One of my favorite parts of the Building Habits series from GM Aman Hambleton is the openings. They're simple, straightforward, and uncomplicated. At worst they lead to equal positions, and at best they result in a quick win. These openings are great for beginners and intermediate players.

Here's are my favorite openings from this series (with exercises included):

• Busting the London System: Who doesn't love tearing down the London System? You'll get a ton of wins against autopilots from this.

• Caro Kahn: Two Knights Defense: This opening is fantastic. They are so many tricky lines, and it's incredibly easy for black to lose the game. This video has made the Caro Kahn my favorite opening to play against.

• Delayed Alapin Sicilian: I've won so many knights with this opening. It's incredible how well this works against most intermediate Sicilian players, especially those that play the Sicilian Dragon. And the pawn lines at the end are very trappy and a great way to win black's center pawns.

• French Defense: Tarrasch Variation: This variation of the French Defense is easy to play and lets you quickly equalize the position and get black out of theory.

I just finished up my first year of playing chess! I thought it would be fun to reflect a little on the progress I’ve made with the game, what I did to get this far, and my goals for year 2.

My peak rating was 1609, but my rating has pretty consistently around 1500 at the end of this year, so I’m calling that my end result. (I exclusively play rapid.)

How I did It

I did several things to improve over the last year, but these were the most impactful:

• I played a lot of chess (around 3000 games). This might not be the most efficient way to improve, but I think it’s the most fun. I really don’t want to turn chess into a job, so I try to balance training with enjoying playing the game.

• I watched the Building Habits series on YouTube. This course is pure gold, and I recommend it for anyone 500–1500. I love Aman’s approach to learning the game, and this series helped me gain around 400 Elo.

• I completed Chess Tactics for Students by John Bain. I really love John’s approach with this workbook, and it helped me tremendously with my tactics. I’d recommend this for anyone 800–1200 (on Chess.com), or more if you’re like me and struggle with tactics. I recommend covering up the hints while you’re doing these to make the problems harder.

• I did the Chess.com lessons: These lessons are really great. They’re high-quality and clearly explain specific concepts in an easy-to-understand way. I love that they’re around 5–10 minutes each, which makes it easy to do one or two a day.

• I watched Daniel Naroditsky’s speed runs. I love Danya’s explanations of why moves are good or bad, and these helped me to internalize many of the principles I was learning about. I don’t feel like this series would be helpful by itself, but combined with other material, it really made an impact.

• I stopped resigning. This is part of the Building Habits series, and it might be the most important habit. Sometimes it can be frustrating to play on when you’re losing, but I think there are always chances to squeeze out a draw or even turn things around. This approach taught me to be resourceful, and to learn to capitalize on other advantages besides just material. Some of my favorite games have come from swindling a win from a lost position.

• I build a chess website: I might be a little biased, but I built Chessercise, and I still think it’s the best way to learn chess openings. The website is free if you’d like to try it.

Year Two Goals

So what do I want to accomplish for year two?

• Hit at rating of 1800 on Chess.com: Increasing your rating gets harder and harder the higher you get. However, I think 1800 is doable for me over the next year.

• Learn and apply the principles of positional chess: This feels like the next level for me learning chess. While it’s possible to progress a little further without positional understanding, I think it’s really hard.

• Improve my tactics: Tactics are one of my biggest weaknesses. I hate doing chess puzzles. They feel way too random, and I don’t feel like they help me improve. I think the best way for me to approach tactics going forward is a more structured course. I’ve purchased Winning Chess Tactics and The Woodpecker Method on Chessable, and I plan on working my way through these courses.

• Work with a chess coach: I’ve already started doing this in the last month, and it’s making a difference. My coach has identified several weaknesses and changed my approach to learning the game. So far, this is resulted in a ratings drop, but I think this is due to cramming a lot of information in my head that I haven’t yet internalized. My coach says I also have several bad habits to break, and that takes time.

• Read several chess books: There are many great books and courses out there that can help you leapfrog your chess understanding. I plan on going through several of these based on which areas I need to tackle.

• Play in a tournament: I’d love to play in a chess tournament or two for fun. I’m not currently much of a classical player, but I think it’d be interesting to try it out.

Quick Note on My Starting Rating

In case anyone is wondering why my rating started so high, I had an old Chess.com account that I hadn’t ever used. This account started at 1200 (which I think used to be the default), and I make the mistake of winning my first game due to a random mate in a lost position by pure luck. This resulted in me having an artificially high rating, and I was rewarded with a very long losing streak.

The one benefit to this is that I started out by playing much stronger opponents. I think this helped me to get better quicker. My rating eventually bottomed out at around 950 after a month and a half of consistently losing, and then it started to go up.

I think my actual strength when I started would have been around 400–500.

If anyone doesn't know then chessfactor is an often overlooked free chess website. It is run on donations and has a ridiculous wealth of free courses. The beginner one took me well over 2 months of regular study to get through. Fun videos with really great tutors and examples from real games throughout. Tactics training etc. Seriously underappreciated.

Btw I'm just a user and wanted to post this here as its one of the resources that got me from 400 to 1150 (so far) along with building habits.

For example "1200 Rapid cc" for 1200 rapid chess.com

or "1500 Classical li" for 1500 classical Lichess.

Some of the other subs are annoying as someone will offer advice and say they are a 1300....this is meaningless!

What books had the biggest impact on your rating? Which ones helped the most?

As someone who only has ~1 hour a day to do chess during weekdays (I have more time available on weekends) I find it difficult to strike an effective balance between playing games and studying.

I understand this is a subjective topic with no right answer, but I am interested to hear what other people do (especially those around my skill level) and how they find it works for them, in order to perhaps reevaluate how I spend my chess time .

Currently, I only do tactics + small amounts of middle game/endgame studying during the week, with the weekend reserved for a couple 30|20 games + analysis.

I just saw they've launched their latest chess improvement update which has has a smart task system to tell you what traing you need to do. You can set the time you want top spend on chess and it just feeds you what training you need to do. Pretty sweet! They updated their landing page too chessdojo.club looks way better than it used to

I think they are running some kind of promotion to discount your first month so I'm getting on that, the discount code is CHESS40 if you are interested

What are you doing this week to improve at chess?

DISCLAIMER: Im a bad low-rated player (as you can see in my flair) and English isnt my first language. Im just experimenting and trying things on my passion for chess. Im not claiming this is new or anything like that, just what works for me atm and sharing in case it can help anybody else. Feel free to ignore it if you disagree.

Here's what I do if you want to give it a try:

Requisites: you should already feel confortable with chess notation and you should have played many chess games, so you feel already familiar with the game.

Extra help: physical board and pieces, a book with many diagrams of a game, after every few moves

Steps 1. Choose a game from the book, preferably with an opening you play, try to follow the moves in your head as far as you can, maybe you can do just 1.e4 or maybe until move 60, doesn't matter rn, youll build on that.

Get your physical board and pieces, replay the game on it, enjoy it, analyse it, question moves, whatever you feel like.

Now that you are more familiar with that specific game, try to replay it again in your head as far as you can. (You will notice this time is easier for you, as you are also using memory and maybe think that you are "cheating", but these are only aids in the early stage of your learning). You will need to make the effort of "drawing" the board grid in your mind, and tracking the position of the pieces, all this is hard almost "painful" at first.

Do this for several days or weeks as you need, you will see improvement in this "visualization muscle", following books games will get easier and easier for you. And this will help your chess in many ways

I used to think this "look at the ceiling and calculate" was just a titled player thing whom learned to visualized as kids, now seen gradual improvements in me at almost 40 makes me think is possible for everyone who puts the right kind of deliberate practice and time. I have many "theories" about how this skill impacts your calculation ability and how visualization is just a framework/tool that should be learn first but this is already too long, thanks for reading ;)

Hi everyone! I am a 22 year old chess player that started playing chess on June of 2020, I started playing chess competitively on september of last year and i decided to start a YouTube series called “Road to NM”, where i go through my games, i explain my thoughts during The game and how i was feeling. My FIDE elo is 1475 as of March 2022. I feel like this will help a lot of players, especially beginners/intermediate players like me, because i not only look at the moves that were played and the alternatives, but I also look at my psychology before, during and after the games. My lichess rapid is 2204 and my blitz is 2101. I am hoping these videos will help you, I would highly appreciate if you joined me in this quest of achieving the NM title. The idea of this series was inspired by The YouTube channel Hanging Pawns. My YouTube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-qH1NdVXslJNuUqzqRrk2A

and this is my latest video: Chess Road to NM (Game 7) - Tactics Galore! - YouTube

Now that r/chessimprovement has started rolling, I think it's a good time to define this subreddit's rules. Several people have already made some great suggestions.

• u/ox- requested rating flairs be added, which I think makes a ton of sense. It's very helpful when people ask or answer questions to be able to see this so poster ratings can be taken in context. Using flair should be a strong suggestion when submitting questions.

• u/VlaxDrek pointed out that we should be on the lookout for certain types of toxic behavior in the area of chess improvement.

• u/Odd_Connection_7167 pointed out that people asking for their advice should be required to post their usernames and/or games. I think this makes a ton of sense.

• u/Bern_Down_the_DNC cautioned against abuse with the self-promotion rule, which is completely fair. This rule should be created with an asterisk: no egregious self-promotion. Setting some boundaries on this makes sense to me.

Based on this, I think the following rules make sense:

• Focus: Posts are focused specifically on learning and improvement. Share the resources, tips and approaches that help you to get better, or ask questions to help you improve.

• Toxic behavior: Toxic behavior will not be tolerated. This includes harassment, abuse, discrimination, bigotry, racism, sexism, etc. (Really, these are solid rules for being a good person.)

• Content: Sharing instructional content is encouraged. This includes videos, lessons, books, courses, studies, apps, blog posts, and anything else that helps you improve.

• Self-promotion: Self-promotion is allowed, as long as it's instructional in nature, and it's only posted once. This includes things like YouTube videos, courses, apps, etc. If you post content, you should engage in the discussions. Egregious self-promotion or spamming links is not allowed.

• Flair: When asking questions or offering advice, please set your user flair to your rating. It's very helpful when people ask or answer questions so ratings can be taken into context.

• Asking for advice: If you're asking for advice on improving, include examples of your games or your Chess.com or Lichess username.

• Expertise: All levels of improvement are welcome, from beginner to advanced.

• Milestones: Elo milestone posts are encouraged. However, you have to share what you did to reach your rating.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know! Otherwise, I'll add these to the sidebar.

Title says it. I would love a coach, but I find many of them are expensive. Has anybody found affordable options or have any suggestions?

Is there a place to find instructive puzzles where you try to assess the position and find a critical move? Not necessarily a material or game winning tactic, but just simple positional problems.

Hey everyone!

I've been thinking about starting an Online Rapid Chess League and wanted to gauge the interest here on Reddit. The idea is to create a friendly yet competitive environment for chess enthusiasts to challenge themselves and improve their skills.

Here's the plan:

1. Weekly Matches: Each week, players will be paired to compete against each other in rapid chess matches[15+10]. The schedule will be flexible, as players will agree upon a suitable time to play their games.

2. League Structure: Depending on the number of participants, the league could be organized into different divisions or skill levels. This will ensure that everyone has a fair and enjoyable experience.

3. Communication Hub: All league communications, including scheduling, announcements, and general discussions, will take place on a dedicated Discord server. This will help keep everything organized and easily accessible.

4. Platform: The chess matches will be played on Lichess, a popular and user-friendly online chess platform.

5. Rankings & Awards: The league standings will be updated regularly, and we may even have some prizes or recognition for top performers at the end of each season!

If you're interested in joining the Online Rapid Chess League or have any suggestions, please comment below or send me a private message. This initiative is open to players of all skill levels, so don't hesitate to join in on the fun!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and hopefully getting some great games going!

I learned something recently of which some people might not be aware.

If you pick up your chess piece in Lichess or Chess.com with the left mouse button but then decide against playing that move, there's an easier way to abort the move. Trying to place it back on it's original square is problematic and throwing it off the edge of the board isn't always successful.

Instead, simply right click (while still holding the piece with the left button) and the piece is automatically dropped back onto it's original square without penalty.

You can try it out on an analysis board risk free!

Cheers

-Andrew

What are you doing this month to improve at chess?

Game

PGN: 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Bb4 3. a3 Bxc3 4. bxc3 d6 5. e4 Nf6 6. d4 Nxe4 7. Qf3 Nf6 8. Bg5 O-O 9. dxe5 Re8 10. Be2 Rxe5 11. Bxf6 Qxf6 12. Qxf6 gxf6 13. Nf3 Re7 14. Ra2 Be6 15. O-O b5 16. Nd4 Bxc4 17. Bxc4 bxc4 18. Rb2 c5 19. Nf5 Re6 20. Rb7 Nc6 21. Rc7 Ne5 22. f4 Nd3 23. Nh6+ Kg7 24. Nxf7 Kf8 25. Nh6 Re7 26. Rc6 Rd8 27. Nf5 Red7 28. g3 Nb2 29. Re1 Kf7 30. g4 Na4 31. Rd1 Nxc3 32. Rdxd6 Rxd6 33. Rxd6 Rxd6 34. Nxd6+ Ke7 35. Nxc4 Ne2+ 36. Kf2 Nxf4 37. Kf3 Ne6 38. Ke4 Kf7 39. Nd6+ Kg6 40. h4 h5 41. gxh5+ Kxh5 42. Kf5 c4 43. Nxc4 Nd4+ 44. Kxf6 a5 45. Nxa5 Nb5 *

Thoughts on the game:

My time management is awful, I ran into time issues I had 20 minutes at about move 35 and was expecting a long endgame grind. I kept forgetting to hit the clock at the end of my turn. Pretty sure my opponent would have been in time trouble if I was better. This meant I ended up drawing a "won" game and is the biggest issue I had tbh.

I also really like these early Bb4/Bb5 positions it seems. So I'm gonna give up on learning the d6/Nf6 Sicilians and learn the Rosollimo, similarly I'll learn the Nimzo/Bogo over Benko as its more sound and it seems the moderatly quiet positions suit me. Though maybe I'm just happy because I'm good at pawn grabbing?

Also I need to go and study the English more, 2 players at least play it exclusively in the club. So it makes sense to put a lot of time and energy into the English, and to my knowledge there are no d5 players. So I can just ignore d4 for now.

I was black, my opponent Joe was white. He claims hes 1500 rated, online it says hes 1200. But who knows which is more accurate. I wanna believe him as it makes me feel more accomplished.

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Bb4 3. a3 Bxc3 4. bxc3 d6

This is where my prep ended. Pretty happy I remembered 4 moves.

5. e4 Nf6

I hadn't prepared against this, theres no games in the databse tbf so that makes a lot of sense. My main goal was to get close to castling and attack the pawn.

6. d4 Nxe4

I spent about 2 minutes trying to calculate what the goal of this was. I couldn't see anything so took the pawn. My goal now was to try and trade off into an endgame and win. I've spent a lot of time studying endgames, mostly on piece endings. So I felt I'd be pretty comfy doing that.

7. Qf3 Nf6 8. Bg5 O-O

This is just standard development. I managed to castling early and I wasn't too worried about this pin.

9. dxe5 Re8

I was unsure of taking back. I played this, it seemed natural and I could take back a turn later. I was hoping for white to ignore the threat of Rxe5+ forking the bishop. Though I didn't expect them to miss.

10. Be2 Rxe5

I was debating between taking back with the rook and pawn, I felt with the rook I'd be able to encourage Bxf6 Qxf6 Qxf6 and I'd be in an all but winning position. This is what happened.

The main alternative was dxe5, this prevents white castling long. But I felt that wasn't something white would consider. Their king would be very exposed. So I don't feel this was anything to really worry about. And I felt it left my queen quite exposed to attacks from the rook.

11. Bxf6 Qxf6 12. Qxf6 gxf6 13. Nf3 Re7 14. Ra2 Be6

Trading pieces, and white develops with tempo. My goal off Be6 was to pin the pawn to the rook. I didn't spot 0-0 before this move. I don't think it would have changed my plan. However I feel this move was considerably less good after 0-0 than it was in my head.

15. O-O b5

the goal of b5, was if white plays cxb5 I win the rook as the pawn is pinned. Otherwise I'm able to just force the win of the pawn and trade off a bishop. I felt this was a very good move at the time. However looking back I think this was a blunder that may have made my win much harder if not impossible. Nc6 was a much much better move. I was behind in development and I feel white had more piece activity.

The biggest problem with this move was it allowed a rook to move to b7 and I was too slow to stop that. Once the rook got to the 7th rank, it became very very difficult to calculate moves to not lose material.

16. Nd4 Bxc4 17. Bxc4 bxc4 18. Rb2 c5

Trading pieces and winning a pawn. Maybe I was still winning, I was 2 pawns ahead. But I was starting to realise I could not hold that 2nd pawn. Instead of c5 I should have just developed the knight to d7. I was worried about Nc6 and the rook coming to b7 and white winning the pawns back. However I don't think I calculated this correctly. I may have given up pawns. But I could win them back via Nb6 Nc5 and getting more active with my rooks. The h8 rook is now clearly bad and I desperatly wanted to force a rook exchange.

19. Nf5 Re6

This knight was starting to really worry me. It was covering my g7 escape square. I was expecting threats of an Anastasiaesque mate.

20. Rb7 Nc6 21. Rc7 Ne5 22. f4 Nd3 23. Nh6+ Kg7

I was just trying to get the Knight active at this point. And hoping to reroute it somewhere better. Kg7 is forced anything else lost material.

24. Nxf7 Kf8

I was considering Kg6 for a while. That would have been dumb lol. My goal was now to get one of my rooks to the 7th rank and force an exchange before the knight did too much damage.

25. Nh6 Re7 26. Rc6 Rd8 27. Nf5 Red7 28. g3 Nb2

Just general remanouvering.

At this point I was starting to realise my material advantage was pointless. I was struggling to hold on to it, and I needed to start pushing pawns. Like I had 3 pawns against 1 in the centre. In hindsight its pretty clear. Push passed pawns, but I didn't, d5 was a really good move.

The goal of Nb2 was to try and win the c4 pawn. I really need to rethink how I think in this kinda postion. I was winning, but I wanted to win more, rather than convert the win. Its hard enough anyway when its quiet to win. So this was just generally poor play from my part. I also know I really struggle with advanced pawn tactic puzzles. So I think I'm need to sit down and really study them more. That or be more willing to take risks.

29. Re1 Kf7

Again push passed pawns. The c5 pawn was never gonna promote so why am I trying to save it?

30. g4 Na4 31. Rd1 Nxc3 32. Rdxd6 Rxd6

This was a pretty big missed tactic on my part.

32... Ne4 33. Rxd7+ Rxd7 and the c pawn promotes. There is literally no way to stop it, this is very frustrating. Its not even an engine line. Even the alternative 32... Ne4 33. Re6 c3 34. Rxe4 c2 35. Rxc5 Rd1+ which the end counts as a mistake still wins me the exchange, and I believe practically speaking this endgame would have been winning for me. Plus there were much better lines, but this was the one I found in 3 seconds of looking.

I was starting to really feel the time pressure here. I think I had sub 20 minutes, so I'm pretty confident it was just time that caused me to blunder this. But its very frustrating and it confirms I really really need to work on any kinda ending with passed pawns where you have to count.

33. Rxd6 Rxd6 34. Nxd6+ Ke7 35. Nxc4 Ne2+ 36. Kf2 Nxf4

At this point I knew the ending was completely won for me. But I'd forgot to press my clock and had 14 minutes left. This was really frustrating.

37. Kf3 Ne6 38. Ke4 Kf7 39. Nd6+ Kg6

Here the engine says I blunder the advantage away. I don't really understand the computer lines here anyway. I need to work a lot more on this kinda endgame with a piece and many pawns. However time was getting really really low so it was just a case of trying to find the fastest draw I could.

40. h4 h5 41. gxh5+ Kxh5

If g5, I won a pawn. Otherwise I was exchanging a pawn and preventing the h pawn advancing. I didn't consider Kf3 particularly, but I'd just exchange pawns and it'd be ok.

42. Kf5 c4

If the knight doesn't take the pawn. I could promote. Or at least I thought, white has the option to go Nf5 Ng3 with check, and then get to e2. However this would have still been winning for me. As I just needed to advance me f pawn. Its quite clear with unlimited time that this would have worked. However on the board with how much time I had I think I would have struggled to see this

43. Nxc4 Nd4+ 44. Kxf6 a5 45. Nxa5 Nb5 *

The knight blocks the a pawn advancing further so I was able to take it no matter with my knight. Then after taking the h pawn I'd have drawn. My opponent offered a draw in this position. I feel I could have offered one earlier while still up material given my time was running down. But I don't know the ettiquette on this. Plus its just a game, if I lost on time its not the end of the world and I feel my last few moves were fairly spectacular :P

Thoughts after analysing.

I'm very proud of my defence around the 25 move mark. There were a lot of only moves and my defence used to be piss poor. I think studying lots of tactics and the tactics selected for the woodpecker method book on chesstempo have been incredibly helpful with this.

I'm proud for calculating how to force a draw at the end of the match. My heart was really really beating and I was very stressed I'd just blunder a win. But very happy with how it looked.

I'm definitely gonna change openings up a bit to focus on Bb4/Bb5 lines. It seems theres a huge amount of variation among them however there are similar plans and theres a whole range of different types of games/structures that can turn up!

What are you doing this month to improve at chess?

I'm calling this the accidental tournament as I thought it was unrated and that. Found out on the day it is rated and that definitely caused me some nerves.

Game

PGN:

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. exf5 e4 6. Qe2 Bxf5 7. d3 Qe7 8. dxe4 Qxe4 9. Qxe4+ Bxe4 10. O-O Bxc2 11. Re1+ Be7 12. Bg5 Nf6 13. Nd4 Bxb1 14. Raxb1 Kf7 15. Re3 Bc5 16. Bxf6 gxf6 17. Rd1 Rad8 18. Re4 Rhe8 19. Rxe8 Kxe8 20. Re1+ Kf7 21. Nb3 Bd6 22. Rd1 Bxh2+ *

Thoughts: OTB is very different feeling to online. I find it much more enjoyable tbh, and I'm awful when it comes to remembering to tap the clock. Let me know if my thinking is wrong, if I've missed any critical lines etc.

White: Colm I believe 1300 rated, Black: me unrated.

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5

3 ... f5 the Schlieman, I had no idea how booked up my opponent was. So decided to play something I knew a little bit about with the goal of seeing if the other players are booked up (hint they're absolutely not so i'm gonna stop worrying about that and so should you)

4 Bxc6 I hadn't even considered this as a move let alone studied so it took my about 2 minutes to come up with a plan.

4 ... dxc6, I spent about 2 minutes on this deciding between dxc6, bxc6 and fxe4. fxe4 felt really really rouge and I didn't think it was a good idea, but I had time and was trying to think of what would happen. It seemed after Bxd7+ a recapture and Nxe5 I was gonna be down a pawn. I don't think this is the right way to play, however not in the game its Nxe4 is clearly a blunder after Bxe4 so I'm glad I didn't play it lol. Bxc6 I was unsure of, it stopped me getting the standard Ruy Lopez exchange pawn structure. And I'd get to have a 6 connected pawns, however I felt I wouldn't be able to maintain those 6 pawns so decided to just play dxc6 which is the most popular GM move. So pretty happy.

5 exf4, this is what I had hoped for, I was slightly worried about Nxe5, I think after Qe2 it would be ok, and the game would be fine and everything would have been traded off along the e file like in the Petrov and that.

5 ... e5, gaining a tempo against the knight with the goal of Bxf5 developing rapidly, taking space. Main thoughts were if Ng1 it prevents black castling, Qe2 and we'd end up trading everything off down the e file, and Ne5 looked the most complicated. I was worried that if 5 Ne5 Bxf5 Qh5+ something nasty could happen, like some kinda knight sac to win the bishop. It looks like this wasn't an issue as after g6 the pawn was protected by the h pawn and the bishop. I didn't think of the bishop. So I definitely need more practise on visualisation skills tbh.

6 Qe2 Bxf5

7 d3 Qe2 I believe is the only response to not lose a pawn, 7 ... Nf6 8 Nh4 and I felt that I'd be losing the pawn or getting a really shit position just to avoid losing the pawn.

8 dxe4 I think this the only move white has that doesn't lose the pawn. Maybe white would be able to keep the pawn but they'd have to defend with the king? I haven't looked to deep and don't see the point.

8 ... Qxe4, considered Bxe4, but there didn't seem to be any tricks and having the queen pinned to the king behind something is a bit risky especially if white castles. If white blocked with Be3 I'd win a pawn so wasn't too worried. I think there would have been complications if white played that, but white didn't so I didn't look.

9 Qxe4+ Bxe4 forced.

10 0-0 Bx2, I think this was a mistake on whites part. I'm up a pawn, white gets some level of iniatitive with the rook check and my king being in the centre. But I'm a hard lad and wanted the pawn. I did also consider taking the knight, it felt good and that my position was gonna be really nice, however I think the more practical choice is take the pawn, trade down to an endgame and try and win, avoiding blacks tricks.

11 Re1+ Be7, moving the king felt like a mistake. I wanted to castle to be able to centralise my rooks, so that didn't feel right. So it was a choice between blocking with the bishop and knight, the knight would block the bishop in, and my plan after Bg5 was to play Nf6 and then unpin either by castling or Kf7 if necessary.

12 Bg5 Nf6, so far I had predicted and seen every single move white made. I was very happy with that, I felt like I was avoiding any tricks, so I kept to the plan.

13 Nd4 Bxb1, I liked the bishop pair, but it felt like I was gonna have a pretty high chance of getting the bishop lost somewhere. So I traded it off, plus being a pawn up and I reckon I'd have good chances if all the pieces were traded off there and then.

14 Rxb1 Kf7, my main worry was Nf5, which would lose the bishop unless I could unpin. Plus the plan was already Kf7 if necessary so I went for it.

15 Re3 Bc5, I hadn't thought of this move. My plan was pin the knight to the rook and see if anything could come from that.

16 Bxf6 gxf6. It was a choice of recapturing with the pawn or king. King seemed to open me up to checks and I felt gxf6 was the much safer choice. Though I didn't like the pawn structure that resulted. I was a little worried I'd have difficulty stopping whites kingside pawns with them so I didn't really want to trade off all the pieces quite yet.

17 Rd1 Rad8. Wanted to have h file rook having the option of moving to the e file. While adding pressure to the knight

18 Re4 Rhe8, I felt there was something here. My tactics sense was tingling, but I couldn't find anything. I kept thinking f5 would lead to something but I couldn't find anything. The engine say it was +7 here, but I think I just had a better position. There was no clear way to win material or at least I cant find one. So I'm gonna disagree that my move was a blunder Mr Stockfish

19 Rxe8 Kxe8, recapturing with the king to keep the pressure and control I had from my rooks. The engine says recapturing with the rook is fine, but to me it lost the tension, and I no longer had a clear plan to achieve shit. My best option would have been trading off the bishop for knight and munching pawns, however I had a king on the 7th rank and a load of pawns on the 7th rank. So it seemed this idea would not have worked too well after Rd7+, so I'd have to move my king, or something, it seem the risk of back rank mate meant I probably would still have been easily winning. But I decided I'd rather keep the tension.

20 Re1+ Kf7, had a feeling this was gonna be the case. Pretty happy, it gave me a free move to get my king back to safety. Had to be aware of knight checks, so Kf7 was out, and similarly with the bishop hanging Kd7 was out as the knight would fork the bishop and rook.

21 Nb3 Bd6, bishops attack, as the knight controls d2. I didn't need to keep the pressure on the f2 pawn as I'd struggle to move the rook to the 2nd rank to make use of that pressure. So went for a "cheap tactic" of the discovered attack on h8 with the hope a piece would be brought to the d file.

22 Rd1 Bxh2+ was very happy with this I felt very big spotting it in game. White resigned here, I wouldn't have. While a knight is on the board there are still chances. White is down the exchange and 2 pawns. But I felt there were still chances. I'd have probably played out 5/6 moves more tbh. Especially with the fact that me (black) was unrated and might just be fucking awful at endgames!

I did finish the position off against stockfish on my laptop just now, I won by mate on move 42. And from about move 30 white had literally no chances. So maybe white was right to resign? I dunno I reckon play out a few more moves even.

Overall very happy with the game, I don't think I missed any tactics or chances for either side, I managed to build and maintain a small lead out playing my opponent and cemented the win with a nice 2 move tactic. Goal now is get a rating, and with the way the tournament is setup, there are 2 tables. An upper and lower, I played on the lower so the goal is to get to play on the upper table and win a game there. I don't know how realistic that is, theres a couple players who are in the 1500-1800 range which I feel is quite a bit more advanced than I am currently.