Discipline

Valmont

After I thought I had acquired the habit of making sure I wasn't committing a serious blunder before making each move I missed a mate in one tonight not long after winning my opponent's queen. This was a high-stakes game (rivalry with a good friend) and I am crushed. I play league games every week, tournament games every other week, and have played in two congresses in the past four months and my opponent who hasn't played otb since February still did me in! Christ will it ever get better?!

EDIT: Playing for 11 months, ECF grade: approximately 70.

Lucena

Was it a defensive or attacking mate-in-one? A chess player will generally see tactics for him/herself more easily than for their opponents.

Could you post the game up here, it's hard to give advice otherwise. Without seeing the game, it's possible your opponent sacced the queen to create the mate.

You also say that you blunder-check before each move, which is good. But do you also look at your opponent's moves, and try to figure out what he's doing? After each of your opponent's moves, you need to analyse and see what he's threatening, what can he do that he couldn't do before, what's his plan etc. If you don't do this, you're only playing half of the game.

L1m1tless

Sometimes it's good to imagine that your opponent has 2 moves in a row, It can be easier to see what their threats are.

Valmont

Is there an easy way to post a game up?

Valmont

He definitely didn't sacrifice the queen but funnily enough he missed a forced draw after I captured it. I pretty much stopped paying attention because I was a queen up but he had two bishops right in the centre and a rook bearing down the open h file to my king - I had forced mate in four and was too focused on that I think.

I've ordered Silman's Reassess your Chess as part of my comeback and I'll start once I finish Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move.

L1m1tless

Not really an easy way, I would suggest posting it on another site that has a pgn viewer and send us the link or else attach the pgn here

Ficheall

The game editor on chess.com is great:
http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor

Here is a game where I played Black against Magnus Carlsen:
http://www.chess.com/emboard?id=2161662

If you want to embed just the image into the forum, without the board being "interactive" then
I think http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-diagram-generator.php is possibly the best.

Valmont

[Date "????.??.??"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 c6 2.Bc4 d5 3.Bb3 dxe4 4.f3 Nf6 5.Nc3 exf3 6.Nxf3 Bg4 7.O-O e6 8.d3 Bc5+ 9.Kh1 O-O 10.Ne2 Bxf3 11.Rxf3 Nbd7 12.d4 Bd6 13.c3 e5 14.Bc2 e4 15.Rh3 Ng4 16.Bxe4 Nf2+ 17.Kg1 Nxd1? { (Nxe4!) } 18.Bxh7+ Kh8 19.Bc2+ Kg8 20.Bxd1 { forced draw after 20. bh7+...Kh8 etc } 20...Nf6 21.Bc2 Re8 22.Bd3 Qc7 23.Bg5 Ng4 24.Bh7+ Kf8 25.g3 Rxe2 26.Bf5 Nf2?? 27.Rh8# { Stopped thinking after 17...Nxd1 }
*

I'm not sure you will be able to paste that into anything, I pulled it off Chess.com.

mikhail

That's a pretty big blunder all right. Sadly, I'm too prone to hanging things myself to feel I have a solution to offer.

Ficheall

Valmont wrote: »

[Date "????.??.??"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 c6 2.Bc4 d5 3.Bb3 dxe4 4.f3 Nf6 5.Nc3 exf3 6.Nxf3 Bg4 7.O-O e6 8.d3 Bc5+ 9.Kh1 O-O 10.Ne2 Bxf3 11.Rxf3 Nbd7 12.d4 Bd6 13.c3 e5 14.Bc2 e4 15.Rh3 Ng4 16.Bxe4 Nf2+ 17.Kg1 Nxd1? { (Nxe4!) } 18.Bxh7+ Kh8 19.Bc2+ Kg8 20.Bxd1 { forced draw after 20. bh7+...Kh8 etc } 20...Nf6 21.Bc2 Re8 22.Bd3 Qc7 23.Bg5 Ng4 24.Bh7+ Kf8 25.g3 Rxe2 26.Bf5 Nf2?? 27.Rh8# { Stopped thinking after 17...Nxd1 }
*

I'm not sure you will be able to paste that into anything, I pulled it off Chess.com.

You can make that into a handy link for sending it to be people by clicking the "embed" button on the game editor, and then taking the URL inside the quotation marks. ie.
src="THIS BIT HERE"

So in your case:
http://www.chess.com/emboard?id=2161694

Can't think of how to do a handy "image into forum" at the mo..

Valmont

mikhail wrote: »

That's a pretty big blunder all right. Sadly, I'm too prone to hanging things myself to feel I have a solution to offer.

The thing is I know the solution; it's stopping before making any move and looking at the checks your opponent might have, any forcing moves, any skewers or forks. Only then, do I make my move. I learned to do this over the last few months after having a few painful first months at the club hanging things and blundering all over the place like a fool. My stupid moves dropped significantly when I started making these checks.

I'm moaning because last night was the one game I really needed the discipline to carry me through and I messed up! It feels like back being back at square one - losing games more from stupidity and carelessness rather than being beaten by a better opponent (which is what happened, technically).

Sparks

Valmont wrote: »

I'm not sure you will be able to paste that into anything, I pulled it off Chess.com.

Pasted into scid-vs-pc without a bother.