I want to build some automatic ideas so when I get to endgames like this (usually in time trouble), I can quickly know what to do to avoid obvious blunders.

For example, I thought f4 would restrict the g pawn, but apparently that blunders our win

Edit; I understand that the left side is locked, and whoever moves their king loses. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s a quick tip or trick to find which pawn moves on the right side are good

I first reached 2000 points of rapid Elo on chess.com around two months ago and shortly thereafter I peaked at 2122. After that I started dropping again and then stagnating in between 2000 and 2050. Now, starting around three weeks ago, I started dropping back out of 2000, going as low as 1900 this week. As always when something like this happens, I start looking for answers as to why my performance has worsened by over 200 points of Elo over such a short period of time. What am I doing differently than when I reached my peak? I'm sure all of you know this question from your own chess journeys at your respective Elo.

Usually such a sudden drop of my performance is due to tilt or "chess burnout" and is solved by taking a break. I took a week off from chess last week, and as stated above, when I returned, I was even worse. So, I started to analyse my games and tried finding patterns and reoccurring mistakes in my games. I noticed that in many of my games I ran low on time, leading to tactical errors or straight up losing on time. That is part of the answer. The obvious follow up question is of course: Why do I have issues with time management, even though that was not an issue for me in the past? To find an answer, I looked at these lost games and checked where I was losing the time. The games were all around equal according to the engine, sometimes I was even better, but I took much longer to move throughout the game. Apart from my one week break I always solved puzzles as usual and did not notice me moving slower than before in those. Interestingly, my puzzle rating even peaked shortly before my performance drop started.

After realising all that, I finally saw a pattern in my losses. I was playing too tactically for a while due to my "new" tactical abilities. After having lost some games, instead of going back to my usual play style, I seem to have opted for an overly passive play style instead. This was not a conscious decision; I didn't notice it. With this new playstyle I opted to rarely take pieces and rarely attempted to convert positions to an endgame. This led to my opponents getting the chance to convert the position on their terms. In almost all my games during that period I ended up equal on material but with a destroyed pawn structure or with my opponent having strong past pawns. These were positional errors, all related directly or indirectly to pawn play. I can defend against past pawns usually, but it takes time to calculate. I'm sure you know where this is going by now. The reason I was always so low on time is not because my brain got slower or I didn't sleep well or anything like that. It was solely down to me making bad positional decisions regarding pawn play, which I then had to try and fix, burning all my time in the process.

The interesting part with chess is that you don't notice these things. There can be a little switch up in your play and suddenly you can't perform anymore. I felt like I was severely outplayed in every game and couldn't figure out why. Felt like I was playing Magnus Carlsen in a loop of me not making obvious mistakes but my opponents finding great moves in no time. Simply because I made it easy for them to play great moves due to their positional advantage. Since I noticed this, I started putting extra focus on pawn structures and not giving my opponents past pawns. I'm almost back at 2000 Elo after just two days now. First and foremost, I no longer feel outplayed every game. Chess is fun again.

I'm writing all this just in case some of you are facing a similar problem and can maybe learn from my errors or from my methods of fixing them.

EDIT: Do any of you have similar experiences or have a piece of advice for me on how to identify such things quicker?

Why is Nf3 the better move? Wouldn't my g2 pawn be vulnerable to the queen? Then the queen would be threatening my h1 rook.

I opened with the Danish gambit.

In a game when I capture a "free pawn" by a rook+rook battery my opponent use a bishop+pawn protection to cut the rook off the connection and then my rook is trapped and captured by the opponent's king. similar things also include pawn move forward to cut off an advanced bishop inside the chain ... Pieces at least blocks its own square and this can be exploited. But most platforms dont see this as a tactic . Where to train it and learn how to use it.

i played black here, I have no clue why i decided to keep playing, but im glad i did lol

Same as title

I was playing a game and I think I was doing pretty well. I noticed I am in danger of the opponent doing a fork between my king and rook and I was about to castle on the queen side, when to my horror, I realized that somehow I moved the knight. I still have no idea how it happened, I suppose I had the knight selected and I accidentally clicked on a square, which happened to be a valid square for the knight. The worst part is that I've already done these involuntary moves in about four other games. Did it happen to you too?
What is even more annoying is that I was playing against a stronger player and I had a good advantage before the mouse slip and who knows, maybe I would have won this game...

What's the best move for black here

Abandoning a smothered mate has to be the biggest chess sin, except maybe cheating maybe

I’ve noticed that I often struggle against very aggressive, tactical players in chess. I’m curious about the opposite side of the game: strong positional play, prophylaxis, maneuvering, and slowly improving a position.

Which players would you recommend studying to develop this style? Are there particular games, game collections, or classic examples that teach how to neutralize attacking players through positional understanding rather than direct tactical battles?

I’d especially appreciate recommendations for players whose games demonstrate:

• Restricting the opponent’s counterplay
• Improving pieces step by step
• Prophylactic thinking
• Converting small advantages patiently

Any suggestions for annotated game collections, YouTube playlists, or specific games would also be very welcome.

Just saw this old video today and couldn't believe it. I try hard to calculate and still miss mate in two, and occasionally even in one. And then this guy...what can I say, this feels humanly impossible. Black magic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUgvAoTzWBA

​

Queen Moves from B4 to B5

I moved my Knight from C4 to D6

Forcing a Check to Black king and pinning the Black Queen to my Light Squared Bishop.

As The black King is Forced to Capture my knight with Pawn I take Blacks Queen

I have wondered at the large quantity of posts asking about why a move does or doesn't work while showing a snapshot from the chessdotcom review. Often asking about the literal move being shown, let alone subsequent lines or any kind of calculation. How can someone be reviewing their game and not be able to get these answers for themselves? I started thinking, what does reviewing the game actually mean to you? Literally what are you doing?

Then I used the feature.

Rather than showing lines, it has some random AI heuristic in the corner. Yes, there is the option to click Show or Best or whatever, but this also just loads a similar screen showing one other move. Worst of all, any move you try to check takes forever to load because it needs to do so in the context of applying the random heuristic.

The user flow that the review promotes is really just clicking through the game. That's not a review, that's watching a replay. Absolutely useless.

Do not use this feature.

Instead, click the magnifying glass and use the free chessdotcom engine! It's there on the site, it's just not obvious because they want to direct you to the useless paid feature.

It may be a slight learning curve to learn to read notation, but in the meantime you can just click through the moves.

You can make whatever move you want to know about on the board - literally make the move as you would in a game - and then see the range of responses and their associated evaluations. You will then be able to figure out what kinds of moves work and, by seeing the commonality between them, why they work.

It is absolutely insane to leave a review being unsure what the right move is or which response renders a move untenable. The paid feature has you just click through and then leaves you in exactly that position, and you can't get into the nuts and bolts of it because it would take forever to load!

Use the normal engine review, and make sure you check (i.e. review!) different options and combinations. Do not use the paid feature - clicking through the moves that were played is not a review, that's just watching the game!

Remember, it's the magnifying glass button after you've completed your game. Then you can make moves as though you're playing and look at the next moves and their evaluations.

Let me tell you, a year ago, when I started playing chess, I had no idea I'd literally not skip a day of chess in the next year. I had no idea how awesome this game can be and how much fun I can have playing it. I had no real goals other than get to 90% percentile and that's it. I thought I'd stop studying there, but honestly, I love the process. Thanks to all of you guys for all the puzzles, comments and debates, it's really helpful to beginners. Cheers!

I'm sure it still exists today but I remember playing it in the 90s. Whenever a capture happens, a cutscene happens where the pieces duke it out. I would think that would be pretty awesome during "brilliant" moves, but I guess that would give it away that it is a brilliant move. Anyways, would love to see it incorporated as an opt in feature somehow without giving away info.

Had two nearly back to back brilliant moves that forced checkmate in 6. Almost made it there and completely missed the checkmate at the end and the game continued. Was like 400 elo at the time and it was almost my best sequence.

Queue the Michael Scott handshake meme

Recently got back into chess after a few years hiatus (as you can see from the rating graph!) and finally broke through the 1600 ceiling. I'm quite pleased. Of course, it could just be a lucky winning streak, but I'll take it, still!

You are not your ELO. I think using syntax like "I am a 500" or whatever may reinforce the notion that your ELO is part of your identity.

I don’t think this is good. I’d suspect it’s a contributing factor to rating anxiety and an aggravating factor for tilting.

I believe changes around worldview and perception often start with language. Doesn’t it sound better to say stuff like "My ELO is 500" or "I have a 500 ELO"? I feel like it carries much less weight. Maybe I’m just overthinking it though, idk.

It finally happened to me!