(O) Analyze thoroughly - dont stop in unclear positions. Try to identify key positions and analyze them until you find the next key positions - and so on (milestone technique). Keep your opponent under pressure by constant high level play. The weakest move decides the game. Too much parallel games lower the quality of your play. (O) Create threats which lead quicker to results than the opponents threats. Force your opponent to make errors! :) (O) Avoid holes in your pawn shield - especially in front of your king. (O) When there is no tactics improve your pawn structure or the coordination of your forces. Let your light pieces control the fields between your pawn shield. If tactics doesnt require it dont concentrate the influence of your pieces on a few fields only - better try to distribute the influence of your pieces over large regions. (O) The opening is most important as the first moves determine the direction of the whole game! Dont forget move transpositions. Prefer openings where you understand the underlying plans. The pawn structure should fit to your playing style. Target: win with white, draw with black. Prefer moves successfully played in recent corr. chess games (successfull moves in OTB chess are not necessarilly good in corr. chess). Reuse your opening preparation in later games. (O) Speculative sacrifices often fail in corr. chess but positional pawn sacrifices (e.g. Volga-Benko) are ok. They give you permanent pressure which can even hold on into the ending. When you get back the material you will often have the better game. (O) Have a close look at all exchanges and the resulting endgames. (O) Play your games until the end to improve your technique. Only resign in hopeless positions. (O) The bishop pair can sometimes be stronger than R+B or R+N. (O) An active king in the endgame is more dangerous than a light piece but not as much as a rook. (O) Go through all your finished games, especially the losses. Try to identify the first error in the game. The rest of the game is not that important. (O) Improve your chess understanding by reading books about strategy and endgame technique. (O) Dont be angry when you lose - better be thankful that youve been shown where you can still improve.

YYLZZ

Don't & Do's…

Do not advertised poor chess sites.

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/info/policy.jsp

LittleGolem does not recommend for players sending very sensitive messages to other players. LittleGolem is not liable for bugs, that may allow other players to see these messages. LittleGolem does everything for covering this messages, but such things may happen. Messages of players are not monitored by anyone. Player can use option Blacklist if he does not want to get messages from some other players.

All plans in chess can only be based on four DO things:

1. the 3 Strongest Moves in Chess - check, capture & passed pawn

2. the Existence of a Combination

3. the Pawn Structure and

4. on the Mobility & Cooperation of Pieces

YOU

what would happen to someone if he does not apply himself to that DO list?

¿What would happen to someone if he does apply himself to that DON'T list?

YOU

Does really LittleGolem recommend it? or just you?

I meant the DO list, not the obvious LG policy.

LittleGolem does everything for covering this messages, but such things may happen.

OG*

What would happen to someone if he or she does not apply himself or to that DO list?

OG*

“LittleGolem does everything for covering this messages, but such things may happen.”

covering? what do you mean covering? did LittleGolem covered it just once? Can you please show me an example?

Why You Lose at Chess

Most chess games are not won, they are lost! and most players don't have a clue as to why they lost a particular game. They may blame a oversight, a surprise move, a blunder, time pressure, etc, etc. There is little help in chess literature that will give the improving player much of an idea of why he is constantly losing his games and how he can minimize his opponent's advantages and maximize his own.

The real culprit may be a series of errors, some mistakes of attitude, some mistakes of strategy, some of tactics, but mostly just thoroughly knowning chess basics, is usually the main reason. Most chess books are written only to help the prospective winner understand why he won. Little is written about unpopular subjects as the principles and tactics of defense, or pawn structure. Just look at any chess store and see what the bulk of chess books are. You will quickly see that it is mostly about openings. Why is this? Its because most are not interested in defense, they just want the excitement of attack and this is what they want to know more about. How to attack in the openings and quickly win the game.

They don't want to know the ideas behind the chess openings, they just want to know how to play them. They are not interested in reading about how to make a plan or how masters calculate to make plans. They are not interested in endgame theory because they are not interested in playing a game that long where it will be necessary to play a endgame. Most players today simply do not have the patiences to play long games or the patiences to study chess basics. Like little kids they are in a hurry to play a quick game win it and go on to another. Improving ones chess skills are not important to them. Many will give the excuse that they have other interests that are more important. Never will they admit that they simply do not have the patiences to study chess basics. But these are the same people, who complain that they suck at chess, and they do, and they forever will until their attention span increases, and they begin to realize that they never are going to improve unless they do. They are not listening now and maybe they never will.

Most players think that they already know chess basics, so why spend the time learning them again, but if they are given a quiz on the chess basics, as Jeremy Silman, a world class chess teacher, writer and player has discovered, fail miserly and lack the understanding of basic fundamentals.

He has discovered that most players have problems with the following subjects:

1. A lack of understanding concerning the true purpose of the opening.

2. No knowledge of planing and the thinking processes that make it happen.

3. No understanding of the most elementary endings.

4. How all three of these subjects are closely connected.

So if you want to stop losing so many games get your brain out of the garage and start using it today to study the basics!

YOU

ok, i see..

This is a post to you to talk with yourself…

I am really sorry I didn't understand it before. I will no enter again, in order to not to disturb YOU.

best wishes,

Gregorio

The beauty and creativity of Improving in correspondence chess on LittleGolem as an art form gives me a sense of musical inspiration and wonder about what the human mind is capable of.”They that sow in tears shall reap joy. First, chess teaches focus. In an instant world of sound bites, short term profits, micro-nuked food, and flash cut MTV-style video editing, chess players may become the last people alive who can maintain continuous, coherent thought for longer than eight seconds. When discussing tournament chess with non-players, I have discovered that nothing will cause more astonishment, often even disbelief, than the fact that games often last four to five hours. Mention spending half an hour on a single move and people will look at you like you're from another planet. No other aspect of chess runs so counter to the new world (dis)order. Indeed, the most persuasive argument against sudden-death time controls is that it seems to mimic the world epidemic of attention-deficit disorder. (You blitz-chess players can go write your own article.) As a knowledgeable player of games you would probably want to write game scripts of expansion and integration for your part of the game field, and scripts of contraction and fragmentation for anybody who would dare to oppose you. But that is only fun as long as everybody knows it is a game. And besides, your opponents don't have to be the other players.

OG