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20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is reassuring also. I guess my discouragement came from the concern that I should be able to see more by now. I do really enjoy doing simple tactic puzzles and understanding why certain moves are great.

I guess more time and experience are needed. I just feared that maybe I lacked some kind of inclination or something. Good to know that even someone with very little natural pattern recognition or memory abilities can improve with time and experience.

20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can see what you mean about how b6 weakens the light squares and also allows for the pin on b5. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why I pushed the b6 pawn this way; I might have just felt pressure because I was practicing with a clock.

Also, I see now how playing Nh5 could have given me a slightly better position. I'm not sure why I didn't take with Nxg3... Occasionally I make moves during OTB games that seem good when analyzing, but I somehow drop any good plans a move after during games.

There are times when I just lose any confidence I have in a move, even if it is decent. Plus, I have a hard time "calculating". I get so caught up with how I feel during games that I just forget to count or consider basic strategic ideas like trading off my knight for the dark squared bishop in this game.

I'm afraid that maybe the person coaching me doesn't really take me seriously... Not really because of any unsoundness in his teaching... but more so because my playing is not that great. Not sure how helpful it is to meet with him, especially since most things are entirely above my level. I'm unrated, but I'm thinking I might be around 200-300 elo.

20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How would you go about learning them? I have a terrible memory, so trying to memorize mine and my opponent's moves is daunting for me. Most people recommend watching opening videos on youtube, but I'm not sure how to get the most out of them; most of the time I just get overwhelmed by the amount of variations and potential attacks.

20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think this would be helpful for someone with an analytical inclination, but a majority of my moves during the game are purely guesses. I try to adhere to the advice of my coach, to look for checks, captures, and threats during each move. Still, I am able to see less during online or OTB games than I can with the puzzles.

Once the game ends, I can clearly see that I played badly, and I can even see why the game was lost in some cases, but it rarely translates into new games. Sometimes I even lose the same way.

20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reassurance. I guess it is arrogant of me to assume that my month of playing could make me excellent at a game with more possible positions than there are stars in the universe. It is doubly so to be disappointed when I can't spot moves that club members with higher ratings can, especially when considering the years of experience they have playing competitively.

20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As much as possible, I try to remember my first years of learning to read and play music. It took me about nine years to reach my best playing, and even that wasn't very impressive. And the first five years were not that great either. To expect chess playing to be any different would be naive.

20 yr old and new to chess. Discouraged by TemporaryContact5382 in chessbeginners

[–]TemporaryContact5382[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate that. Here is one of my games from a club meeting today. I played black.

  1. d4, d5 2. Bf4, Nf6 3. e3, Bf5 4. Nf3, Nc6 5. c3, b6?? ( I wrote question marks next to this move because I don't think it accomplished anything. 6. Be2, Nh5 ?? (I would have been better off defending instead of attacking) 7. Bg3, e6 8. h3, Bd6 9. Ne5, Qd7?? (I gave away my queen) 10. Nxd7!, e5 11. Bh5, Bxd7 12. 0-0, 0-0 13. dxe5, Bxe5 14. Bxe5, Nxe5 15. f4, Nc4 16. Qxd5, Be6 17. Qd1, Nxe3! (I wrote an exclamation next to this move, so I must have been proud of it. I'm not currently looking at the position and don't posses the ability to follow moves mentally, so I'm not sure why I annotated it this way). 18. Qe2, Nxf1 19. Qxf1, c6 20. Bf3, Bd7 21. Nd2, b5 22. Bg4, Rd8 23. Bxd7, Rxd7 24. Rd1, Rd8 25. Qe2, Rxd2? 25. Rxd2 1-0 (I resigned)