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That stockfish analysis feature on lichess is a game changer. I haven't played in a while, so this is all new and wonderful tech to me! My last online chess experience was the Internet Chess club in the aughts, and that client was basically IRC with chess bolted on. I wish, though, that it provided more justification when it points out an inaccuracy. The blunders (??) it points out are clear, but the (!?) inaccuracies can be a little hard to follow.
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Jan 18, 2021 16:26
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That's helpful to know, thanks guys. I'll be sure to post anything interesting as I blunder my way down the ladder. Ol' grey mare she ain't what she used to be. Ain't what she used to be.
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Jan 18, 2021 18:50
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The poor bot-- that's harassment! My kids have been getting pretty into chess lately and my knowledge of the game is from The Streets (I suck). I'd like to grab a couple of books that might teach me some proper methods that I can share with them, but my daughter will likely want to read some of it, too. So I'm thinking a book with a bit of a narrative to it rather than a bunch of puzzles or a chapter on a passed D pawn would be nice. Do you guys have any you could suggest? I've got A First Book of Morphy in the cart already because it sounds pretty great. I read some of Weapons of Chess in school and hated it. That's about my only exposure.
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Jan 20, 2021 02:51
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Captain von Trapp posted:Seirawan's books fit the bill. I'd go for the tactics book as the best place to start, but good book on openings is just about worth the price just for the stories of his earliest days in chess as a kid. Opening 1. h4 to get his "cannons" out, queen raids, etc. I think most GMs might not admit that kind of thing, but that's where we all start. Looking now and I think I'll grab his Chess Duels book. Seems like what I was looking for - thanks! Sub Rosa posted:I don't think books have much going for them in regards to beginner chess. Maybe check out ChessKid accounts for them I was thinking more that the book might teach me some proper thought processes to pass onto them vs. my ad-hoc approach, but this site looks like a great one. I'm going to give it a shot and see if it's at their level. I would be nice to pin them against some other beginners vs. me being the punching bag after dinner. 
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Jan 20, 2021 04:52
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lol This one got me. White to move: 
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Jan 20, 2021 06:14
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Yeah. I don't usually pick up on sacrifices like that where the piece is pinned against something other than the queen or king. These generated puzzles are a lot of fun on lichess.
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Jan 20, 2021 07:42
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This one broke a GM and blew my mind. The solution he found was really interesting, but I can't reproduce it. I know that he won the queen by promoting the pawn to a knight, which put the king in check. Loading it now in stockfish, the optimal solution it finds is different. e: white to move
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Jan 20, 2021 18:13
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I'm not able to reproduce the outcome the GM got because I wasn't paying full attention until the end. I guess there's quite a bit of leeway with how the king moves. In a Stockfish study just now, it came up with this sequence that promotes the queen safely. In both this sequence and the one I witnessed, they block the initial Qh7+ with the bishop. Not sure why that's so much better yet. Qh7+ Bf7 Qh4+ Ke6 Qh8+ Kg5
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Jan 20, 2021 23:06
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Hand Knit posted:From Duda-Carlsen just now. Black to play and win. Nf4 then white does either Bc3 or Be3 Nd3-fork C8+ Kf7 I can't really figure out how to force it beyond that because I'm not sure what the obvious move would be with the second white rook. But I think that's the direction? 
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Jan 22, 2021 22:41
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Hand Knit posted:
Agh! Tough one.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:56
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I've done a few correspondence games now and I've had 2 or 3 where my opponent who isn't very highly rated has managed to open in a perfect way. I'm at move 12 and wondering if I should resign - it's so perfectly covering all avenues. And then the guy just blunders away the queen or loses a minor piece. Maybe I should learn a better way to open that isn't just king's pawn. knight, knight, and then hope for the best.
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Jan 26, 2021 15:48
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Oh no kidding? I am on lichess and didn't realize there was an opening book allowed/integrated in the actual live games. I figured they may have been using something. Not sure how I feel about that, honestly. I guess it would be good to use it if others are, but I feel like it's a bad habit to get into.
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Jan 26, 2021 16:45
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Do official correspondence games have separate categories for human only play and ones that include engines? If it's seeking to show the epitome of chess, including engines, I don't see how it doesn't turn into an escalating war of people throwing money at stockfish instances.
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Jan 27, 2021 07:09
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Sub Rosa posted:
Thanks for sharing this with us. I'm completely fascinated that it works this way. I was skeptical, thinking that the competition would essentially be a secondary Top Chess Engine Competition, but I see now how that's its own thing. You're mastering the tools of a craft! teppichporsche posted:Honest question from a bad player: What is the point of choosing moves proposed by an engine/multiple engines? Aren't you just making worse moves that way? Curating moves doesn't make a lot of sense to me, since the engine is that much stronger than any human player. My understanding from Sub Rosa's posts is it's a different level of competition, but involves human ingenuity and intuition as much as over the board chess, just different aspects. It's like you give two guys a block a wood and a knife and ask them to whittle out a figurine. And then in the other room, the woodworkers are allowed to bring all manner of lathes, CNC machines, full CAD design, etc, to make the same sort of figurine. In both cases, you're going to have one guy's figurine look better than the other guy's, but there's going to be a whole world of a difference in precision. Freaking cool.
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Jan 27, 2021 22:10
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Puzzles on lichess and chess.com seem very different. I started off on lichess and have found the puzzles gradually increase with my rating to the point where I'm being served neat puzzles between some highly rated guys that are really interesting. They vary in type, but the quality seems consistent. On chess.com, admittedly I just started playing them and am at about 1100 so far, but the puzzles seem a lot more arbitrary. I get some with a pass rate of 1 or 2% that are really interesting, and then the next one will be some queen blunder where the soln is just to capture the hanging queen with a bishop.
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Feb 3, 2021 16:24
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It's been happening a bunch! Just got hit with some really simple mate in 1 after a couple of deeper ones and I blew it looking for the hidden fork or whatever. I think the chess.com method might be better, because it's exposing a weakness of mine where I often blunder or overlook basic tactics early on but generally do better in the middle / late game.
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Feb 3, 2021 16:45
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I just got scholar's mated.
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Feb 7, 2021 18:55
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I decided to focus on learning a single white and black opening to try and improve my overall game. About a week in playing a bit every day, it's been working. I shot up about 100 pts while still fumbling a lot of it. I think just having the structure and a short term goal has really helped me avoid blunders early on. I didn't want to rely on memorizing lines, but my usual way of just winging it on a vague strategy of controlling the centre just wasn't working in Blitz and 10m.
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Feb 23, 2021 16:42
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Bubbacub posted:I'm around the same boat you're in, but I'm struggling to properly visualize capture sequences after getting a reasonably solid opening in. It took me a long time to figure out this exercise: https://lichess.org/practice/basic-tactics/the-pin/9ogFv8Ac/BRmScz9t I'm catching sequences like that pretty well, but like I said, I'll then lose a rook in the opening to a bishop or something worse. I did a whole bunch of puzzles on Lichess a while back and I feel like those developed my ability to spot more of the "long con" types of sequences, so maybe that could be what your game needs to round out.  I'm working on the e6b6 and e4 opening lines from Gotham and I'm seeing progress. What gets me now is my opponent will accept my gambit or go on a line I know is supposed to be a massive loss for them, but then I draw a blank on the best response and end up with a Rube Goldberg position, lol. What I've decided I'm going to do when I have time is make a little paper notebook of the main lines of my two openings that I can just randomly look through to keep my memory fresh. The PGN files and the videos are good at explaining, but it's drilling it into my head that's a little tougher.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:07
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Just a quick effortpost on some books I've gone through since starting out earlier this year - thanks again for the recommendations here! Just some background: my kids got really interested in chess after finding my old mechanical clock in my office and I wanted to read some books to learn some things to transfer to them. My background before this was just informally playing against some friends in college way back in the day. I had bought a nice board and clock thinking I'd get seriously into it, but it didn't take. 1. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess What a great and unique book. It's just series of thematic puzzles with Bobby's guidance and explanations. It's designed by a pair of psychologists (?) or education experts who collaborated with Bobby to present the material in a systematic way that optimizes learning, and in my experience, it works. The book read front to back looking only at the right-hand pages, and then at the end, you flip it and go back-to-front. Big focuses were checkmate patterns to start, a lot of back rank work, and then it gets into more complex combinations. From what I can tell, the system helps commit patterns to memory by surprising you with unexpected switches just when you get into a groove - if that makes sense. My kids by far like this one the most. My 7 y/o daughter is about done with it and her play has really shot up to the point where she beats her mom and grandparents and makes me work. My 4 y/o boy is about 1/2 through it, but being 4, he only grabs it in spurts between lego building and harassing his sister. 2. A First Book of Morphy This is the next best one. It presents one Morphy game per chapter, and each chapter is based on a basic principle of chess, which Morphy apparently developed and/or put into popular practice. The games are explosive and dynamic: perfect for re-enacting on a live board. Morphy plays guys like The Great and Right Honourable Royal Duke of Brunwick, Esq. or something and just shellacking the guy all over the board with ridiculous queen-sac mate combos and clearly illustrating how the basic principles yield opportunities vs. opponents not following them. It's fun. 3. Yasser Seirawan - Winning Chess Tactics This one was way over my kids' heads and it lost me in the first section, but looking through it now, I'm probably going to dive into it next. I think it's a good book to follow something like the Fischer book, which demonstrates a lot of the concepts through immediate example with positive/negative feedback, while this book seems to explore them more deeply. Still in progress. 4. Yasser Seirawan - Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions Someone on here posted about it being a good book from a chess history perspective and it delivers. It's full of interesting personal stories and accounts from him playing the best of the best. The games are pretty interesting, but I didn't go through all of them. I'll likely go back and look at these some more. I really latched on to his stories about Tal and that led me to: Tal-Botvinnik 1960: Match for the World Chess Championship written by Tal. That's on the way right now and I can't wait to read it. I really latched on to Tal's personality and games from Chess Duels and Yasser's recommendation of Tal's writing and specifically that book has me anxiously awaiting it. Just wanted to share in case it helps out any newcomers.
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Mar 18, 2021 16:35
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Good chess set
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Mar 26, 2021 21:23
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PerniciousKnid posted:I bought Winning Chess Strategies at a Waldenbooks in 1992 and I think I read it more times than I played chess until they invented the internet. It's still my favorite Seirawan book so far. I might grab that one next. Either that or an endgames book, because I think Handknit made a lot of sense when he said the Soviet system starts from there since the game inevitably progresses to that point. Now that a player has to buy me dinner most of the time before they can fork my queen  , I see those more often. I got back into the Tactics book and I'm really enjoying it now. He has an engaging style and his tests are really well thought out. angel opportunity posted:Thanks for these recommendations. I have a kid who is 3.5. I really can't fathom him sitting there and playing. How did you get your 4-year-old to play? His older sister is super into it so that translates to enthusiasm on his side - I think that's the biggest factor. That and he really likes the battle/war angle of it. The other day he jumped into the kitchen behind me with both his fists cocked up ready to fight and yelled "I'm a Fianchettoed bishop!! ARHHHH" I think he got that from a chesskid lesson, lol.
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Mar 30, 2021 16:20
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They make big leaps in the 4s, though, and I doubt he would've sat still enough in his 3s. But yeah, his typical opening is e4, Nc3, Nf3. If he's defending, he'll do something like e5, and then will sometimes bump out g6 and fianchetto there and I've mistakenly called that the King's Indian Defense before I knew better-- and it stuck-- but my wife makes them refer to it as The Awkward Pawn Move instead when they say that.  When I do my e6b6 opening, they bug me all the time that I should be doing centre pawns followed by knights and then bishops. I should probably just trashcan that idea because my win rate online with it is like 45%, so I think they're right. The other day he pinned my queen when I spotted him queen odds and wasn't paying full attention. That raised an eyebrow a bit.
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Mar 30, 2021 20:24
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No, we probably did promotion or something, I just mean that he gets the idea that it can't move when he pins it on the king - just seems tricky. He had one tonight where he moved a bishop to hit queen and xray (?) to a rook, too bad about the pawn guarding the square, but cool to see anyway.
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Mar 31, 2021 02:21
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I was a little proud of this one but the analysis dulled that a bit! I found a combo at the end that would have won a lot of material, but when he responded in an expected way, it turned into a fancy mate in 3: 1. e4 g6 2. d4 d6 3. f4 Bg7 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bd3 Qd7 6. h3 Na6 7. a3 Qe6 8. f5 Qd7 9. O-O gxf5 10. Nc3 fxe4 11. Nxe4 Qc6 12. Re1 Be6 13. b4 b5 14. Qd2 O-O 15. Neg5 h6 16. Nxe6 fxe6 17. Rxe6 Qd7 18. Bf5 Nd5 19. Nh4 Qe8 20. Bb2 Qf7 21. Rf1 Qh5 22. Qf2 Bf6 23. g3 Rf7 24. Ng6 Rg7 25. Kh2 Qg5 26. Bc1 Qh5 27. g4 Bxd4 28. gxh5 Bxf2 29. Rxf2 Rc8 30. Rxd6 cxd6 31. Bxc8 Nb6 32. Rf8+ Kh7 33. Rh8# I was originally thinking after Rxd6 ... (c or e) x d6 Bxc8, that he would have done Nb8 for the obvious save and I'd fork Ne6 ... Kh8 and work from there.
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Apr 1, 2021 21:35
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Helianthus Annuus posted:7... b5 looks really good to me, because I struggle with #1 a lot when playing. Whether I'm taking space with a push, or creating weakness. I find that really challenging in the heat of the moment.
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Apr 2, 2021 18:13
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Hand Knit posted:I was asked about a position in the discord and I wanna bring it in here because it's instructive. Thanks to you and Yama for taking a look at it. That idea of pushing the pawn into the rook on the back rank is hopefully seared into my head now, because that would have blown the whole thing up. I thought I was fenced-in behind the rook on the e-file and didn't see it at all.
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Jun 6, 2021 03:05
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It’s a good idea to hit the custom puzzles and slide the rating range to around blitz level to build up the quick pattern recogn. The high rated puzzles are fun, but they don’t drill in much that can be of use outside of long time, for me at least. I still miss some low rated motifs, but I can tell I’ve improved and can immediately spot some others.
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Jun 17, 2021 19:20
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Nice job seeing the knight sac rook take pattern at 7.
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Jun 22, 2021 15:57
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It's good you're checking out Tal. His games are wild and entertaining. I can't say I took in much from the ones I played through, but I enjoyed them. His style is to just go hard and sac pieces to crack things open, whereas I play more positional and if I'm sacrificing, my main concern is "how am I loving this up??" So his games are neat to me! If you're interested, look up stories about him. He was a really interesting character. Very hard drinker all his life born with a lobster claw-like deformity of one of his hands. Super lovable and funny guy that everyone seems to have stories about.
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Jun 25, 2021 14:40
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Jun 29, 2021 22:57
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I've noticed my recognition of tactical patterns has shot up in quick games lately and it's likely due to getting into the habit of playing puzzle rush a couple of times a day. Contemplating standard puzzles to crack into a new rating level is a lot of fun and has value, but over time you end up getting good at solving deep tactical combinations and there's little opportunity to drill those fundamental combos that come up over and over again in lower rated games.
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Nov 5, 2021 15:25
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Reading Chernev's Logical Chess this am and this Lasker quote seemed like a really nice thing to remember: In the beginning of the game ignore the search for combinations, abstain from violent moves, aim for small advantages, accumulate them, and only after having attained these ends search for the combination -- and then with all the power of will and intellect, because then the combination must exist, however deeply hidden.
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Nov 6, 2021 18:31
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Agreed. The way he repeats the same ideas over several games, but with a different anecdote or interesting flourish helps it all stick firmly.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:47
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