Week 50: why do I keep blundering in chess? 83 blunders in 35 games

Thirty-five rapid games in one week, December 16 to 22, 2024: 18 wins, 17 losses, rating 1120 → 1141 (+21). It was the busiest week of this stretch and, according to Stockfish, the sloppiest. I made 83 blunders, about 2.4 per game. So this post is my honest attempt to answer the question every improving player types into Google at some point: why do I keep blundering in chess? The data from this week gives a clearer answer than I expected, and it is not "time trouble".

The week in numbers

A few things jump out of the full game list. White was my good side: 11–6, helped by the Queen's Pawn Opening, Zukertort Chigorin Variation, which went 5–1. Black was the problem: 7–11, with the Modern Defense against 1.e4 going 1–3. The rating moved like a seesaw: down to 1092 after game 1205, up to 1157 after game 1219, and back to 1141 by Sunday night. In between there was a run of four straight losses on December 18 (games 1199 to 1202) and a run of six straight wins on December 21 and 22 (games 1212 to 1217).

Where did the 83 blunders happen? 63 in the middlegame, 11 in the opening and 9 in the endgame. Only 9 of them were played with less than a minute on my clock. 59 of the 83 came with five minutes or more left on my 10-minute clock, which means I had the time to check and didn't use it. Only five games had no blunder from me at all (games 1188, 1195, 1212, 1216 and 1217), and I won every one of them.

Two moves next to my own king

The engine picked three key moments from the week. Two of them are almost the same mistake, played on the same day, a few hours apart, and both ended in checkmate on move 17. (The third, 9...b5 in game 1187 against Hotstreak5, attacked a queen but let White's bishop take on b5 and pin my knight on c6 to my king; a pin means the piece can't move without exposing something more valuable behind it.)

Game 1189: recapturing with the wrong piece

I had Black against Daognamanka (1182) in an Indian Game (game on Chess.com). White's queen had reached h6 and a pawn had just landed on g6, next to my king. The engine rated the position +0.81, only slightly better for White.

r . . . . r k .
p p . . . p . p
. . . p b q P Q
. . . . p . . .
. . . n P . . .
. . . . . P . .
P P P . . . P .
. . K R . B N R

I took back with the pawn. After fxg6, White has Qxh7, which the engine marks as checkmate: the queen takes the pawn next to my king, with the rook on h1 behind it on the open h-file. The evaluation went from +0.81 to mate in one, and my opponent found it straight away. The engine's move was Qxg6: take with the queen, which also attacks White's queen, and the line goes 17.Ne2 Qxh6+ 18.Rxh6, a queen trade and a position only slightly worse for me. Same capture, different piece, completely different game.

Game 1190: castling into the attack

Three hours later I had White against urangkareh (1182), who answered my 1.d4 with the Englund Gambit (game link). I was already worse, −1.66, with Black's queen on g4 and bishop on d6 pointing at my kingside.

r . . . k . . r
p . . . . p p p
. . . b . n . .
. p . p . . . .
. . p P p . q .
. P P . P . . .
P . Q . N P P P
R . B . K . . R

Castling is the move every beginner is told to play, and normally the engine agrees with it. Here it made things much worse: −1.66 became −7.14. After O-O, the engine's first choice for Black is Bxh2+, the bishop taking the pawn next to my king with check. In the game Black played 15...cxb3 16.axb3 Qh5 17.Ba3 Qxh2#: the queen came to h5 and then mated on h2. Ng3, the engine's choice, keeps the king in the center for now and stays at about −1.5, clearly worse but still a game.

The lesson of the week

My blunders this week were not random. The most expensive ones changed the pawns or pieces right next to my own king: a recapture that pulled the f-pawn away and left h7 to the queen, and a castle that put my king on the same diagonal as an enemy bishop. Both happened with more than five minutes on the clock. Before any capture or castle near my own king, I need to ask one question: after this move, what can the opponent check or capture next to my king? It takes ten seconds. Those ten seconds would have saved two games in a single day.

The other lesson is about expectations. Nine games this week had four or more of my blunders and I still won five of them, because the other player blundered too. At this rating the game often goes to whoever blunders last, which is a good reason to never give up a bad position early, and a bad reason to feel good about a win.

All games this week

Previous week: week 49. Next week: week 51. The whole series lives on the journey page, and the analysis behind it is what Chess Coach does for your own games.