i love when ILX gets all chessed out (ILX hot chess action is here)

F puzzles and positions, just play

puzzles are actually the only way to improve sad but true

how do you guys deal w/ openings? like getting better at them? i always feel like i'm just kinda playing random moves at first, obv there are like a billion different openings you can memorize but that seems pretty overwhelming.

i studied a few openings for white + black (more for black since it's more reactionary) and try to review them regularly. chessable.com is good for that as are videos + books.

if you really want to get better prioritize longer time format games since calculating in game (and then reviewing your game afterwards) will make you better. i am v guilty of not doing this enough it's much more pleasurable to play a bunch of shorter time format games (my preference is 10m but shorter w/ an increment can be good too) but like 15m+10s format or just 30m are excellent for getting better.

i just played the same opening and couple of defenses every time til i got familiar w their ins and out

i tried playing longer time formats and im so habituated to moving fast that i cldnt help myself lol

i saw someone maybe john bartholomew say that shorter time formats basically just challenge yr habitual knowledge - you play about as well as you currently are when you play them - but you need the longer formats to develop new ways of thinking/seeing the board

iirc

yeah i mean it for sure makes sense

weirdly at least on lichess it seems like the longer formats are a lot softer tho, diff prob smaller pool of players i guess

just ended an 8 match losing streak with a win. guess who's back babee.

hell yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RetIukw56T0

lagoon do you ever play bullet? i find it extremely difficult but one thing i struggle w/ in shorter time constraints is that i'll get ahead for most of the game but then run low on time and end up blundering or flagging. so i'm hoping bullet will be like when you're on deck and you swing a few bats so that when you swing one bat at the plate it is much lighter -- that after bullet 10m will feel like a luxury.

i finally reached > 1600 in blitz on chess.com :D

this was my goal after i started getting into chess in late 2016 when i was ranked ~1000. i feel v accomplished!

i was close (at 1543) back in June but then had a huge points drop (down to a low of 1296!?!) before bouncing back. during that time i retooled my openings (i stopped playing the roy lopez primarily and switched over to london variations for white, added nimzo-switch for d4 openings), played a lot more tactics (actually got my tactics rating above 2000) and started playing bullet which i really think did help.

i finally reached > 1600 in blitz on chess.com :D

this was my goal after i started getting into chess in late 2016 when i was ranked ~1000. i feel v accomplished!

― Mordy, Friday, November 22, 2019 2:16 PM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

nice!

i do not ever play bullet is too fast

just did a checkmate w 0.9 seconds on me clock :]

chess is so weird some days u can see the combos and others u cant

Crosby and Nash face off
Anyone care to analyze the position?

https://i.imgur.com/ay1ahTp.jpg

my blitz rating is a provisional 648, I'm not even a little bit good at chess

tried playing a 15+15 ended up offering a draw in a game which the computer later said i was +2, i had 17min left on my clock lol

now its saying +.9 idk man

alright i won one w ~15mins left, think i mightve been playing against another blitz player tho he had 18 lol

my blitz rating is a provisional 648, I'm not even a little bit good at chess

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Wednesday, November 27, 2019 9:06 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

no one is born good at chess evan!

i think maybe short formats makes u more of a positional player

I’m disgruntled by everything I’m not immediately good at with no effort >:(

lol

i bet if u play 10 games youll improve

played another 15+15, those games are def soft on lichess, similarly rated players play worse despite having way more time

i almost offered a draw at the beginning of a game i crushed cause i was a closed position and i didnt know if i cld stand a half an hour of this shit lol

i bet if u play 10 games youll improve

― lag∞n, Thursday, November 28, 2019 2:31 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ill even give u a lil tip, if youre going to castle king side dont move the f pawn, the f stands for dont fucking touch it

the most basic chess advice i guess is to get all yr pieces out and yr kings castled (aka developed, when your rooks have nothing between them [aka connected]) as quickly as possible with as few pawn moves as possible, dont move any piece more than once if you can help it until youre developed

the second most basic piece of advice is to not leave pieces unprotected (aka guarded by other pieces or pawns), and likewise to target your opponents unprotected pieces

the third most basic piece of advice is to keep yr pawns chained together

if u do those things u cn prob get up to ~1000 pretty easy

(if u play a lot of games)

also the middle of the board is the best part try to capture it

an example of a position where both sides are fully developed

https://www.payetteforward.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/realistic-fantasy-1083x1080.png

its also totally symmetrical for some reason

here white is developed but black is not

https://i.imgur.com/RhK3QbK.png

tho some wld prob argue that black is effectively developed there

lagoon thank u for this tutorial

enjoy yr march to GM

Crosby and Nash face off
Anyone care to analyze the position?

https://i.imgur.com/ay1ahTp.jpg

― calstars, Wednesday, November 27, 2019 2:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

https://i.imgur.com/4cHhEuo.png

not sure whos turn to move it is but based on the body language looks like nash, if so hes in position to take the c pawn and equalize material, crosbys position is better considering the two advanced pawns but its a close game

if its crosbys turn hes up a pawn and has a better position so is clearly ahead, still playable for nash but crosby shd be able to convert

p boring position tbqh

anyway happy thanksgiving chess club gonna go honor the fallen pilgrims now

considering the game is being played on both sides of the board nashs bishop is prob a lil more valuable than crosbys knight...

I did better! The computer sez I lost a forced checkmate sequence uwu https://lichess.org/RciiZoIr/white