Tuesday, March 5, 2019

An Experiment in Classifying Games

I did this with a run of twenty games a few weeks ago and it was kind of interesting and helpful to see where I most need to study. I know lichess has some game "insights" tools but I like doing stuff hands-on as well.

Why was the game lost???
I want to classify my last 50 games according to what factors I think decided the game. This could be:
TACTICS - From both sides! Were tactics played out that created a significant imbalance? Or were significant tactics missed?
STRATEGY - A game with few exchanges, lots of slow moves and maneuvers in the opening and middlegame
ENDGAME - Did the game come down to an ending with fewer pieces on the board?
PERSONAL BLUNDER - Did I f*** up in a major way and not see something that changed the course of the game?

Many games will be hard to classify but I will put myself into the brain of the losing side and try to find the most annoying reason/s the game was lost. Obviously this will be pretty subjective and most games will probably be a combination of factors so I'll use a points system. 

Example:
A game was equal through the opening, then my opponent blundered and missed a queen-rook skewer so I went up the exchange then we quickly and easily simplified down and I had a bishop and passed pawn that I was going to promote when opponent resigned. 
TACTICS: 1
STRATEGY: 0
ENDGAME: 1
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 0

There was a struggle of positioning pieces with only one pawn trade and one minor piece trade through the first 20 moves, then I slowly got choked out and misplayed a rook and pawn endgame and resigned.
TACTICS: 0
STRATEGY: 1
ENDGAME: 1
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 1

There were maybe some strategic moves and a complicated tactic that let my opponent go up a pawn then we went to a knight and bishop vs knight and bishop endgame wherein they had a passed pawn. I had to play defensively and eventually let their knight in to get another pawn and I couldn't maintain my defenses.
TACTICS: 1
STRATEGY: 1
ENDGAME: 1
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 0

Solid opening but no exchanges, lots of strategic slow moves by both sides then I struggled to find a play and was under SOME time pressure and eventually straight up blundered a bishop when I moved it to a square I thought was protected.
TACTICS: 0
STRATEGY: 1
ENDGAME: 0
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 1
______________________

So from this collection of example games, my totals are:
TACTICS: 2
STRATEGY: 3
ENDGAME: 3
PERSONAL BLUNDER: 2

From this I should have a solid plan on what to focus on!

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