25 Comments
User's avatar
Tyrin Price's avatar

This is an area I have been trying to figure out, too. Your suggestions make the process simpler even though I still have trouble being objective about the "why" ... I can attribute pretty much everything to a lack of skill -- like attributing all causes of death to heart failure. :-)

Thanks for the post!

Nigel Smith's avatar

When analysing with lichess and trying to figure out why your move was wrong a useful trick is to go back to the opponents previous move (before your mistake) and press the threat button (looks like a cross hair) in the lichess analysis pane - this will give you big clues together with the calculated lines as to what your opponent's threat was esp. if not immediately obvious

Fantastic article btw - I am working through Dalton's related article trying to see the mistake patterns in my games this season - it's very interesting

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

Thanks! I haven't used that feature, but I will give it a try! Sounds interesting. Currently I'm doing my basic tactics with the board flipped, something Dalton mentioned in an article. Makes it much harder honestly

Audie's avatar

Thank you for sharing this helpful tip!

Nobody here's avatar

This is, without any doubt, the best chess article I have read in my life

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

That is very high praise. Thank you very much and I hope it helps you!

Junta Ikeda's avatar

Great post Nick, the categories -> root causes -> action plan flow makes things super practical (especially liked how you made the first two simple to visualise).

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

Thanks! That means a lot. Enjoyed your interview recently on Perpetual Chess too!

Paul Gottlieb's avatar

This was a terrific article. As an retired programmer I really appreciated such a well defined process. Which engine/evaluation bar software are you using of this process? Using my old Chessbase 15 I can't figure out how to hide the engine window without turning off evaluations

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

I’m using Stockfish in Lichess Analysis tool. There is a Stockfish you can download as a separate app for desktop. Hope that helps!

Markku's avatar

Do you document your findings? and if so, how and do you review?

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

I made a spreadsheet and took some notes on what I saw most commonly. My next post will be about using this process to analyze about 20 games

Rick's avatar

Wow, what a great post.

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

That’s very kind of you. Hope it helps

Audie's avatar

Just wanted to say thank you for this post!

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

Appreciate that very much!

Audie's avatar

And then I like how Dalton turbocharged your idea!

Southernrun's avatar

Thanks. One of the best posts I’ve read about the subject and ideas that are very applicable .

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

Appreciate it. This post was a lot of work

Nigel Smith's avatar

Interesting ideas - I think the other factor in looking at your move choices is how much time you had left and used when making a move. Effective use of time and choosing when to spend / use it it during a game is a current focus for me.

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

I generally would put that in behavior but yes, time left is a major factor. Of course that may lead to a question regarding time usage BEFORE you ran low. All decisions are fundamentally emotional, and so is how we use time in chess. IMO

Alex Frenkel's avatar

Thank you for sharing! This is good advice and I’ll try to implement today.

Nick Vasquez, MD's avatar

Let me know how it goes!