Evaluating your Games, the most wasteful mistake chess players make

 When improving at this complex game, nothing is more important than evaluating your games. There is no improving at something when you don’t even know what to improve at! This is why evaluating and analysing your games is so critical.

Evaluating your games will allow you to identify weaknesses in your play, or tactical options that you haven’t even considered. Even though Analysing games is by far the most critical part of the game, many players still don’t know how to properly analyse!

So, read on further to see how you would properly analyse a game of chess!

TOOLS

There are a wide variety of tools that you could use to analyse your games. Do note that most of these tools are available on both Chess.com and Lichess, but not all. So, without further ado, here are the tools!

• The Engine: This incredible tool is used by all major chess evaluation sites. It is the same as having a friend rated 3600, standing next to you, and telling you the best possible moves, as well as other tactical options.

• The Eval Bar: This tool is available on all major chess sites, and allows. However, a less common use of it is seeing in any given variation, who is winning. By extension, another use is comparing what happened to another possible variation, given best play.

• The Move List: One of the best and simplest tools for those who are starting out. This tool is capable of telling you the inaccuracies, Mistakes, and Blunders you may have played as well as Great and the Fabled Brilliant Moves.

• Player Rating Estimation: Arguably the Best tool for improving at chess. This tool estimates how well you played that game in chess ELO. Meaning that you should always aim to get that score higher and higher. Unfortunately, this tool is only available on Chess.com at the time of writing.

HOW TO PROPERLY ANALYSE

Yes, all these tools are absolutely incredible. However, it still does not tell you how exactly to leverage these tools in order to properly analyse your games. Not a problem! Here are some simple tips to analyse your games!

• Firstly, it is imperative that you don’t use the game review feature by chesscom. While it is incredibly powerful, it is not powerful enough to look deep enough when properly analysing your chess games.

• However, something you can do, is you can click Game Review -> Analysis. This is powerful because it gives you the Move List, even for different variations, something that will make analysis so much simpler.

• Finally, while you can look through every single move, identifying blunders, conveniently given to you on the Game Review tab, will allow you to notice areas of improvement substantially quicker than if you were to do them normally.

CONCLUSION

Analysis is by far the most important part of Chess improvement. After all, what’s the point of playing games of chess when you won’t even notice where you went wrong? Hopefully, our tips to assist you in properly analyse will help you on your chess journey!

Keep on Learning!

What is Chess Psychology and how can you leverage it?

 Chess Psychology is undoubtedly one of the most overlooked areas in Chess Improvement. You may have heard of the term “titled” before, and perhaps not realised that it was actually chess psychology at work! But, what exactly do chess masters mean when they say “Chess Psychology”?

WHAT IS CHESS PSYCHOLOGY?

There are 2 main areas to Chess Psychology, in-game and out of game. The majority of this blog post will be focused on In-game, however, it’s important to also give a quick overview, to out-of-game Chess Psychology.

When we say out-of-game psychology, we’re commonly referring to things such as tilt, Elo Stagnation or Elo Anxiety. In short, these things are factors that induce fear and or anger before the game even starts, hence the name, Out Of Game Chess Psychology.

However, In-Game Chess psychology is especially interesting as we can learn to leverage it. In case you’re wondering, in-game chess psychology commonly includes getting up from a lost position, or complicating a position, not making it easy for your opponent. We will discuss a bit more in the section below.

HOW TO LEVERAGE IN-GAME CHESS PSYCHOLOGY

Firstly, it is key that in a game, you should never resign. At the very least, make the game as difficult to play or as annoying for your opponent as possible. Here are a few ways you can make the game more annoying for your opponents.

ACTIVITY

Activity is everything. Trading things down will not help your chances, but rather hurt them. In a lost position, you have no choice but to not trade them. Activity is far more important in a lost position than ever. So, how can you leverage your active pieces to save a game?

PAWNS. In the Endgame, active pieces can easily target pawns. Aim specifically for backwards, doubled or even tripled pawns. How does this relate to Chess Psychology? Well, not being too upset by your losses will allow you to locate these tactical opportunities for counterplay.

SPEED + PSYCHOLOGY

As humans, especially in chess, when we’re up material, are more likely to be “arrogant” and make silly mistakes. However, they won’t be in this state forever, so you must activate your pieces quickly. Which is why speed is so important.

Look at this position which is me vs. Stockfish, but Stockfish is down a knight. Even though stockfish is down a knight, it is able to develop its pieces extremely quickly. The knight on F4 forces the weak pawn move, G3, which allows Black to develop with astonishing speed.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, chess psychology consists of two main segments, in and out-of-game chess psychology. In-game chess psychology, if you’re losing, then you must keep your head cool, and gain insane amounts of activity quickly.

Afterwards, target and create the weaknesses of your opponent, then leverage them. Admit the fact that when they’re up material, they will be arrogant. And during this period of time is your chance to leverage the speed and CRUSH your opponents!

A Clash of Titans: Oppenheimer and Einstein Play Chess

  The relationship between IQ and Chess has always been a confusing one. Many argue that chess is heavily related to one’s personal intelligence, while others argue that they’re two completely different skill sets and are in no way related.

However, when we say the word IQ, one person comes to mind. That person is the myth, The Legend, Albert Einstein. However, there is one other figure when it comes to sheer intelligence. The father of Death, himself, Robert J Oppenheimer.

Many people do not know this, however, Oppenheimer and Einstein have actually played a game of Chess themselves. Will this be the game of Birlliance, indicated by both master's works, or will this prove that Chess and IQ have nothing to do with each other?

Read on to Find Out!!

THE START + FIRST MISTAKE

The game started out as a Ruy Lopez, and at move 6, the e4 pawn was captured, pretty much meaning a draw at the professional level in 2023. However, Oppenheimer made quite a mistake by retreating his knight back to E7. This is not good as it means his activity has taken a huge hit.

He played this to avoid the discovered check, which would’ve came if he did nothing, however, capturing the knight would be a much smarter approach, as there are much fewer threats. Infact, after NxE5, RxE5, Black would not even lose the pawn due to Be6 being a defensive resource.

The lesson we can take away from this inaccuracy by Oppenheimer is that retreating your pieces is almost always not the best choice. Knight to D4 would have been miles better, however, since he moved back, his activity has taken a huge hit.

F6. THE FIRST BLUNDER

After a few moves, Einstein played Queen F3. A threat which also helps develop his position. In professional chess, this is called, “developing with tempo”, meaning you develop, with a threat, and force your opponent to respond to it.

As a response, Oppenheimer played F3, which is a critical error. Take note since this tactic will appear in many of your games! Einstein plays QH5, forcing G6, which means Einstein can sacrifice his knight, in order to win that rook in the corner!

After this, he also makes an inaccuracy of taking the bishop, losing his final, somewhat active piece. This now means that his entire position has no counterplay as there now no more active pieces remaining.

Generally, when the Opponent loses their rooks in the corner like this, they are susceptible to crazy fast offensives by the enemy, which is what Einstein does, by sending his bishop to H6. This crazy fast combination results in Oppenheimer losing another piece.

EINSTEIN’S BRILLIANCY

Einstein performed a Brilliant move in this game. During move 21, he played Nc4!!, attacking the Queen! However, if the Queen moves, the knight on E7 will be captured. Therefore, the obvious move is to capture the knight, however, after a recapture, the Queen is pinned to the king, and is forced to be sacrificed.

This brilliant move teaches us to be perspicacious about tactics that are available, especially in a straight line. This will allow you to spot opportunities for pins and skewers, something really important, especially because things like this happen all the time, unlike other tactics!

CONCLUSION

While the link between IQ and Chess has been and still is unclear, we can say, without a doubt, that many of us could play better than Oppenheimer. In no way is that saying his work is not absolutely incredible, but instead just saying perhaps his chess skills could use a little work.

Thank you for reading, and please write in the comment section, have you seen the film Oppenheimer before, and if so, how was it?

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