Hi, I would gladly appreciate any advice about what to do in won or winning positions. Game bellow is a prime example of why I can't progress further with my chess skill. It feels like every time I get a good position I become nervous and eventually throw it away in time trouble or by some incredible blunder.
http://en.lichess.org/xSt2cUi5/whitedon't be lazy. seemed kinda like you were trying too hard to simplify and stopped looking for good moves, and so your advantage quickly evaporated in the process
first, "nothing is harder than winning a won position" everyone struggles with that.
apart from that i loved your play. bxd5 was a very nice tactic and you played extremely well until bg5. the endgame after that is not so clear really eventhough comp gives +3, you need a lot of experience or time to find good moves. It´s easy to mess such an endgame up in blitz.
so what could you have dont differently? Well one thing is not to try to force a win if you don´t see one. In the position where you played bg5 you completely dominate the board the black king is in a cage and you have control over g8 so no trade of heavy pieces will happen too soon. what you should do in such a situation is to put the pressure on your opponent to find useful moves, while improving your own position. in this case simply develop your pieces.
On the other hand the potential of your black-squared bishop with the king caged on h8 should really jump into your eye. I´m pretty sure you won´t overlook it the next time a similar position occurs.
You seem like a strong player, so you likely know much of this already, but here are tips that I give to my students on how to win a won game.
If you are ahead in material...
1) Eliminate your opponent's counterplay
2) Trade down into a winning endgame
If you are ahead in position...
1) Look for ways to turn your positional advantage into a material advantage/checkmate (tactics)
I only looked quickly at the game you linked, but it looked like you did a good job of this. You won the exchange and traded into a winning endgame. With more time, I think you wouldn't have let black's F pawn get that far. Better use of your rook would have been to cover the F from behind, not from the side.
I think this might be more of an issue with your endgames than just being ahead. You played that endgame very aimlessly. Treat endings like you would any other position. You need to come up with a clear plan and execute it.
So let's ignore all the tactical stuff and get to a simple endgame. Look at the game on move 37. I think if you simply asked yourself, "Ok what are the plans for both sides?" black would have resigned in a few moves.
So... what are the plans? Right, white's going to make a passed pawn on the queenside and black is going to flop around. So how do we do that? The most direct is simply 37. b4. If black plays cxb4 we play d4 and black will be lucky to be able to give away his knight for that pawn. If black plays b6 then we play a5! and we're getting a passed pawn starting on the 5th rank instead.
It'd have led to a rapid victory.
If you can't handle the time pressure, play slower games until you learn how to play endgames.
When you get in time trouble anything can happen. But of course you can always improve a bit. My suggestion is that you play won positions against strong engines. It's a fun and very instructive exercise. I did that myself in the past and I learned a lot. I also learned how to save lost positions.
Try this one as white:
5k2/2n3p1/p4b2/8/2N5/2N1B3/6PP/4K3 w - - 0 1
Thank you for all the advice and insight, i did look at some other games and it really seems like I should work on the endgames. As few of you pointed out I did try to hard to simplify and then played an aimless endgame.
@todo_pro thank you, exactly the type of positions I struggle with
Hi bjur! All advice here are excellent! I was thinking of Dan Heisman's article "When you're winning is a whole different game". Maybe you didn't feel the threat after 55...f3 because the position looked so simple and harmless. In this situation you should think defense first! "«Think defense first» means (...) do not let your opponent (...) generate an enormous attack. Therefore HIS moves become MORE IMPORTANT than yours!" (Heisman). You did reasonably well but the f-pawn was really dangerous. I hope it helps.
Best wishes!
