thechessworld
Recently, a small online pamphlet, from TheChessWorld, landed on my e-desk.
You might be familiar with TheChessWorld - its story is given in "Start Here" - as they offer a very large collection of instructional chess videos - a surprising number of which are free.
That's one four letter f-word we do not see frequently enough.
I worked my way through "The Zero-Blunder-Method", subtitled, tantalizingly, "Stop Hanging Pieces & Gain 150 ELO", which contained some basic self-prompts that will seriously cut down on making blunders in my chess games.
Why bother? Well, according to the booklet,
At 1200-1800 [rating], 8 out of 10 games are decided by simple blunders - not brilliant strategy.
Ouch.
At least they didn't include playing the Jerome Gambit as a "simple blunder".
Anyhow, there is a stunning chart which looks at the "Estimated Loss Rates By Blunder Type" - identifying 4 rating classes, and taking a look at how often, for each of them, games end because of hanging pieces, knight forks, back rank checkmate, discovered attack and hanging pawns.
I haven't seen anything as helpful since Geoff Chandler's "Blunder Table".
Readers should check it all out.
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