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

get it

is there a way to play this game without fretting excessively about every move, having it take up all your waking hours and threaten your mental health?

(that was my experience a couple of years ago, then I quit)

lol...not really imho. That was the reason I had to take a break from it

gotta be willing to lose, competition is interesting finding the right balance between caring enough about winning and not caring so much that you cant brush yrself off and try again --the sports psychologist

one thing that imo can make losing at chess more fun is if youre down material and have no positional advantage, a lost game more or less, just do some super aggressive shit sacrifice a piece launch a pawn storm etc, sometimes youll get a cool win but mostly its just good practice for attacking seeing lines and so forth

its funny with chess being matched to similarly skilled players no matter how much you improve youre still gonna lose half the time

yeah it's all about being more **zen**, i've never played sports and all my other hobbies are non competitive so i wonder if i just haven't had enough practice at that. also the gamification (when playing through an app) doesn't help, each loss doesn't stand on its own but chips away at your precious rating.

just do some super aggressive shit sacrifice a piece launch a pawn storm etc

will try that if i ever go back.

the thing about the rating tho is you can always get those points back, i feel like fwiw i only play at my best or near my best like 20% of the time, and its very streaky, so ill play pretty mediocre or bad 50-100 points below where id be playing good for like a month and then have a short run of good play, and sometimes those runs coincide with a general over all improvement, but often not, feel like you have to enjoy chess and be interested in it not just be totally consumed by the winning and losing otherwise its kinda not that fun

like watch this sick ass game, chess is cool, dubov os cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BgG4bUDHa4

btw its kinda funny that after that somnolent carlsen caruana championship the entire chess world went from considering analyzing speed games being the dumbest thing in the world to it being actually good

also seems like theres just more of it in top tournaments now which is cool as it allows someone with an attacking style like dubov to flourish rather than having to deal with an opponent making 10 perfect defending moves in a row in a classical game

Real chess players know that just because you lost a queen doesn't mean you need to give up on a king 😤 pic.twitter.com/NPR7KB6LSr

— desertscrub🌵 (@_weedman69_) January 4, 2021

re: not fretting over every move

Slow chess and fast chess inform each other. Getting better at fast chess will improve your slow game, and getting better at slow chess will improve your fast game. Playing blitz games made me fret less, because it was easier for me to forgive a bad move knowing I was under time pressure. Also, knowing I can immediately queue up another game after a fuck up made me less invested in each individual game.

In all cases, I go back to the game analysis on lichess and use the "Learn From Your Mistakes" tool. Thinking of mistakes as learning opportunities, while cliche, has been useful.

i try to play longer games sometimes but im so habituated to blitz that i end up just playing at blitz speed lol not great

yeah I had that trouble for a bit too--restraint and slowing down is something to practice, though. slow chess is for practicing thinking about longer lines.

the opening explorer/tablebase tool is good for analysis too, particularly if youre having trouble with a particular opening position, cool to see what other people have done an learn that youre playing the 20th most popular move and it always loses lol

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

#ENDGAMEDRAMAZ

Aghhhh

looks like white in 3 no

https://i.imgur.com/ZafGJdX.jpg
Yup

people should keep track of their queens better!! some chess advice its the most important piece

#midgamemadness

Up a queen in the endgame and the Norwegian won’t capitulate

I’m fairly certain that my current opponent online is running the game through a computer. He’s ranked 400 points lower than me but seems to be very cunning

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

Coming 4 u

I'm liking black there.

tfw an aggressive queen meets an untimely demise

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

This mate snuck up on me. I was too focused on offense.

Emotional moves

Crazy end to pogchamps!

🏆 POGCHAMPS3 - RESULTS 🏆

🇫🇷 Sardoche (@Sardoche_Lol) wins the chess tournament PogChamps3

📺https://t.co/rq4EIso45Q#Pogchamps #Chess pic.twitter.com/19guBkpvIJ

— Eirik Holdal #Trackmania (@EirikHoldal) February 28, 2021

https://kotaku.com/chess-champion-plays-bongcloud-move-which-is-very-fu-1846490914

bongcloud mode

Saw the video popping up on chess24's twitter, Hakamura's reaction is priceless

cute

there it is lads

https://i.imgur.com/43mZg1q.png

baller

thanks, feels good

congrats to this lil guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fjvZqerL4g

I like how nobody cares about the actual World Championship as much as about Firouzja

firouzja is cooler

https://i.imgur.com/yNI0mIX.png

Fuckin’ street fight

My first thought was that white is absolutely fucked but looking at it some more they might just be able to hang in there

Your initial assumption proved correct

After I resigned my opponent had the chutzpah to mention that I “need to improve my game”
I was like no shit 😊

Non standard openings mess me up

What are peoples ratings on chess.com here? I hover at a straight 1000 right now if anyone wants to game me

recommend lichess its better imo

when i started playing there four years ago these number were typically three thousand and nine thousand, not sure how much of the growth is due to a chess craze and how much is just the site getting more popular

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

i like it so much i give them money even tho it is free

i do play every day so it seems worth it