Typical Mistakes by 1600-1900 players.

[Neil Graham]

I was fascinated to be informed that one of my games features on Nick Pert's Chessbase DVD above. If Nick has looked at any more of my games rest assured he can find plenty of material for Volume Two!

I will most probably be at the first 4NCL weekend at Telford and am quite prepared to sign copies of the DVD should there be demand. Indeed I will forego my usual fee for signing (mostly these occur after "resigns" on the scoresheet). I expect Nick will be at the 4NCL Birmingham venue but if he lets me know, I'll nip over there on the way back to sign copies at the bookstall.

[IanCalvert]

I guess it was an old mistake?

What was your best, chess mistake so far?

[John Hickman]

What was your best, chess mistake so far?

Learning to play

[Jonathan Bryant]

What was your best, chess mistake so far?

Resigning by accident. I stopped the clocks because I thought it was mate, but it wasn’t. (And, no, the position, wasn’t lost).

[stevencarr]

I have known people lose on time, watching their clock run down, because they thought they were still in the first period of play, and had made the time control.

'Don't I get another 15 minutes?', they sometime say.

[Mike Truran]

Even world champions do that.

[Simon Brown]

I resigned (by extending my hand) in a drawn position. My opponent didn't understand why I shook his hand before offering a draw, so I had to explain that I wasn't offering a draw, I was resigning. He then showed me how the position was a draw.

I was over 2300 so wouldn't make the book!

[Roger de Coverly]

I wonder what Nick will come up with. If you play team chess, you have to learn to mostly trust the ideas of your fellow team members. If you are a spectator at a match involving a lower team, you speculate that surely every English club player should know what to play in a particular position. More often than not, they don't.

Perhaps the style of keeping the game going, trying to maintain an initiative, and setting the odd cheapo, even if extremely easy to defend against, is difficult to master. There's also the defensive approach, where you allow your opponent to self destruct.

[JustinHorton]

What was your best, chess mistake so far?

My favourite was probably agreeing a draw against Mike Surtees because I didn't realise I was a piece up, though I've made similar mistakes more than once.

But there's also this effort where I echoed Bronstein v Bonch-Osmolovsky.

[MartinCarpenter]

Those are good I've managed to hang a piece then play on for maybe 15 moves before wondering why I was finding so hard to make progress.....
(Then a bit over a year later I had someone do the same against me!).

[MJMcCready]

I once went out to buy a sandwich during a county match in Newmarket, misjudged the walk by a mere 40 minutes and lost on time.

[LawrenceCooper]

I once went out to buy a sandwich during a county match in Newmarket, misjudged the walk by a mere 40 minutes and lost on time.

I once lost a game on time at the British partly influenced by a penalty shoot out in the Charity Shield

[Alistair Campbell]

The biggest mistake 1600 – 1900 players make is probably not learning from previous mistakes…

I guess typical mistakes are many and varied:

• Playing moves in opening lines that you don’t really understand
• Failing to come up with a sensible plan and drifting
• Missing tactics
• Concentrating on getting a positionally winning, albeit tactically losing, position
• Failing to appreciate dangers in a supposedly drawn or drawish position;
• Thinking winning positions will win themselves
• Getting short of time for no good reason

I look forward to ticking all these of my list (yet again) this season.

My worst mistake? Too many candidates to consider.

• Winning my first game and therefore coming back for more
• Carefully organising my team to turn up a day late for a league match
• Preparing for the wrong colour (when these were pre-determined). To be fair, this was more an arithmetic error (failing to calculate that 6 was an even number…)
• Getting lost on the way to a venue – including taking the wrong junction off the wrong motorway (this was the next game after the one above).
• The usual agreeing draws in winning positions and resigning drawn ones. (I’m not aware of having resigned a winning one yet, although it is possible I did and still don’t realise it).
• Missing that you are in check and playing a queen check in return, with the inevitable consequences.
• Not understanding how to claim a draw under 10.2

[Stewart Reuben]

I had a wondeful UNmistake on Thursday. It was in the London League. Play starts at 6.45pm and I knew the default time was 7.15pm. The tube wasn't working properly. I was too late, but decided I should go and apologise to my captain anyway. I very nearly went out to dinner instead. I arrive at 7.28pm and was totally puzzled when I was told to start my game. So I did. It turned out that, after playing 64 years in the LL, the default time is actually 7.30pm.
I drew. It was with a player the same grade as me.

Again LL. I arrived for a match many years ago. I was asked, ''Where were you on Thursday 5th?' I responded, but the match isn't until Thursday 5 March'. 'But it took place on Thursday 5 February.'

I did see somebody resign. I was playing, not arbiting. I was the first to arrive at the board to show him he had forced mate in three. It was the standard combination 1 Ne7+ Kh8 2 Qxh7+ Kxh7 3 Rh4#

NOT THE BCM ran for two issues. There was the 10 Best Blunders of the Year. A player made his move and made a draw offer. The opponent said, 'I'll think about it. After some thought he resigned.

Preparing for the wrong opponent is a good one.

1 e4 e5 2 Kh5 should not be punished. The player has touched the king by mistake. He is not forced to move his king.

I have never heard of somebody going to the wrong country, but a player went to the wrong St John's in Canada for a top level event.

Why restrict it to 1600-1900 players?

[JustinHorton]

Well quite: it'd be a shame to leave out "in a totally winning position I didn't notice my rook was en prise to a queen check".