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I had covid a few weeks ago and out of boredom youtube took me down a couple rabbit holes. I suddenly want to solo rock climb, get tattoos, and be a chess master. I have no illusions about any of that, but I'm dicking around on chess.com at about the 400 level, where I'll likely stay. I swear I'd be double that if halfway through the game I didn't spontaneously forget enemy pawns attack down the board.
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Aug 20, 2022 04:30
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stratdax posted:I had covid a few weeks ago and out of boredom youtube took me down a couple rabbit holes. I suddenly want to solo rock climb, get tattoos, and be a chess master. I have no illusions about any of that, but I'm dicking around on chess.com at about the 400 level, where I'll likely stay. I swear I'd be double that if halfway through the game I didn't spontaneously forget enemy pawns attack down the board. Welcome to chess. A game that just gets harder, but also more fascinating, for ever level of understanding you develop!
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Aug 20, 2022 10:12
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Thanks! I'm starting to develop some basic strategy - forking and pins. Learning how to recognize what my opponent is trying to create and how to counter that. Especially the super aggressive queen attacks at the start. Developing some beginner theory just through trial and error. But I just have to remember that if I can see his bishop, he can see mine, lol. I had a game yesterday where I was left with a rook and king to their king. I knew a checkmate was possible because chess.com didn't immediately end the game, but I had no idea how. The game ended in a draw by repitition. I watched a couple videos afterwards but I think I need to practice it a few times.
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Aug 21, 2022 17:20
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Rook and King becomes super easy once you see the vertical and horizontal lines from your rook as physical bars preventing the passage of the enemy king. Just need to trap him in a smaller and smaller cell while your king bodyblocks him into a corner
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Aug 21, 2022 17:26
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stratdax posted:Thanks! I'm starting to develop some basic strategy - forking and pins. Learning how to recognize what my opponent is trying to create and how to counter that. Especially the super aggressive queen attacks at the start. Developing some beginner theory just through trial and error. But I just have to remember that if I can see his bishop, he can see mine, lol. The beginner lessons on chess.com are pretty good, and there are endgame lessons for that as well The rook-king v. rook is the first study in Silman's Endgame book as well. Setting up a study board either virtual or in real life is also super helpful. I have a study in lichess that I can turn onto "play against the computer" to really hone that lesson.
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Aug 21, 2022 17:55
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stratdax posted:Thanks! I'm starting to develop some basic strategy - forking and pins. Learning how to recognize what my opponent is trying to create and how to counter that. Especially the super aggressive queen attacks at the start. Developing some beginner theory just through trial and error. But I just have to remember that if I can see his bishop, he can see mine, lol. Rook and king vs King is an ending you have to know how to play, because the concept and method is pretty simple, and once you know it you can play the moves even with very little time on the clock. Plus it's just sad to draw in an easily won game. You have to understand what the final checkmate looks like: His king, against an edge of the board, with your king denying all flight squares above his king, and your rook down on the edge of the board checking (checkmating) his king. As far as the method goes, it's confining his king to rows sucessively closer and closer to the edge of the board until he's at the edge of the board, using your rook. You use the same pattern as with the final checkmate, when your king and his king are in opposition (a row of three squares making a force field between them) you can check his king with your rook, forcing his king to drop down another row towards the edge of the board. The same concept applies to the final mate, it's just that since the king is already at the edge of the board there's no row to drop down to and it's mate. One of the keys to the method is using a "waiting move" with your rook.  For instance, here White is trying to put his king in opposition to Black's King in order to check him with the rook and force Black's king down to the 7th rank. But Kb4 would allow Black to run away towards the rook with ..Kc6, wasting time and moves. So a simple waiting move would be Rh5, maintaining control over the 5th rank. If ..Kc6 then Rh6+ forcing Black onto the 7th rank. If ..Ka6 then Kb4 and now Black must move his King into opposition with White's King with ..Kb6 and White can check with Rh6+, again forcing Black onto the 7th rank. Any other move would be Black retreating ot the 7th rank himself, upon which White can simply seize the 6th rank with Rh6 and the process continues. Of course if Black's King approaches the rook too closely the rook can simply run away to the other side of the board maintaining control over the rank. If you are looking, say, to checkmate along the 8th rank, it's possible for the opponent to shorten the process by moving closer to the a or h file first allowing you to shift goals to checkmating along the vertical instead of horizontal edge. But if you're a slow witted dum dum like me and if you're short on time sometimes it's simpler to maintain a goal of checkmating in the same direction, even if it takes more moves, if you can make the moves instantly without thought you may be better taking less time to make more movecs than to make a more elegant and efficient mate.
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Aug 21, 2022 20:19
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Of course in the example I posted the Black King is closer to the a file than the 8th rank but if you're short on time and mentally oriented towards mating on the 8th rank for me sometimes it's easier and better just to stick with that concept. If I bring the rook to the c file then I'll have to move my king around to make mate along the a file work which may require a tiny bit more thought and seconds I don't have. The other reason to know the basic mates is sometimes more complicated positions can be resolved into the known easy quickly played win. Like if you had Queen and Rook vs Queen and were very short on time and could force a queen exchange (by, say, pinning his queen against his king with your queen or whatever) then after the exchange the Rook vs King ending is trivial and requires no thought if you know how to do it, Or sometimes you can sacrifice a massive material advantage into a lesser advantage that's a known win. So for instance even if you had Queen and Rook vs a couple minor pieces but were short on time and he's making complications defending with his minor pieces, if you could exchange off the queen for the two pieces and be left with rook vs king again you have an easy ending that can be played with very little clock. On lichess.org you can set up board positions with tools-board editor and then play on from whatever position you set up against stockfish, choosing either white or black and which side is to move. It's very useful to grind through the basic mechanics of some of these endings and familiarize yourself without the pressure of a game. Zwabu fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Aug 21, 2022 |
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Aug 21, 2022 20:28
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Lichess has a great practice page with all the basic mates plus many interesting patterns: https://lichess.org/practice As a terrible beginner I once stalemated a king-and-rook vs. king endgame, and these practices were super helpful. I am still a terrible beginner, but I don't stalemate that endgame!
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Aug 21, 2022 21:24
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Basic procedure for K+R vs K mate looks something like this:
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Aug 21, 2022 21:51
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Got my first !! move in this position, black to play:
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Aug 21, 2022 23:50
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Bh3, yeah? if captured queen checks and then mate, otherwise the rook can take on g2 or bishop can I'm pretty sure it's good
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Aug 22, 2022 00:01
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The best part about endgames is how you have the stage where you don't know them, then the stage where you learn them and leapfrog over the people who don't, then the stage where you don't need them often because people resign when there's an obvious endgame. The bit several months into the last stage is the funniest because you'll inevitably hit a game where someone doesn't resign and it turns out you've forgotten how to do a rook and king endgame and run around the board for fifteen moves before you stalemate at like 1400 ELO
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Aug 22, 2022 02:21
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My theory is that most people online (including me) are terrible at endgames not because they're inherently hard (though they might be), but because we're playing time controls that are too fast. To pull numbers out of my rear end, 75% of games are decided before the endgame, and 75% of the rest end under severe time pressure. So you end up being bad at endgames since you never actually get to play them properly, especially if there's no increment.
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Aug 22, 2022 03:00
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stage 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkNJDDt2jtg
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Aug 22, 2022 03:01
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Redmark posted:My theory is that most people online (including me) are terrible at endgames not because they're inherently hard (though they might be), but because we're playing time controls that are too fast. It’s both of these things. Endgames are insanely hard and time controls are way too tight.
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Aug 22, 2022 03:27
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Beginner theory says you want to control the centre, but this is ridiculous! edit: On topic, I won this game, on Time. I was up like +12 and immediately blundered everything because I was down to 2 minutes and panicked. stratdax fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Aug 22, 2022 |
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Aug 22, 2022 04:16
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Conversely, the more you know about endgames the better you'll do in those tight time situations. Every pawn formation you know can or cannot create a passed pawn and how is one you dont have to try and figure out with 14 seconds on your clock Etc etc
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Aug 22, 2022 09:21
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Yeah. Endgames require actual study, you're not going to learn and derive the principles for most of them just grinding out games, especially if those games are blitz/rapid. You could play thousands of games and play the same endings wrong over and over. Even something like King and Pawn vs King you might not learn despite playing it out a bunch of times in rapid/blitz if you never have time to stop and think about what's happening.
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Aug 22, 2022 13:55
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stratdax posted:
That’s the good stuff right there! When staring at little static sprites on a 2D board can make you feel like you just ran from a bear.
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Aug 23, 2022 12:22
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This thread inspired me to work on endgames more. I've been getting some good mileage out of chess.com's "Practice vs Computer" feature; if you click the little bullseye icon in the bottom right of the analysis screen, you can play against the god-mode AI from any position in one of your games. It's perfect for going back and retrying an endgame that you should have won, but with infinite time to think about each move, explore different lines, etc.
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Aug 25, 2022 01:48
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Edly posted:This thread inspired me to work on endgames more. I've been getting some good mileage out of chess.com's "Practice vs Computer" feature; if you click the little bullseye icon in the bottom right of the analysis screen, you can play against the god-mode AI from any position in one of your games. It's perfect for going back and retrying an endgame that you should have won, but with infinite time to think about each move, explore different lines, etc. Lichess has this too (looks like a circle/bullseye thing?) I like using it in games where my opponent resigned so I can practice converting those endgames.
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Aug 25, 2022 01:54
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code:also from my blitz game: it's not g6 
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Aug 28, 2022 01:41
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Helianthus Annuus posted:
Is it 1. ... Nf3+ 2. gxf3 Qb1+ 3. Kh2 Qg6 forcing either queen trade or loss of bishop?
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Aug 28, 2022 06:27
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Maugrim posted:Is it 1. ... Nf3+ 2. gxf3 Qb1+ 3. Kh2 Qg3 forcing either queen trade or loss of bishop? that's right, any other move hangs checkmate
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Aug 28, 2022 06:29
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So I got my blitz rating on lichess above 2600 for the first time. Here is an endgame win that I missed from that game. I later won the game anyway because my opponent didn't know elementary pawn endgames, which never stops happening. White to move and win. Know your endgames (better than I did in this moment). As a bonus, from later that same game, white to move and win. An elementary pattern which, apparently, actually does happen in real games. 
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Aug 29, 2022 16:06
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Hand Knit posted:So I got my blitz rating on lichess above 2600 for the first time. Here is an endgame win that I missed from that game. I later won the game anyway because my opponent didn't know elementary pawn endgames, which never stops happening. Honestly unsure about this one: b5 axb a5? Hand Knit posted:As a bonus, from later that same game, white to move and win. An elementary pattern which, apparently, actually does happen in real games. More sure about this one: Ke6 Kc4 Ke5 K-realizes-mistake Kxd5
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Aug 29, 2022 16:36
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AnacondaHL posted:More sure about this one: that's a trebuchet alright quote:Honestly unsure about this one: This is close to what I played in the game: 1.b5 axb5 2.a5 b4 3.a6 Bxa6 4.Nxa6 and black has a number of ways to win white's last pawn like 4... b3 5.Nc5 b2 6.Nd3+ Ke4 7.Nxb2 Kxd4
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Aug 29, 2022 17:05
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1. b5 axb 2.axb and I'm pretty sure the bishop has to sacrifice in order to stop the promotion. Then up a knight for the pawn you should convert the endgame. Edit: actually maybe not that endgame looks a bit tricky tanglewood1420 fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Aug 29, 2022 |
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Aug 29, 2022 23:39
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tanglewood1420 posted:1. b5 axb 2.axb and I'm pretty sure the bishop has to sacrifice in order to stop the promotion. Then up a knight for the pawn you should convert the endgame. Game line: 52.b5 axb5 53.axb5 Bxb5 54.Nxb5 Ke4 and now the fact that white's king has to detour to take the h-pawn gives black enough time to save the game. Spoiler break so you can look at it further from this position. 55.Kh3 Kd3 56.Kxh4 Kc5 57.Kg5! (not a win but the only winning try) Kxb5 58.Kf6 and here black played Kb4?? losing and bringing us to the other puzzle I posted. Instead of the losing move, two moves draw: (main) 58...Kc6 59.Ke6 Kc7 60.Kxd5 (60.Ke5 Kc6) Kd7 and black controls opposition (alt) 58...Kb6 59.Ke6 Kc7 transposes
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Aug 30, 2022 00:14
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Hand Knit posted:1.b5 axb5 2.a5 b4 3.a6 Bxa6 4.Nxa6 and black has a number of ways to win white's last pawn like 4... b3 5.Nc5 b2 6.Nd3+ Ke4 7.Nxb2 Kxd4 So then clearly b5 is not the winning move... plus it's the obvious move. I think white needs to be forcing here. One of the things I always try to do is reverse move orders and see if that changes anything and here I think it does. After a5, black is in some trouble because b5 is coming and I don't think black has a good way out of that if white doesn't misplay. But there's 0% chance I'd have played that over the board. totalnewbie fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Aug 30, 2022 |
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Aug 30, 2022 00:18
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Achieving some things.
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Sep 2, 2022 19:51
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So Magnus just withdrew from the Sinquefeld Cup after losing to Hans Neimann last round, with the implication that he thought Hans cheated. Now this round the live stream is on a 15 minute delay, and the stream showed Niemann being scanned with a metal detector before entering the venue.
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Sep 5, 2022 19:42
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I always thought the anti-cheating at events like these were quite serious, and I had assumed that the players were getting scanned before and after the rounds by default.
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Sep 5, 2022 19:44
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I'd be super interested to hear how people are managing to cheat with so much scrutiny and live broadcasts. They catch MtG cheaters all the fukken time.
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Sep 5, 2022 20:06
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https://twitter.com/GrandChessTour/status/1566865580782657536?s=20&t=zAX29Vz5c8Lagl-CzoEd7w
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Sep 5, 2022 20:31
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I really hope the gossip all comes out, and is as messy as possible.
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Sep 5, 2022 20:37
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Hikaru is heavily implying that he thinks Hans did cheat.
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Sep 5, 2022 20:46
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gret posted:Hikaru is heavily implying that he thinks Hans did cheat. Oh now that is interesting. Because I looked over the game and it didn't seem immediately obvious to me. I just kind of read it as "Carlsen hosed around, played a bad opening because he didn't respect Moke Niemann, ended up worse, and Moke Niemann just carried the advantage."
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Sep 5, 2022 21:10
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I'm a huge dummy and know nothing about chess but if the director of FIDE tweets this that probably isn't a good sign: https://twitter.com/EmilSutovsky/status/1566876951146647553
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Sep 5, 2022 21:11
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Magnetic North posted:I'd be super interested to hear how people are managing to cheat with so much scrutiny and live broadcasts. They catch MtG cheaters all the fukken time. I don't really understand the mechanism either, is it that they are looking at an engine in their phone away from the table or something?
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