Threefeat
Pale Morning Dun was kind enough to wish me luck in my Quad this past weekend, and, apparently, I needed it since I went 0 for 3. ;-) There are a few lessons I have learned from these defeats:
- Though I have played chess off and on for most of my life, I have never played chess seriously. So, I am a beginner despite my age.
- I need to use the clock much more. I am finishing my games much too fast and, obviously, making many blunders along the way.
- My first match was against an opponent who traded pieces. I needed to realize this much more quickly and also keep my pawn structure intact, which it wasn't, but their's was.
- In playing my second match against an opponent I had beaten before, I was all over trying to use "tactics" to kill his king. However, this did not work. To offset my computer training, I have just started Neil McDonald's Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking. In the first game annotates, he writes
Black cannot return the compliment as the rook on a8 isn't easy to activate. Therefor it is no surprise that White will have a marked advantage in firepower when the tactical combat begins.
Though I know tactics are used throughout a match, I just need to make sure when I go in for the kill, the kill is there. For the record the third match, I just had way too many blunders. - The last item that comes to mind is that I find the process I need to follow each and everytime I move.
posted by H.K. at 7:39 AM
2 Comments:
Sorry to hear you went 0 for 3. I am in the same boat as you though. I don't play competitive chess very often. My first tournament in years was last year and I did horribly. However, the next tournament I played in, I took a class B scalp. I think much of it is psychological. Don't give up.
That's tough.
I find "The Art of Logical Thinking" pretty good, but you have to watch out as he sometimes lapses into less accurate tactical assessments.
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