The Queen's Gambit Lecture

Beginning last Tuesday night, the Queen City Chess Association began it's Fall Lecture Series.  This is a five week event where we have some of the higher rated members teach an hour long chess lesson.  This series even includes a few National Masters and a bunch of Experts so the quality of the lessons are pretty good.

The first lesson was about the Queen's Gambit.  (I guess that I should add that this lesson was geared towards 1200 - 1500 players.)  As an e4 player, the Queen's Gambit isn't something that I tend to play. However, I did ask a question about the basic structures and opening sequences of d4 over e4 and one thing that was agreed upon by the higher rated players at this lesson is that e4 openings tend to require more memorizaion while d4 openings are easier to reason at the board.  With this information, I'm strongly thinking of moving to d4 as my opening move.

So, as we worked through the lesson a number of key elements and chess theories were brought to light. The concept of "the space left behind" which is one of the biggest thing's that I miss.  In my game that followed this lecture, I hung a rook and allowed my bishop to be trapped.  I know, not very good play.  In fact, I think that this is still one of those major things that I will struggle with as I try to move up to the next class.  I need to make sure to double check all of my pieces right before I move.  I have also noticed that when I tend to drop these pieces are at the end of a long analysis.  Meaning that I see the hung piece in the begining, but then I think so deeply that I forgot that the piece is hanging and then I move something else.

I don't think there is a single silver bullet to keep from hanging piece, or every coach would teach all their students, however I still think that I'm making way to many game ending simple mistakes that shouldn't happen. 

Well, I plan to take better notes on Tuesday night and will share even more detailed information on the Lessons that I did here.  Although one thing that I do know, is that one hour isn't a lot of tie to cover the Queen's Gambit.