L2C 054: How to Annotate and Analyze Your Game (101) with Claude Fried

It is often said that in chess one of the best ways to improve is to study your games, often annotating them is the method suggested. But what exactly does that mean exactly. Claude Fried returns to help Bill walk through a recent game and help him to annotate and analyze the game. While we made every effort to make this useful as an audio only podcast, this episode may be better when viewed on our YouTube channel as the discussion is fairly visual. Going into this episode, Bill felt he was almost competent at annotating a game and what he was thinking during and after reviewing the game. However, his analysis skills are still lacking. Even with that expectation, Claude was able to identify several key areas where Bill can improve his process going forward. Additionally, Claude also suggested several areas for homework and future game analysis and annotations for a potential part 2.

Here is a link to the full PGN file after being updated during and after this episode. afdvv

Please let us know if you would like a part 2, or more, in this potential series and especially please let us know if we did not cover a related area that may be puzzling you at this point in your chess career.

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss an area you are interested in? Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

Also, if you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or potential suggestions and/or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show! For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/ChessAnnoation

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess #chessannotation #chessanalysis

L2C 053: Bill on the Sofa - State of the Union Update as of July 2026

Bill reviews what he has been up to and how his chess game and study have been progressing over the past few months. Has his Elo gone up? Has it gone down? What has he been spending his time doing? Studying vs playing. Plus a fun idea for another contest that involves you, our esteemed audience, if the Doctor approves.

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss an area you are interested in? Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

Also, if you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or potential suggestions and/or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show! For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/BillOnTheSofa2

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess #chessannotation #chessanalysis

L2C 052: Claude Fried Returns to Answer (Some) of Bill's Dumb Questions

Many/Most/All(?) chess players seem to be obsessed over chess openings. In an effort to help, Claude Fried returns to offer some very good advice to us about what to do when looking to start a new to you opening. In addition, Bill can't help but ask some more of his ridiculous questions. Claude is way too good of a player to put up with Bill's dumb questions but he indulges him once again.

We did cover several topics that may be of interest to you and also help your game, including:

- Returning to tournament play OTB after an absence, including how he is preparing to return to OTB

- Various resources he uses for tactical training

- How to study openings, especially early on in your chess improvement path, and how to develop an opening repertoire, even for the first time, including how to organize and study the opening.

- What is the goal of learning an opening and how to know when to stop and what are reasonable expectations for the time spent studying an opening or a repertoire.

- A good way to "pick" your opening that meets your goals, interests, strengths, and playing style.

- How to decide if you want to play e4 or d4 as your first move and why you may prefer one over the other.

- How to choose your study resources and what is a reasonable composition for a starting repertoire.

- Study tips and goals for openings

- Resources that he finds most helpful to his game and studying efforts

- Studying Mate in One's and Mate in Two's and some of the issues that Bill is currently encountering in this area

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss an area you are interested in?

Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know.

Welcome to the board.

We hope you enjoy the show! For a link to the podcast, please use:

https://tinyurl.com/ChessOpeningStudy

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess

L2C 051: Space: Our Tao of Chess Book Series Continues

Our Tao of Chess series continues with this episode focused on the importance of space when playing chess. Don't worry, this is not the final frontier of the series. We have a long way to go.

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in?

Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use:

https://tinyurl.com/ChessOpeningStudy

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess

L2C 050: Non-Chess Factors to Improve Your Game

We started off with a simple listener question: What do you think are things that are not directly related to chess playing and studying that could help your chess game, especially for a tournament. Bill thought it was a 5 minute pre-episode discussion. The Doctor had other ideas. As usual, the Doctor was correct.

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in?

Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/NonChessChessImprovements

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess

L2C 049: Speed Runs / Slow Runs

One of Bill's favorite soft learning activities is to watch slow runs/speed runs and we go into several that he has found to be most helpful and how he tries to get the most value from them. The Doctor then goes through a similar process that he uses to actually simulate a speedrun for himself. Then we talk about a few ways that we may add these to our podcast's YouTube channel. Let us know if you'd be interested.

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in?

Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/SpeedAndSlowRuns

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess

L2C 048: Hanging Pawns

An awesome conversation with Stjepan Tomic about a ton of topics including his chess progress and what he has found to be the best ways to improve as a player. He is was further down the road to above and beyond being a DCP, but shares our pain in the journey. Hopefully this episode will be part 1 of many with Stjepan.

Hanging Pawns on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HangingPawns

Hanging Pawns Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/hangingpawns

The two youtube posts we discussed most closely are:

Most Common training mistakes: https://tinyurl.com/ChessTrainingMistakes

Best training methods: https://tinyurl.com/12BestTrainingMethods

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in?

Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/HangingPawnsPod

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess

L2C 047: The Tao of Chess - Pawn Structures

This week, we discuss various aspects of the pawn structure and how we perceive this area to apply to our games at our current level of play. This is an area that will likely need to be revisited as we progress.

Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in?

Let us know at Late2Chess@gmail.com

If you have any thoughts, topics and/or guest ideas, or solutions, please let us know. Welcome to the board. We hope you enjoy the show!

For a link to the podcast, please use: https://tinyurl.com/PawnStructures

Want some Late 2 Chess swag? Our store is open at: https://late-2-chess.myspreadshop.com/

#chess #chesstournament #chesstournaments #TaoofChess #mostExcellentRoadTo1500 #OurBumpyRoad #roadto1500Elo #roadtoDecentChess #DCP #decentChessPlayer #chessInstruction #adultimprover #adultimprovers #chessClub #clubChess #chessiverse #tournamentChess #learnchess #learningchess #chesslearner #TheDoctorOnTheSofa #BillOnTheSofa #fantasyChess