Hi Gillywibble, I wish I could say that my blitz improves when my long game drops off, but it doesn't happen.  I've just about given up blitz altogether. They tell me the brain gets weaker as the body gets older and although I haven't noticed it in other areas (except occasionally forgetting things I should remember) it's my only explanation for losing my blitz ability. 

It's not a big deal.  I wasn't much good at it when I was younger...

Interesting thread.

I don't suffer from chess blindness in just one game. I suffer from it in all my games at the same time and just can't see any threats at all.

I quite often find that at the same time, my blitz performance improves. I sometimes think I just need a break from the mental rigours of correspondence chess.

BlackOps:  I guess I walked right into that one : )

I guess you did!

I guess I walked right into that one : )

quote polleke:  ouch!  it's so easy to do that, isn't it?

reminds me of a game in the club championship a couple of years ago.  i lost, and my opponent said, "If you'd played so-and-so I'd have resigned."  Sure enough, the win was there.  I was annoyed with myself but he was awfully pleased...

Thanks for your comment on my blog, returning the favour :-). I never thought my article would make it to blog carnival so was lucky to see it got posted.

Don't worry too much about the chess blindness, it happens to all of us! This weekend in a club match I got the following position as black and played bxc3 whithout thinking. At home when I looked at it closer, there was a nice win for black (see puzzle below). Painful!

I have kicked myself many times non harder than my last game withkjschul a fine player with whom I like and respect but did I goof up.  2x  Trust your instincts is the lesson of the day for me and keep your eyes open!

There's some wisdom in what you say, chawil and, unfortunately some bad advice.

The wisdom is certainly in the comments about mental laziness. I've been guilty, on more occasions than i could count, of seeing a "great move" and lashing out, only to realise that there was a something far more devastating (or less damaging) that I could have done.

And the bad advice? Two years ago FIDE outlawed the tournament practise of writing down your move before playing it. (Of course, that only applies to tournament or club play, so it could still be used on chess.com whereupon it would undoubtedly be good advice.)

There's an entertaining illustration of "write then move" in "The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal" in which Tal writes:

“In our game, Fischer first wrote down the move 22.Rae1, without a doubt the strongest, and wrote it not in his usual English notation but in European, almost Russian. Then he not very deftly pushed the score sheet towards me. 'He's asking for an endorsement,' I thought to myself, but how was I to react? To frown was impossible, if I smiled he would suspect trickery, and so I did the natural thing. I got up and began to calmly walk up and down the stage. I met Petrosian, made some joke to him, and he replied.

“The 15 year-old Fischer, who was essentially still only a large child, sat with a confused expression on his face, looking first at the front row of the spectators where his second was sitting, then at me.

“Then he wrote down another move: 22Qc6+? And ... I held my extra piece and adjourned the game in a won position.

“When I later asked Fischer why he hadn't played 22Rae1, he replied, 'Well, you laughed when I wrote it down.”

Here's their game.

This type of mistake is common. We think "If only I could play that move." and two or three minutes later we've convinced ourselves that we can! I think it's sheer mental laziness. We look at the board, see what looks like a "good" move and switch off to all other possibilities because that's the easy way out.

One good technique for this in tournament chess is to write down your move and then recheck it before making it. Writing forces you to look away from the board and redirects the mind from its possibly delusional train of thought. Kotov recommends this technique in "Think Like a Grandmaster", which I highly recommend to all tournament players.

This also brings to mind an anecdote (ignore the suppressed groans in the background). Someone once asked a very strong player how to go about becoming a master; he replied, "If you have a good move, look for a better one!".

hi uri, i've been playing this game for most of forty years now and i still go through patches where i seem to make silly moves and inexplicable mistakes ... and it's likely to go on for a month or so at a time.  (i'm in the middle of a rough patch now.)

the only time i get serious enough to play consistently well is during over-the-board tournaments.  all other chess to me is just fun -- especially internet chess. 

i'd rather win, of course, i'd rather pull off a clever combination, but mostly i just shove the pieces around and hope for the best.

but even with that attitude it's annoying to do something stupid like the miscalculation i confessed to in this post.  and it's probably annoying for my opponents who would prefer to win a well-played game than to capitalise on somebody's blunder.

but i also know from experience that in another couple of weeks, or a bit longer, it'll all turn around and i'll start playing well again.

maybe it's just biorhythms!

 i find myslef kicking myself a lot more often lately, losing lots of games, i cannot understand what's wrong with me, this story might give me a clue... :), well actualy, now i'm remembering all the positions where i had a simple win and missed it or losed, so it should be >:(.

Thanks, StaggerLee, they're fun to do.  I added the sunglasses but the white cane was my wife's idea.  (She has lots of interesting ideas ... but I'm always grateful when they're not aimed directly at me )

Haha nice story.  And I love the photoshopped picture of the queen with sunglasses and walking stick!  :D

Thanks for the link, YoungDude ... it's worth a visit. 

It's always nice to know that the big guns are capable of blundering too.  That game of Kramnik's will be another "immortal game" but for all the wrong reasons.

Let's not forget Kramnik's so-called "blunder of the century" against Deep Fritz... (more grandmaster blunders here)

A wise decision, Phil.

I was talking to one guy on here (sorry, I don't remember who it was) who said that he sets up all his games on a chessboard beside the computer to try to minimise errors.  It could work, but would be awfully time-consuming.

And I'd probably still find a way to stuff it.

I see that your good wife is of the same ilk as most wives, never letting a chance go by!!!

All I can say is that is one word I am not introducing to my wife's or children's vocabulary They would soon find a suitable candidate to describe with it.

hi fzweb, indeed we do ... try  my earlier post about this blunder of Tal's, if you haven't seen it before.

I'm working on a theory that people in the northern hemisphere blunder on the queenside while we down-under chess players blunder on the kingside.  (It's caused by the coriolis effect). 

I suffer from blindness as well Dozy, everyone always has that once in a while.

Thanks, emi.  Unfortunately my wife also has a sense of humour.  (Not much sympathy, but a definite sense of humour...)