Crown on the Squares: Real Chess,Time Management and Care: Putting It Al...

Crown on the Squares: Real Chess,Time Management and Care: Putting It Al...: "“Your game is only as good as your worst move.” – Dan H. 2001 I commonly run across the sad case of a student who wants to show me a game c..."

Real Chess,Time Management and Care: Putting It All Together

“Your game is only as good as your worst move.” – Dan H. 2001

I commonly run across the sad case of a student who wants to show
me a game containing a new idea they found after careful study on the
9th move of some variation of the Sicilian, but later lost because they
moved too quickly and overlooked the loss of a piece to a simple
double attack. In the non-chess world this misplaced priority is called
“penny wise and pound foolish.”
When I suggest reviewing the thought process that caused him to lose
the piece, he often brushes it off with a statement such as, “Oh, I just
moved too fast” or “Yeah, I just overlooked his check.” They are
much more interested in my opinion of their new 9th move. I try to
politely say “But you don’t get it! The reason you are 1200 and not
1600 has MUCH more to do with the carelessness or bad time
management that caused you to lose the piece than it does from your
lack of knowledge of the Sicilian.” Want proof? Take a 1600 player
and make him play an opening he never has before in his life – he still
plays close to 1600; take a 1200 and let him play his favorite opening
and he still usually plays like a 1200.
While it is true that most players under 1400 don’t know a great deal
about openings, endgames, or positional play, a great majority of their
games are (or could have been!) lost not because of some opening trap,
bad plan, endgame subtlety, or complex combination, but because of
some basic tactical oversight. That is why the repetitious practice of
basic tactical motifs, in all their guises, is by far the most important
thing you can do when first studying chess.