| From | Message |
hewhomateswins
1/31/2008
06:01:34
[ report abuse ] |
 Subject: Annotated game
Message:
I have just annotated my first ever game, you can find it on my profile and your comments would be most helpful.
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chessnovice
1/31/2008
08:19:17
[ report abuse ] | ...
Message:
Pretty good for your first annotation. The only suggestion I can give is that, as one of the players of a game, we often carry a bias and focus only on OUR good moves. It's good to recognize what you did right, but it's even better to recognize things you could have done better and things that your opponent did right. I remember many years ago, there was a guy who used !'s and ?'s freely, and annotated his games in an extremely biased way. People teased him by imitating his annotations, saying "1. e4!!!! c5??"
A few times, you annotated "Of course" or something similarly non-descriptive. Those annotations don't usually do anything for the reader. I think an improvement would be to find moves where you began to formulate a plan, what moves your opponent made that strengthened your mode of action or forced you to liquidate/retool your plan, and possible lines that could come from alternative moves. Annotations, at least for me, are useful as an insight into the brain of the chessplayer.
There was a point where you said that you couldn't be bothered to write out all of the lines for a forced mate. I think it's at least worth writing a few out, otherwise it becomes meaningless to the reader (and even comes across as rushed). Even if it takes you longer than a day to annotate the game, it's worth putting in as much effort as you can until you feel you wrote enough pertinent information down.
Those are just some general things I observed from the game, though. Otherwise, I think it's a worthy first stab.
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ccmcacollister
1/31/2008
15:28:11
[ report abuse ] | Nice Game ...
Message:
There were certainly a ton of varied mating lines near the end of it :)
Here is LINK + Hyperlink to the game
gameknot.com/list_annotated.pl?u=hewhomateswins
 gameknot.com
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ionadowman
2/02/2008
01:18:45
[ report abuse ] | Good example ...
Message:
...of how to win a winning game, and a decent first go at annotation. Possibly the voters could have been a little more generous...
I appreciate that one often annotates games for one's own entertainment (that's part of my motivation at any rate!), but one ought to treat them as a service to any readers who might happen along. In my view it is probably better to err on the side of "over-annotation".
It's not a bad idea, too, to treat the game as if it were a story - which it is after all! - possibly with a hero and villain, but certainly with some kind of conflict - not always with one's opponent! And the storyteller need not be the hero, neither!
Cheers,
Ion
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marinvukusic
2/02/2008
02:10:33
[ report abuse ] |
Message:
I am not really sure whether you are looking for comments on the game or on the annotation?
The main question to ask yourself is - why bother with annotating your games? :)
I am not kidding - try to define the purpose behind the annotation:
- to learn something about your game, improve and share your findings with others (sort of like mutual learning process between yourself and the readers)
- to show everyone how well you play
- to kill some time :)
When you are annotating just keep that purpose in mind and try to achieve it. Don't be lazy if you want good scores :P
In any case, there are several ways to improve your annotation:
- ccmcacollister has demonstrated what opening comments could look like
- ccmcacollister, ionadowman and gangstaman practically "did your job" by annotating the game - it DID take them some time but the whole annotation has a lot more value now.
You can always try to look up the best annotations on GameKnot and see what they did right.
I especially recommend looking up tag1153's annotations (gameknot.com). He is currently rated 1463 (close to your rating) but he loves annotating games and has produced quite a few interesting annotations.
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heinzkat
2/02/2008
04:43:35
[ report abuse ] | ...
Message:
Purpose behind an annotation:
- to share an interesting game... at least the best annotations - can be found via 'semi-hidden page' gameknot.com - all are quite interesting games. Also, an interesting game is easier to annotate, the game itself gives good main points on which the annotation can stand.
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brulla
2/04/2008
00:54:58
[ report abuse ] | Thanks a lot to...
Message:
...chessnovice and marinvukusic for very helpful hints. I will bookmark this
page and annotate some of my games keeping these hints in mind.
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hewhomateswins
2/04/2008
11:31:32
[ report abuse ] | Yes, thank you.
Message:
I am very thankful to everyone who commented on the game because it must have taken quite a while and it was more than I ever expected. With all of your sound advise, I hope that the next game I annotate will be even better.
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