A win, a loss and thoughts on post game analysis!

I played a G/60 on FICS today and then a G/65 on ICC.  I won the first and lost the second!

Both were instructive.  The loss more so (as per usual).

I am going to play a lot in the next week or so as I get ready for my first OTB tournament in well over six months and probably my last OTB tournament until the summer.

Before I post the games I would like to discuss post game analysis.  In the comment section to my last post, reader Laurent S. wrote:

"Hello ! Congratulations on your win ! Though I'm a bit surprised you use so many chess engines to analyze your game :-)

May I suggest you try and post your own analysis first ? In my experience, it helps identify the biggest mistakes better."

Laurent brings up the CORRECT point that one should analyze on their own first before throwing some engines at the game.  I told him that I agreed.  In my annotations it may be hard to tell when I am analyzing and when the engine analyzes.  If I did not see the correct move in post game analysis and only found it with the engine I will state "engine so and so likes this move" or something to that effect.  If I just give the variation with comments, I found the move and then corroborated it with an engine after the fact.

But where we can really use engines is not in finding moves BUT helping us see where we should have looked for other moves!!  Check it out:

In the Shredder Classic GUI (and I am sure in other GUIs as well) you can set it so that while you are analyzing, you only see the engine's evaluation..NOT the move choice....!!  This is key!  So then, when you find a dip or rise in evaluation that you weren't expecting you STOP the engine and spend some minutes really picking the position apart ON YOUR OWN!  Then turn the engine on again and see if your new answer was what it was looking for.  See what happens with this method??  Whether it be a win or a loss, you have created Mini-Styoko exercises out of YOUR OWN GAMES!!  BOO-YA!!!!!!!

I can't tell you how much this has helped me really learn from my mistakes!  So here is my post game analysis method in a nutshell:

• Go over the game ON MY OWN, looking for better moves and jotting down thoughts on the various important positions.
• Go over it again with a theoretical database and look at the opening.
• Go over it one more time and recheck my thoughts and make more notes.
• NOW I go over the game again with Houdini 2.  But I do this with the aforementioned setting where I CANNOT see Houdini's move choice!  So every time the evaluation makes a decent jump up or down (2 to 3 centipawns or whatever they call them) then I stop the engine and do a mini-styoko.  Then I check my answer with Houdini!
• I repeat the previous step over and over until I have gone through the entire game.
• Finally I take the important positions where I did the mini-styokos and I let another engine or three check them out for alternative moves.  This sometimes proves pointless BUT it often can be very ILLUMINATING!!  It is VERY important to spend time with the alternate variation(s) on your own so you understand it AND can make a somewhat informed opinion over which variation you like best!

So with that in mind I give you my two games from today.


First the win:

And now the loss:

Until next time...Be Well!!