Your Chess Play

ANNOTATED GAME

Improve Your Chess Play
Opponent (1854) vs. Me (2096)
Annotated by: tiger_lilov (1200)
Chess opening: Sicilian (B36), accelerated fianchetto, Gurgenidze variation

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The whole point of the game is to illustrate along the way, the right way to study chess, how to get better, and make it work fast. It is based on the Russian method of training. These tips should help you improve your studying, and getting better faster.

1. e4	Ratings are USCF



1... c5	The Sicilian Defense is a heavy theory opening. 1-Most players, especially those who are in the club level, should NOT study openings heavily. The more important rule that it is almost always better to acquire understanding of chess than to get the theoretical knowledge. With theory, you are getting one position memorized. With understanding, you get a better thought process that will get you hundreds of better moves in your chess play. So *Thought process is more important than theoretical knowledge by a huge amount, at least for the club players trying to improve.
	1 comment blitzkov (1865) on 27-Jul-12: i love the Sicilian and i study a lot of openings.


2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Nf6 6. Nc3 d6 7. f3	It's a less theoretical variation of the maroczy bind. Using the first tip, you can know that when studying openings, most players do not need a very deep opening knowledge. Instead, they should get a general understanding of the plan for both sides. Of course it depends on the opening, and heres the next tip. 2-Improving club players should NOT use highly complicated openings that require heavy theoretical knowledge. If an opening requires you to study book for many hours, it is the wrong choice. You should be able to find right moves after a general understanding.
	1 comment blitzkov (1865) on 27-Jul-12: i hate to play against the Maroczy Bind.


7... Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bg7 9. Be3	3-A very common misconception is the "steady chess improvement". One of the most important things I learned from an experienced chess master from a tournament was that chess improvement happens suddenly and not steadily. Fischer once said "One day, I just got good". Basically, if you study chess correctly by improving thinking, you won't get immediate improvement, but you will get a sudden bursts after long periods of time. So don't expect to improve by a few points each week or something. You will get a sudden noticable improvement.



9... O-O 10. Qd2 Be6	Little diversion. 10...a5 is the main theoretical idea.



11. Rc1 Qa5 12. Be2 Rfc8	4-If your results don't improve, you are not. It simply means that if you have gotton better, you MUST notice the improvement by concrete results in your playing. If you have not gotton better quality of play or consistently get better results, then your study of chess is wrong and you should change it. Many club players at plateaus read hundreds of chess books, but don't improve. They need to change the study, and then improve. Instead, they just keep finding more books to read, and are disappointed when they don't get better. A good chess book many people have praised is the book "Silman's reassess your chess". Personally, I love this book, and it has improved my results greatly. Yet there are players 1200uscf reading this book. Of course they have no improvement from it since it is way too advanced, but there are a lot of things they learn. But if the book does not help you get better results, then it is not right for you at the time.
	2 comments blake78613 (1859) on 23-Jul-12: The fact is that part of improving is sometimes getting worse results. It is common for three years olds to suddenly have a regression in their ability to speak English. What happens is they have become aware of grammar rules and will overgeneralize them. The same things happens with learning new concepts of chess, you will overgeneralize your new found concept. Also your concentration on the new concept will detract from your concentration on other areas (notably tactics) and your ratings and results take a plunge. Max Euwe makes note of this in his middlegame books. I remember when I first learned about thematic breaks in pawn structure. I was constantly playing them prematurely, until it finally dawned on me that timing was everything and you have to be ready to follow through when you make a break. tiger_lilov (1200) on 23-Jul-12: That may happen occasionally, but if you focus mainly on improving chess understanding and thought process, It will really be no concern at all. What is the most important thing in chess? Understand that, and the idea of pawn breaks, open files, strategic maneuvers will be so easy for you to master, and you won't have to worry about timing. Learning about specific seperate topics one by one is much more difficult. If you have a good basic chess foundation, then you will not even have to learn about many thematic ideas- they will come naturally. There are very few concepts you need to understand in chess, but you need to understand them deeply. All the principles and chess rules of thumb are all based on psychology or activity, for example. It has not happened to me yet in my short chess career.


13. b3 a6 14. a4 Nd7 15. O-O Nc5 16. Bd1 Qb4	Black has played the opening and early midgame very well, and already has a slight edge. The white bind is useless, since all the dark squares are horribly weak.



17. Nd5	Bailing out into a worse endgame, but white cracks under the pressure.



17... Qxd2 18. Bxd2 Bxd5 19. exd5	?White makes a bad move, and it loses. However, black needs to play accurately, and I messed this position up, drawing.



19... Bd4+ 20. Kh1 Nd3 21. Be2 Nxc1	After a long endgame, white managed to draw after I messed up tactically. As a final note, I should say that the most important thiing to avoid if you want to improve is the useless information and chess thoery that does not improve your results. For example, a lot of people study theoretical endgames. I have looked at only 7 theoretical endgame positions(Theses are special, since they are of utmost importance and can actually occur in practive) and only 3 have happened in my games. Many of my games go to the endgame as well. So many theoretical positions never happen. If you use these tips, I have a guarantee that it will help you improve.
	2 comments tiger_lilov (1200) on 24-Jul-12: By the way, here is a nice little tip for you when playing chess and understanding your improvement. *Always judge your play from the QUALITY, NOT the RESULT of your game. Whenever I lose a game, I always look at my mistakes. If I played worse in a game I won, then I simply got lucky, and my results will not be consistent. If you are at a high quality and lose, it simply means the opponent was even better, but you are still improving. Look at the top GMs- Do they care about the result of the game or the quality more? Those GMs spend days analyzing each game thoroughly, regardless of result. raymond2002 (1398) on 25-Jul-12: By the way, here is a saying by Capablanca," A few general maxims are more worthy to the player then endless variations or lines."

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ANNOTATED GAME