Me? Publishing MY analysis?

You can win free Grand Prix points at PlayChess with analysing your games. That is a nice idea. So I will get my Grand Prix points for free. Well, nearly free, as I have to analyse a game to get them.

That is no problem at all. I know nothing about chess but to lose. But I love to analyse games, as it gives you a hell of a time, replaying your game and rethinking your strategy. Every chess player should be forced to publish his or her analysis.

Are you reluctant to publish your analysis here? Are you afraid you will be laughed at, because of your lousy analysis? Well, I’ll give you a hint. They already laughed at you when you played the game. And in return of that favour, you can laugh at their games too, because they are as lousy as yours. In the mean time: analyse! Here you can find some tips.

Two types of analysis

There are two types of analysis. The first one helps you understand games you will never be able to play. When Kasparov says "I played 24.Rxd4 against Topalov, because ..." that is nice to know. It tells us a lot. A: he’s an Elo 2800+ player and B: I am not.

The second analysis helps you to understand your own games and opponent’s games better. It’s like thinking out loud. Don’t confine your thoughts to after the game!

Ever read Jerry Silman’s "The Amateur Mind"? If you see the book flashing by here on PlayChess, click on it and buy it. It’s marvellous. Silman lets amateurs like me and you replay situations from master games and forces them to think out loud.

It is remarkable how often people stray from the principles Silman tried to learn them. But they were also forced to recognize they forgot the principles. Next time they will know a little better, I’m sure. It’s valuable "on-the-fly analysis", don’t forget what you were thinking while you were playing.

A book I once bought in the sales,"The Master Game", tried the idea of analyzing a game while playing it. They recorded what the players were actually thinking. One game is between a (strong) club player and a grandmaster.

The Grandmaster: "O shoot, that’s a wrong move, hope he doesn’t see that, well, I can compensate my loss by..."

The Club Player: "Oops, that move looks strong, he’s trying a walkover, I have to make a defensive move, I’ll play ... and hope I will hold." That’s psychology, huh!?

But it’s good to see you shouldn’t be ashamed because you see it wrong. Think while you play your games at PlayChess, like you are analysing your game, and say it out loud. Remember: there is no need to comment on every move. We know 1. e2-e4 by now. Now write your comments down, and save it for your analysis afterwards. If you find out you made a bad move, don’t wipe the comments off your hard disk. Change them before publishing!

Editor's note

In the following Jeroen takes an impossible and non-existing position as an example. The moves don't matter! (It's all nonsense, like all of this) Just look at the way to analyse.

But what do I say?

Don’t panic, I’ll give you an example:

• (original comment while you were playing 19.Qd5:) "this is a strong move. I put pressure on his king with my queen on d5 and attack his b7-pawn simultaneously. He has to play Nd8 to cover that, and it pushes his knight to the back rank. I think I’m winning."
• (after you lost your queen with 19.Bxd5, you stupid twat:) "I totally overlooked his bishop on g8! First I thought this to be a strong move, with which I put pressure <blah blah> but I was wrong. This game is lost"

Computer kicks in

Now we go one step further. Did you know what you should have played?You should fire up your computer and start your very own IM/IGM: the chess computer program of your choice.

If you knew what to do, double check your analysis with it.

	Need a hand? Cray C90 supercomp

If you didn’t know what to do, let it do the dirty work for you.

If you haven’t got money to buy a chess program, download it for free. Start with a free interface like Winboard. There are lots of engines especially designed for it, and you can download them all for free. If you don’t want it that complicated, download a free program with an interface of its own, like "Der Bringer" written by Gerrit Reubold.

There are more of course, but let’s take Gerrit’s program as an example. Load the game or position, and analyse. If you have its analysis after a few minutes, what to do with it?

An example:

• wrong:
  "I totally overlooked ... (see above) ... Clearly 22. Kxh1 was the best, as it leads to 22...Nxf1 23.Bc3 Qh5 24.f4 f5 (...f6? 25.Kh2!! Bc2 (...Nh4 26.Qb5#) 26.Qxh7 Kf8 27. Qxf7#) 25. Rab1 Nd8 26.Bxe3 Bxe3 27. Qh6 Kg1 28. Ng3 g4 29..."
  as no one will believe you, and maybe Der Bringer is wrong, and somebody notices it. Then you’re a real dork, man.
• right:
  "I totally overlooked ... (see above) ... the analysis of Der Bringer said Kxh1 ..."

	You - and your computer

Remark: are you not that eloquent and haven’t got the time to write endless lines like me? Don’t bother, here’s a practical alternative: "Mistake!! I thought Qxb7 Nd8 . Der Bringer: Kxh1 ..."
Believe me, we are talking chess here, not the inaugural speech of the president of the USA. We will understand each other. Chess is our lingo!

Another remark: you don’t know what to play? Say it. "I can’t find a better (the best) move here".Be honest. That’s enough.

Ha! Let that computer sweat, it won’t complain. As long as you remember: your computer is your slave, but don’t be a slave to your computer.

So ...

A last thought to cheer you up.

One of the best analysers I know is my countryman Jan Timman, and he is internationally acclaimed for his thorough analysis.

His book "The art of analysis" is a jewel. The last edition not only tells you the structures and ideas behind a chess position and game, but also how Jan found out wrong analysis and new and better moves after he wrote the book.

Did you hear that? He is a GM, and he found out some of his original analysis was lousy ... !! What are YOU waiting for, then?

Grand Prix points: here we come.

Jeroen van Dorp is a 39 year old hobby chess player from Utrecht, The Netherlands. He dared to publish his own rubbish at http://zip.to/jeroen. You can contact him at jimvandorp@wxs.nl.

Download Tim Mann’s Winboard at
http://www.tim-mann.org/xboard.html

Download page for a lot of free engines (Frank Quisinsky’s page) at:
http://amateurschach.in-trier.de/index.htm

Download freeware chess program Der Bringer (Gerrit Reubold) at:
http://www.reubold.onlinehome.de/