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I'm a beginner and just started playing on chess.com. In my first game I somehow managed to checkmate in 8 moves against someone with a 900ish ranking and thought I might be a genius, but since then I've steadily fallen to around 550 lol. As a pretty bad beginner, would you guys recommend playing short games or long games? I've been playing 10 minute matches, and it's frustrating how many times I feel like I'd have won the game if my time hadn't run out. I'm not sure if it's better to just play a lot of quick games so I get more practice with opening and mid game, or play longer games where I get more time to think and avoid making so many blunders.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:03
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If I have a bishop and pawn against only a king, the pawn is on the a-file or h-file, and the promotion space does NOT match my bishop's color, is this a draw? Edit: pawn was on its starting space, opponent’s king was in the promotion corner, I I couldn’t figure out how to dislodge it and I was behind on time so I offered an draw which he accepted Koskinator fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Mar 10, 2021 |
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Mar 10, 2021 19:43
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Koskinator posted:If I have a bishop and pawn against only a king, the pawn is on the a-file or h-file, and the promotion space does NOT match my bishop's color, is this a draw? Correct unless you can prevent the opponent from getting to that corner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrong_rook_pawn
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Mar 10, 2021 19:52
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Paperhouse posted:I'm a beginner and just started playing on chess.com. In my first game I somehow managed to checkmate in 8 moves against someone with a 900ish ranking and thought I might be a genius, but since then I've steadily fallen to around 550 lol. I'm not that great but I found going from 10/5 to 15/10 made a big difference in the number of games where I lost due to time, without being a gigantic increase in the time spent on each game.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:53
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Paperhouse posted:I'm a beginner and just started playing on chess.com. In my first game I somehow managed to checkmate in 8 moves against someone with a 900ish ranking and thought I might be a genius, but since then I've steadily fallen to around 550 lol. You'll acclimatize to whichever time control you prefer, so I'd say play a few games on different time controls and find which one gives you the most pleasant balance of time to think/understand and actively doing stuff. Slower time controls might be a bit better at first just because they give you more time to puzzle through what's actually happening. To the extent that your goal is improving, what's important is going through your game afterwards and going over what you were thinking and what your opponent was thinking. (Note that you don't really need the engine for this.) You can do that with games at any time control.
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Mar 10, 2021 20:18
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Since starting a couple of weeks ago I've only played a couple of human games but a lot of computer games without time. I find it helpful to sometimes (but not every game) play through computer games with takebacks and evaluation. I find it easier to learn from mistakes when I correct them in the middle of the game and understand why a move was wrong and why the best move is best rather than trying to learn several mistakes at once from analysis after. It's also helpful for drilling openings. although I think chess.com has openings practice too.
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Mar 10, 2021 23:21
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I never play without an increment if I'm putting effort into a game, it keeps some of the weirder blitz strategies from being a concern, which is good because I don't know any of them
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Mar 10, 2021 23:31
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Good point keep talkin posted:I'm not that great but I found going from 10/5 to 15/10 made a big difference in the number of games where I lost due to time, without being a gigantic increase in the time spent on each game. What do 10/5 and 15/10 mean?  It looked like chess.com has the option of 10 or 30 minutes, but maybe I've not looked hard enoughI did look at the analysis for the first time after a match yesterday (ended in a draw but I should have won), and it was helpful. I made a lot of good moves and a handful of very stupid ones
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Mar 11, 2021 04:17
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Paperhouse posted:What do 10/5 and 15/10 mean? The second number is the increment. 10/5 means ten minutes for each player, but each move made adds 5 seconds to your clock. 15/10 means 15 minutes per player with ten seconds added per move made. It makes a huge difference, where if you're down to a simple ending you know how to play you can be down to your last ten seconds and win without even making your moves frantically, and still add time to your clock instead of losing it.
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Mar 11, 2021 06:49
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Hand Knit posted:You'll acclimatize to whichever time control you prefer, so I'd say play a few games on different time controls and find which one gives you the most pleasant balance of time to think/understand and actively doing stuff. Slower time controls might be a bit better at first just because they give you more time to puzzle through what's actually happening. To the extent that your goal is improving, what's important is going through your game afterwards and going over what you were thinking and what your opponent was thinking. (Note that you don't really need the engine for this.) You can do that with games at any time control. this is why beginners should focus on 1/0 bullet, to get more games under their belt asap
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Mar 11, 2021 07:39
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As another newbie I suggest going at least 15/10 if not 30. I need the time to think things through. Even for games I won or drew at 10/0 both my and my opponent played at very high inaccuracy. Sneaking wins based on timey-wimey bullshit is definitely a strategy but I don't personally find it helps improve learning. Then again I'm your typical adult learner who needs to always understand more fully before putting things into practice so I probably don't play nearly enough as it is.
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Mar 11, 2021 19:46
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There's a Queen's Gambit/MS-DOS-themed chess game where the engine is 1 kB of Javascript. It's fun. You should play it! It's a weird experience, because the moves she makes look terrible (on account of the engine's incredibly tiny evaluation function), but tactically there's none of the obvious blunders you'd expect a person making these kinds of moves to make. She's better than me, but I'm a noob so it's a low hurdle.
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Mar 12, 2021 02:09
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Captain von Trapp posted:There's a Queen's Gambit/MS-DOS-themed chess game where the engine is 1 kB of Javascript. It's fun. You should play it! I've beaten it all three times I've played, but the graphics are terrible. I can't tell one piece from the other.
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Mar 12, 2021 15:56
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Captain von Trapp posted:There's a Queen's Gambit/MS-DOS-themed chess game where the engine is 1 kB of Javascript. It's fun. You should play it! 1. c4 f5 2.d4 e5 3.dxe5 b5 I feel like the engine has some weaknesses. e: played another game 1.c4 h5 2.d4 e5 3.dxe5 f6 4. exf6 gxf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Qd3 a5 7.Qg6+ Ke7 8.g3 c5 9.Nd5+ Ke6 10.Bh3+ Ke5 11.Nf3# Hand Knit fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Mar 12, 2021 |
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Mar 12, 2021 16:07
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Wanted to see if I could scholar's mate it
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Mar 12, 2021 17:27
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Close enough
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Mar 12, 2021 20:26
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Be aware that when I say "better than me", my chess.com rapid rating is like 700.
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Mar 12, 2021 23:03
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got my first ever "brilliant" move in a chess.com analysis and managed to get two in the same game. I'm not quite sure I understand why they're brilliant, but I'll take it!!
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Mar 14, 2021 04:07
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My daily and puzzle ratings are around 1700 with a tendency to grow, but my blitz is below 1100 and will probably fall further. There aren't any easy games. My opponents know their openings, they play quickly, and they don't hang pieces. And I do. The format obviously doesn't suit me but I have this idea that forcing myself to think quickly is a good exercise for the brain. Tonight's question: Does Chess Make You Smarter? Let's hear from our Goon Experts...
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Mar 14, 2021 23:54
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Verisimilidude posted:got my first ever "brilliant" move in a chess.com analysis and managed to get two in the same game. I'm not quite sure I understand why they're brilliant, but I'll take it!! Post them and let's find out.
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Mar 15, 2021 02:52
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Doctor Malaver posted:My daily and puzzle ratings are around 1700 with a tendency to grow, but my blitz is below 1100 and will probably fall further. There aren't any easy games. My opponents know their openings, they play quickly, and they don't hang pieces. And I do. The format obviously doesn't suit me but I have this idea that forcing myself to think quickly is a good exercise for the brain. Got hooked on blitz a little over a month ago and just playing a bunch every day has made a big difference in weeding out the really obvious blunders like just leaving poo poo en prise and getting into sketchy positions in the first place. Still missing tons of stuff of course but at least now it's usually things like 3-4 move combinations instead of "my queen is attacked but I'm pipe visioning on the other side of the board" Also had to pay the price for leaning on the opening book too much on daily games, got owned by opening traps and fried liver type stuff a bunch. Just learning the basics of some openings helped a ton there. Caro-Kann has been good against 1. e4. Played ..Nf6 against d4 the first few weeks and that was a terrible mistake, blitz noobs don't have the intuition or time (much less theory) to not gently caress up those lines and they're a lot easier for white. Same goes for "just control the center and develop pieces", too much poo poo to keep track of and not enough time to do it correctly. Switching to the Slav helped in not getting instantly triggered by 1. d4. Slav and Caro both feature early c6 and can end up pretty similar and turtlish but boring beats terrible at this point. I guess London would be the obvious safe and stable choice as white but my black openings are already  enough and playing something sharper is probably better in the long run, so I usually play the Scotch and it rarely leaves me worse out of the opening.Also had to unlearn the neurotic tendency to constantly look for the One Weird Trick that will win me (or my opponent) the game on the spot, because there rarely is one. I feel like spending too much time on puzzles compared to actual games might've been harmful, in that you probably need both to develop your sense for when to look for (or just detect) tactics and when to just make boring decent moves, else you're just going to burn your clock for nothing. Still down on the clock in most games and usually have to play end games on instinct (= badly), but it's slowly getting better. None of this has made me any smarter, but it has made my journey from garbage towards crippling mediocrity less painful and blitz is no longer depressing. 5+3 is a lot more lenient than 3+2 also. jvilmi fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Mar 15, 2021 |
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Mar 15, 2021 11:43
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algebra testes posted:Post them and let's find out. https://www.chess.com/a/RjdcNZ9GSUva
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Mar 15, 2021 15:11
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Bunch of short tutorials on different openings: https://simplifychess.com/homepage/openings.html They don't go deep but explain the basic ideas and the most common variations, so they're really good for just getting started on something.
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Mar 16, 2021 11:42
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ive been having a lot of fun with The Borg Defense 1. e4 g5 2. d4 g4 3. Qxd4 d5 around my level of 1400 bullet on lichess, more than half of players totally miss it and hang their queen if they don’t hang their queen this is the only variation ive so far come up on: 4. Qf4 Bh6 5. Qe5 Bxc1 its been hilarious easy wins for the past couple days
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Mar 16, 2021 15:20
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fart simpson posted:ive been having a lot of fun with The Borg Defense 6. Qxh8 ...
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Mar 16, 2021 18:46
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yes but it still works out in blacks favor. play through it on an analysis board or something
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Mar 16, 2021 20:28
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nope, the analysis board still says white is better
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Mar 17, 2021 01:45
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It's not smart to rely on a Stockfish of an opening position, that said, pretty much any move that doesn't hang the queen evaluates as a >1 point advantage for white.code:
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Mar 17, 2021 02:43
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huh I don’t remember what i was looking at then i guess that said im playing this bad boy to an extremely high win rate. 13 wins out of 16 games where they take with the queen, and about 50% win rate when they don’t even bring their queen out at all probably doesn’t work in real time controls or against good players but in ~1400 bullet it’s doing the trick
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Mar 17, 2021 08:08
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Mar 17, 2021 12:32
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this
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Mar 17, 2021 13:01
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Paperhouse posted:As a pretty bad beginner, would you guys recommend playing short games or long games? I've been playing 10 minute matches, and it's frustrating how many times I feel like I'd have won the game if my time hadn't run out. I'm not sure if it's better to just play a lot of quick games so I get more practice with opening and mid game, or play longer games where I get more time to think and avoid making so many blunders. I'm a beginner too and I've found I can't go much faster than 15/10 if I want to play a reasonable midgame or endgame. But I've found that doing a bunch of faster games is a good way to practice openings if I accept that I'm just going to bomb the middle part. I think most chess coaches would say that you get the most benefit from a solid midgame, you're not good enough as a beginner to take advantage of different opening lines.
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Mar 17, 2021 15:55
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I remember from the Chessmaster tutorial long ago that studying the endgame is best for a beginner. I've often wondered whether that sentiment is widely shared among chess teachers.
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Mar 18, 2021 05:53
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i can see it. it can be pretty straightforward to simplify down to an endgame and most people are awful at them. spending a few days studying pawn and king endgames alone bumped my elo by about 100
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Mar 18, 2021 07:18
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qsvui posted:I remember from the Chessmaster tutorial long ago that studying the endgame is best for a beginner. I've often wondered whether that sentiment is widely shared among chess teachers. Short answer: yes. Longer answer: There are two general 'schools' of chess education, one that begins from the end of the game and works backwards ("Soviet School," as I was taught) and one which begins from the start of the game and develops outwards ("American School.") They both have their merits but I find the Soviet approach is far superior for a couple of reasons. The first is that it keeps the player more engaged in the game. If your schooling starts from the beginning of the game, once you're out of what you know you're kind of lost for the rest of the game. In contrast, if you start by knowing your endgames, the game is always progressing towards the point you know better. This also gives the player a better ability to structure their play and have goals in mind, something that helps both practically and pedagogically. The other reason is that endgame and lategame principles are more easily transferable to the start of the game than opening principles are to the end. This means that learning the endgame gives you tools to understand the early and middle game in a way that learning the opening doesn't help you understand the endgame.
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Mar 18, 2021 13:59
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i think if you focus on openings too much too early you end up either being terrible and not really improving, or only knowing a bag full of trick openings where if they don’t go exactly as you planned then you’re just screwed for the rest of the game, which can be fun admittedly
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Mar 18, 2021 15:08
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I haven't "studied" openings, but in my experience as a beginner with no experience, it's been helpful to have a move or two of canned responses to the most common initial moves. The general guidelines of opening moves ("control the center, don't move the queen early, castle early, etc") are more important. Still, it's nice to have a menu in your head so you don't have to waste time or potentially blunder what to do when the second move is a gambit or whatever.
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Mar 18, 2021 15:24
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fart simpson posted:i think if you focus on openings too much too early you end up either being terrible and not really improving, or only knowing a bag full of trick openings where if they don’t go exactly as you planned then you’re just screwed for the rest of the game, which can be fun admittedly I guess it's worth saying that learning from the opening out isn't just memorizing a couple of tricks and series of moves, but also general plans and understanding typical positions that arise.
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Mar 18, 2021 15:38
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Hand Knit posted:I guess it's worth saying that learning from the opening out isn't just memorizing a couple of tricks and series of moves, but also general plans and understanding typical positions that arise. There's something really satisfying about knowing an opening well enough to punish your opponent if they play into it incorrectly.
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Mar 18, 2021 15:53
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Hand Knit posted:I guess it's worth saying that learning from the opening out isn't just memorizing a couple of tricks and series of moves, but also general plans and understanding typical positions that arise. yeah that makes sense. i was thinking of that as studying the midgame and pawn structures and such but you know more than i do
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Mar 18, 2021 15:57
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