I think I'm improving but still keep losing.

[MartinCarpenter]

It's nice to sacrifice both rooks for mate, but if you can just win a couple of pawns and hence the ending, go for that.

Nah, if you've seen the rooks thing you have to do it.

I've had some teammates who were really quite sarcastic about that sort of thing

[MartinCarpenter]

However, I think we are being asked for a more philosophical discussion. And that's tricky.

What measure of improvement is there, apart from the brutality of winning and losing? Was it Peter Wells who said that as his understanding of chess increases, his rating goes down?

Managing to enjoy it more perhaps More self improvement than chess improvement I suppose.

In some ways absolute strength is a strange thing to target once you've done the basic work and taken the easy wins for improvement - do you really want to get the last 10-20% of strength (at the expense of lots of hard work!) when you'll still be much weaker than some people, and hugely so vs computers? My impressive is that very few people actually do.

[Roger de Coverly]

What measure of improvement is there, apart from the brutality of winning and losing?

As far as openings are concerned, it's the depth of position where you know you have seen it before and have a good idea of candidate moves and plans. Also in openings whether you recreate previously played games or established theory withput actually knowing it.

As to losing from winning positions, it's in part being aware of potential cheapos and also maintaining initiative and piece coordination. It might be easier higher up the rating scale where opponents will resign rather than face analysing a lost position.

[Nick Ivell]

The concept of a lost position is interesting.

For example, take Keene's win over Penrose in the county match of 1970. Keene describes Black's position as hopelessly lost, when it's equal material but Black has a bad bishop.

[Roger de Coverly]

For example, take Keene's win over Penrose in the county match of 1970. Keene describes Black's position as hopelessly lost, when it's equal material but Black has a bad bishop.

I've founf when asking Stockfish for evaluations that it can go as high as plus 5 with level material, but a crushing posotion.

[Nick Ivell]

Personally I'm suspicious of strategically winning positions. I've spent my life trying to win them.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Managing to enjoy it more perhaps"

Well - yes, that is very important. It is supposed to be fun...

And don't take any notice of ratings - they're only a guide to previous performance.

[J T Melsom]

What measure of improvement is there, apart from the brutality of winning and losing?

As far as openings are concerned, it's the depth of position where you know you have seen it before and have a good idea of candidate moves and plans. Also in openings whether you recreate previously played games or established theory withput actually knowing it.

The opening phase was a strength although in reaching a book position on move twelve, the order of moves from the opponent should have lead to the gain of a pawn. I've actually written on this tendency to play thematic moves and forget to address concrete positions in a different place. I was a little surprised by how far into theory the game went but i'd regard this as a relatively high level metric. Need to remember the target audience. You might struggle to have applied this measure to me when I played 1b3 at secondary school.

Lots of good advice across the thread though. Many thanks.

[Roger de Coverly]

At lower levels of club chess, there's a case for going sharp in e4 e5 openings.

For example I've seen the sequence 1. e4 e5 2, f4 d6 3. Nf3 . One might think that 3. .. exf4 transposing to the Fischer Defence was the only viable approach, but it seems 3. .. Bg4 is playable provided the Bxf7 cheapo doesn't work in future positions.

Something that can also work is 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 . Experienced players know that 3. .. d5 is the "book" move, but what if 3. .. exf4 ? I've seen 4. e5 played and met with 4. .. Qe7. That works in the Scotch but after 5. Qe2, Black is busted, according to engines. Black can be a bit worse but not fatally so with the grovel 4. .. Ng8. Let's not forget that after 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 , the objectively best or perhaps most challengimg move is 3. .. exf4.

[J T Melsom]

Roger, that is interesting but really a substantial way from the point of the original post. You might also want to define lower levels. I recall a post in this place from yourself describing your expectations of a 120 graded player. I'm not sure it had any resemblance to 120 players I meet. Need to remember the target audience and the objective of the feed-back , achieving moderate improvement.

[Joseph Conlon]

For example, take Keene's win over Penrose in the county match of 1970. Keene describes Black's position as hopelessly lost, when it's equal material but Black has a bad bishop.

I've founf when asking Stockfish for evaluations that it can go as high as plus 5 with level material, but a crushing posotion.

Coming back to OTB chess playing club chess, my last game I escaped with a draw from a -7.5 position according to the engine. Level material and, yes, entirely won with the correct activation of the remaining minor piece not yet involved - but not so easy for a human when there is no immediately forcing way in and five minutes on the clock.

[Jacob Ward]

I don't know if you listen to the Perpetual Chess podcast, but if so the most recent interview (267 with Nelson Lopez) spends a considerable amount of time on this question. The view expressed there is that one should focus on getting just a tiny bit better every game and not worry if that doesn't translate immediately into results. I'm not sure I found it that useful - I'm sure it's good advice, just easier said than done - but might be interesting.

I find it useful to find something to focus on and tell myself it will have been a success if I achieve that even if I lose (e.g. for me, playing more actively). But I'm not sure anything really removes the sting of losing! My first event after the lockdowns ended I had, I think, 4 consecutive losses, some of them to much lower rated players, and no matter how much you tell yourself it is educational it is not much fun blundering away game after game. Perhaps it is better just to accept that losing is never going to be enjoyable?

[J T Melsom]

Jacob

Thanks - I'll let you know which club-mate to pass this advice to on Monday!
I really must get my head round podcasts, I've heard good things about Phil Makepeace's effort, but keeping ahead of all the new club members is keeping me busy enough.

[Tim Spanton]

At lower levels of club chess, there's a case for going sharp in e4 e5 openings.

For example I've seen the sequence 1. e4 e5 2, f4 d6 3. Nf3 . One might think that 3. .. exf4 transposing to the Fischer Defence was the only viable approach, but it seems 3. .. Bg4 is playable provided the Bxf7 cheapo doesn't work in future positions.

Something that can also work is 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 . Experienced players know that 3. .. d5 is the "book" move, but what if 3. .. exf4 ? I've seen 4. e5 played and met with 4. .. Qe7. That works in the Scotch but after 5. Qe2, Black is busted, according to engines. Black can be a bit worse but not fatally so with the grovel 4. .. Ng8. Let's not forget that after 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 , the objectively best or perhaps most challengimg move is 3. .. exf4.

I faced the 2...d6; 3...Bg4 line in a recent game: https://beauchess.blogspot.com/search?q=Wimble

[Roger de Coverly]

I faced the 2...d6; 3...Bg4 line in a recent game: https://beauchess.blogspot.com/search?q=Wimble

That's the sort of game I had in mind, but your opponent had ratings barely into four figures. Seeing what happened next (Black played .. Qf6 and .. Qxf4) reminds me of one of the obscure ideas against the Kings Gambit, namely 1, e4 e5 2. f4 Qf6 with the idea of .. Qxf4.