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I remember when I first started playing chess again, almost exactly a year ago. As a beginner, I didn’t have any real tactical or strategic sense regarding how best to play. Today, I played a 10 min game with an opponent on chess.com who had left a comment in one of my articles on my blog. They had just started their account and is rated at around 500 in rapid chess. I’ve made all the errors they’ve made before in this game, and I didn’t play perfectly either. Analysing this game identifies some tips that might be helpful for beginner players.

So, tips and ideas in order of issues that occurred in this game. Generally, it’s a good idea to not accept a gambit that you’re not familiar with, and my opponent correctly did not accept the Vienna Gambit, and instead, prioritised the developing of their pieces. That’s a good general strategy. In the case of the Vienna Gambit, it’s tricky as the only good response is d5, which isn’t a natural looking move. This is something to just remember for next time!

The next tip is to remember that pieces like knights can go backwards. Undeveloping isn’t good, but losing a piece is even worse! Over the space of two moves, my opponent lost both their knights, something that could have been avoided by retreating the first knight rather than lashing out.

The loss of the second knight might have been due to not seeing the long diagonal controlled by my queen. I remember that as a beginner, I often lost pieces from bishops due to blindness to diagonals, especially from afar. It can be good practice if you know this is a bias, to consciously observe where the opponent’s bishops and queen are located, and even used the arrow tooks on chess.com to mark out the diagonals they cover.

The next tip is that when you are behind on material, don’t initiate balanced piece trades. That’s actually what the opponent wants to do strategically and you’re just helping them! My opponent initiated an early queen trade, which made it easier for me to win. Later in the game, my opponent always obliged with offers of trading pieces – first the rook, then the bishop, and then the final rook. This left me in an endgame up three minor pieces. When behind on material, try to consolidate your position and hold onto your material. If possible, see whether you can force the opponent to trade their pieces for your pawns, helping equalise the material.

I’d like to thank my opponent for entering this game, even though they were rated quite a bit below me. As before, I think they played well overall, and even had the clever plan towards the end to see whether they could force a stalemate.

I hope you enjoyed this video and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/34996239979

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.01.03"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "Cheessy_Taco"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C28"]
[WhiteElo "1156"]
[BlackElo "509"]
[TimeControl "600"]
[EndTime "16:58:46 PST"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 Nc6 4. fxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 Ng6 6. e5 Nxe5 7. dxe5 Nh5 8. Qxh5 g6 9. Qf3 Qh4+ 10. g3 Qh5 11. Bc4 Qxf3 12. Nxf3 a6 13. a4 c6 14. Be3 b5 15. axb5 cxb5 16. Nxb5 Bb7 17. Nd6+ Ke7 18. Nxb7 Ke8 19. Rxa6 Rxa6 20. Bxa6 Bb4+ 21. Bd2 Bxd2+ 22. Nxd2 g5 23. O-O g4 24. Nd6+ Ke7 25. Rxf7+ Ke6 26. N2c4 Ra8 27. Bb7 Ra1+ 28. Kf2 Rc1 29. Kg2 Rxc2+ 30. Rf2 Rxf2+ 31. Kxf2 Ke7 32. b4 Kd8 33. b5 Kc7 34. Be4 h5 35. b6+ Kb8 36. b7 h4 37. Nb5 hxg3+ 38. Kxg3 d5 39. e6 d4 40. e7 d3 41. e8=Q# 1-0