The CHESS Thread

[double00]

I know it's come up from time to time but here is a current threak to self gloss talk story etc .

 

[LA Guy]

My older daughter is getting into chess and plays at school, and I wanted to be able to play with her have never played a "real" game of chess in my life prior

I opened up a www.chess.com account the other day. Just learned the rules. Watched some videos on basic opening principles, and heuristics of the middle game. I had no idea how to queen side castle or that you could not castle out of check (I thought that it would be a clever trick) until last weekend. Monday, I learned to not play knights on the edge, not to play the king side pawns, etc... I've been mostly doing chess puzzles and playing the bot at 1200, and have won, gradually increasing my level of accuracy and making fewer blunders and inaccuracies and missed opportunities, I do it painstakingly slowly. But then again, speed has never been my thing, in any activity or sport, so I am not sure.

It feels fun - I feel like a white belt. I expect that I will suck at this as well.

 

[double00]

My older daughter is getting into chess and plays at school, and I wanted to be able to play with her have never played a "real" game of chess in my life prior

I opened up a www.chess.com account the other day. Just learned the rules. Watched some videos on basic opening principles, and heuristics of the middle game. I had no idea how to queen side castle or that you could not castle out of check (I thought that it would be a clever trick) until last weekend. Monday, I learned to not play knights on the edge, not to play the king side pawns, etc... I've been mostly doing chess puzzles and playing the bot at 1200, and have won, gradually increasing my level of accuracy and making fewer blunders and inaccuracies and missed opportunities, I do it painstakingly slowly. then again, speed has never been my thing, in any activity or sport, so I am not sure.

It feels fun - I feel like a white belt. I expect that I will suck at this as well.

yeah i'm also a newb it's been a blast .

i also play slowly , if a 10 min game goes over 30 moves i will probably lose on time .

puzzles are great , i usually play at least a few 10 mins most days ( i'm around 450 ) and recently started daily games ( i'm better at those ~800 ) .

anybody wants to play my handle is fiddlyiddly

 

[LA Guy]

yeah i'm also a newb it's been a blast .

i also play slowly , if a 10 min game goes over 30 moves i will probably lose on time .

puzzles are great , i usually play at least a few 10 mins most days ( i'm around 450 ) and recently started daily games ( i'm better at those ~800 ) .

anybody wants to play my handle is fiddlyiddly

I've just started, and was at 560 on an account that had been previously set up, winning a few more than I lost, but I pretty much suck. I lost on time once before I realized that you could play longer games. 30 minutes is more my speed. Just learning the site. so at one point I had to google where the resign button was, and once I played by mistake because I didn't realize that the play button on the dropdown menu went straight to your default play instead of to the main play menu.

i am considerably better at Chess puzzles, and made it to a mid 900s rating before I got board blindness, to the point of thinking that I was playing the wrong color, I got demoted back into the 800s, but clawed my way back to 910 or something, and just left it. That was in a single sitting, and I played something like 120 puzzles total, with something like a 78% accuracy. My daughter has a puzzles rating over 1800, so she just better at this point.

I have been playing with the 1200 bot, and have a record against the bot now of 4 - 1, but I often make inaccurate and overly conservative and get myself pinned and then in my bid to not lose any material, end up making unfavorable trades. I should probably play a bit less defensively and have some better lines of attack, and not let opponents or the bot dictate when we enter the endgame.

lt's a lot of fun, at least since I started using the site on... Sunday, or maybe it was Saturday. My handle is um... I think that the account I settled on, with not my real name attached, is notetoselfbebetter, lol, but I really don't have time to play much, and will not accept challenges for now. I've been slowly going through the lessons, and also listening to some tips from Anna Cramling and her mother, and then some Gothan Chess stuff.

 

[double00]

i'll say that the chess site is terrific , you can look through games via profile , see who's active , watch friends play live etc . fun and surprisingly social .

i upgraded last week to do more puzzles and reviews etc , i'm around 1300 on puzzles . the review thing is amazing i'll spend a half hour going through hypothetical lines with my kiddo on some random game .

 

[double00]

a satisfying checkmate !

 

[LA Guy]

a satisfying checkmate !

View attachment 1943623

I've played the bot a few times, and only play white and the London, for now, learning all the ins and outs. I do okay against the 1200 bot,

My puzzle rating in above 1100 now, after 3.5 days of training, Apparently, I can find checkmate, but am less good at midgame and defensive tactics, which is sorta like my BJJ and MMA games. I am a relently attacker, but I am constantly working on defense and intermediate/even positions. Yay.

I played a long, very messy game, in 41 moves (60 min game) and won, but it took a lot longer than it should, and I was pretty inaccurate, but I also don't understand some of the engine "best" moves.

I also have no idea how my ELO is now 514 either.

I apparently need to learn the London and he Vienna. I have no defensive opening at all, and frankly, I am not sure what is the strategy of going from the midgame in the end game. I have "some " ideas, but not anything that I can articulate, which means... nothing.

 

[double00]

I've played the bot a few times, and only play white and the London, for now, learning all the ins and outs. I do okay against the 1200 bot,

My puzzle rating in above 1100 now, after 3.5 days of training, Apparently, I can find checkmate, but am less good at midgame and defensive tactics, which is sorta like my BJJ and MMA games. I am a relently attacker, but I am constantly working on defense and intermediate/even positions. Yay.

I played a long, very messy game, in 41 moves (60 min game) and won, but it took a lot longer than it should, and I was pretty inaccurate, but I also don't understand some of the engine "best" moves.

I also have no idea how my ELO is now 514 either.

I apparently need to learn the London and he Vienna. I have no defensive opening at all, and frankly, I am not sure what is the strategy of going from the midgame in the end game. I have "some " ideas, but not anything that I can articulate, which means... nothing.

congrats ! afaik elo takes the difference between rankings when assigning outcomes . my first daily game i ended up at like 1050 after beating an 800 player simply b/c it was the first game , plus it seems they categorically separate rapid and daily results . as you won your first game you likely got a big bump from 400 or whatever they start new accts at ....

lately i mostly play the reti opening as white : flexible , somewhat downtempo , and reactive .

 

[double00]

here's a 7 day that i'm in the middle - end of i think :



a lot of their pieces are bottled up , i think i can play the king side with my bishops and queen and get cm in maybe 4 moves i'd go bishop a4 and then queen d4 i bet without issue , and then qf2 ... maybe if they use their queen they can change the board idk but they need to defend rook and king we'll see

 

[LA Guy]

here's a 7 day that i'm in the middle - end of i think :

View attachment 1946087

a lot of their pieces are bottled up , i think i can play the king side with my bishops and queen and get cm in maybe 4 moves i'd go bishop a4 and then queen d4 i bet without issue , and then qf2 ... maybe if they use their queen they can change the board idk but they need to defend rook and king we'll see

here's a 7 day that i'm in the middle - end of i think :

View attachment 1946087

a lot of their pieces are bottled up , i think i can play the king side with my bishops and queen and get cm in maybe 4 moves i'd go bishop a4 and then queen d4 i bet without issue , and then qf2 ... maybe if they use their queen they can change the board idk but they need to defend rook and king we'll see

That is some weird development on the white side. I have never been able to just play anything without extensive study, prep, etc... I know that I will still play like a beginner, but I'd like to play like a beginner who at least knows some solid fundamentals and is trying to play with as much calculation as possible, rather than imprecisely. That's why for the time being I am only playing 60 minutes, so I move because I want to move, and not just reflexively.

 

[ter1413]

I have been playing since I was about 12-13. One of the brothers in the family who lived next door to us at the time had a board and a few others in the neighborhood started playing.

I purchased a little battery operated electronic chess game(this was before the inter-web) at a store in Times Sq(NYC) back in the day and played that daily.

A few of the barbers at one of the shops I went to in the past played and I got to see many of their matches.

I also played in Union Sq Park(NYC) where some very talented people set up year round. It's $5 to play them...or have them teach you.

I went through a play/not play mode...I would just get distracted and have other focuses and go months/years without seriously playing.

I do follow a few internet players online. Anna Cramling and Coffee Chess are two. I need to start playing more, but prefer to play against someone vs online.

 

[LA Guy]

I have been playing since I was about 12-13. One of the brothers in the family who lived next door to us at the time had a board and a few others in the neighborhood started playing.

I purchased a little battery operated electronic chess game(this was before the inter-web) at a store in Times Sq(NYC) back in the day and played that daily.

A few of the barbers at one of the shops I went to in the past played and I got to see many of their matches.

I also played in Union Sq Park(NYC) where some very talented people set up year round. It's $5 to play them...or have them teach you.

I went through a play/not play mode...I would just get distracted and have other focuses and go months/years without seriously playing.

I do follow a few internet players online. Anna Cramling and Coffee Chess are two. I need to start playing more, but prefer to play against someone vs online.

Anna Cramling is one of the better chess people. She seems genuinely nice and helpful. A lot of top tier chess players seem to like her, and I’m guessing that her youth and GM parents have something to do with that. Gotham Chess is instructive, at least for a complete noob like me.

 

[ter1413]

Anna Cramling is one of the better chess people. She seems genuinely nice and helpful. A lot of top tier chess players seem to like her, and I’m guessing that her youth and GM parents have something to do with that. Gotham Chess is instructive, at least for a complete noob like me.

+1

Here is an impromptu game with AC playing some guy named Magnus...




I also like watching Hikaru Nakamura.

 

[LA Guy]

+1

Here is an impromptu game with AC playing some guy named Magnus...




I also like watching Hikaru Nakamura.

Super GM = sees the fork immediately and ask the master if she sees it.
Master: misses it, but sees it immedately when it's pointed out.
Me: pauses the video 20 seconds before I understand what was going on.

 

[double00]

Super GM = sees the fork immediately and ask the master if she sees it.
Master: misses it, bu

fwiw i spotted both bishop to b5 and knight to d5 before magnus mentioned them !