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also don't calculate. Calculating is overrated at low ELOs just make sure all your pieces are defended and recognize mate in 1s and unprotected pieces and you'll be fine.
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Oct 9, 2021 17:58
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We take this for granted, but if you don't know it you should know the rough value of the pieces. Queen: 9 Rooks: 5 each Bishops: 3 each Knights: 3 each Pawns: 1 each So don't trade a rook for a bishop, for instance. Now these are just general guidelines, but at the beginner level it's pretty much always true that more points are better.
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Oct 9, 2021 19:28
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I believe personally that if I didnt get easily distracted, i would play at a higher elo. I need two hands to count the number of times I thought I had a queen mate in the bag only to have missed something. Also, I value knights slightly more than bishops. Neither can mate by themselves but I use knights more strategically than bishops in most cases. Only disadvantage is you can't use them for a pin.
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Oct 9, 2021 19:51
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As a beginner I've been enjoying just keeping one 24hr correspondence game going (maybe two max) and focusing on that. It's nice to keep notes as you go about what moves you considered and what you thought the opponent would do, and then revisit it all after the game with the help of the engine. Then I play some rapid here and there but its so frustrating to make huge mistakes that I absolutely would have caught in correspondence. The advice about keeping an eye out for unguarded pieces is huge. At first I wasn't monitoring that too closely but now i try to imagine them sticking out like a sore thumb. The other mantra that's helped has been to always check for checks, threats, and captures. For the person who posted earlier, before you actually make your move, imagine see if your opponent has a check, threat, or capture on their next move. It's a pretty fast check and will help you leave pieces hanging as often. WorldIndustries fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Oct 9, 2021 |
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Oct 9, 2021 20:18
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D34THROW posted:I believe personally that if I didnt get easily distracted, i would play at a higher elo. I need two hands to count the number of times I thought I had a queen mate in the bag only to have missed something. The other advantage bishops have over knights is they are long range - they can threaten the other end of the board and travel there in a single move. Personally I tend to value them very slightly higher than knights in general, but the value of a specific piece depends to a huge extent on its activity. If I have a bad bishop that's blocked in by its own pawns I'm super happy to exchange it for an enemy knight that's parked in the centre of the board threatening all sorts of different tactics.
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Oct 9, 2021 21:47
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My understanding is that if you can maintain both bishops, then they’re slightly more valuable than a Knight. But in the end game, those goddamn horses reign supreme but their ability to hop around and fork key pawns.
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Oct 9, 2021 22:08
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I would've thought bishops would generally be more valuable in the endgame because you're more likely to have an open position.
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Oct 10, 2021 21:23
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qsvui posted:I would've thought bishops would generally be more valuable in the endgame because you're more likely to have an open position. They are, also because they can mutually protect with a pawn and because 2 bishops can mate. Now most of us can't mate with two bishops, which implies that in practice you should favour the piece that you personally are better at using.
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Oct 10, 2021 22:20
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A very brief summary of bishops vs knights. As with everything in chess, there's always an "it depends on the position," but there are some regularities: (1) A bishop pair is generally the best combination of two minor pieces because of their mobility and their ability to control space. This advantage is of course pronounced in open positions, and in closed positions other configurations can be better. It's worth noting that one shouldn't get too attached to the bishop pair: one of the advantages of the bishop pair, in contrast to BN or NN, is that BB tends to have greater ability to choose when to trade. (2) A good basic principle in BvN endgames is that the B is better when there's play on both sides of the board. It can move from one zone to another much more easily than a N, and from certain positions it can be relevant on both flanks (though that's often a bit precarious). (3) Of course, the fact that a B is on one colour means that there are also going to be a wider range of positions where B is bad, maybe because it's stuck "biting on granite" (it's stuck pointing at well-defended opponent's pawns), it's caught behind its own pawns, or maybe the opposing pawns are all on the wrong colour and it can't catch them. These get called "Good Knight, Bad Bishop Endgames. (4) When playing against a B in the endgame, there's a basic principle that you want pawns on the same colour as the bishop on the side where your king is, and pawns on the opposite colour on the far side. The point is that so long as you can keep your pawns secure, they're better restricting the opposing bishop.
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Oct 10, 2021 22:52
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In other news, I kinda wonder if it's time for a new thread. The OP of the thread is... more than a little bit out of date.
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Oct 10, 2021 23:38
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Hand Knit posted:In other news, I kinda wonder if it's time for a new thread. The OP of the thread is... more than a little bit out of date. Just edit the OP? Re: material values, this seemed neat - https://www.chess.com/amp/article/the-evaluation-of-material-imbalances-by-im-larry-kaufman
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Oct 11, 2021 02:03
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I read that article and it's pretty cool how a very many different ways of calculating relative piece value come out so similar. Wikipedia has a great article about the history of relative piece values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value It includes a table for comparing many different methods, for example Philidor in 1817: ♕ - 7.9 ♖ - 5 ♗ - 3.5 ♘ - 3.05 Or Lasker in 1947: ♕ - 8.5 ♖ - 5 ♗ - 3.5 ♘ - 3.5 It seems like such an absurd thing to try to calculate in an objective way, but over two hundred years its pretty much unchanged.
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Oct 11, 2021 02:19
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I don't mind if you edit the OP or start a new thread, but I did notice when looking for a chess thread to post in that the series discussing current tournaments over in (I think) SAS petered out years ago. Maybe best to roll tournament discussion into this one since it's not super busy? To be honest I don't really know where/how to follow competitive chess anyway.
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Oct 11, 2021 10:54
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if we did that it might be timely to make the new thread to coincide with the world championship next month maybe
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Oct 11, 2021 11:14
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I usually read chess24 for tournament coverage/board watching.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:00
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Maugrim posted:I don't mind if you edit the OP or start a new thread, but I did notice when looking for a chess thread to post in that the series discussing current tournaments over in (I think) SAS petered out years ago. Maybe best to roll tournament discussion into this one since it's not super busy? SAS has generally had a thread for the title match but maybe it is best to try everything in here. Timing the new thread to start with the title match is a good idea.
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Oct 11, 2021 23:02
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It's actually not obvious where this thread is either. I had to search to find it
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Oct 12, 2021 05:13
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here’s a reasonably simple puzzle from a game i had the other day. mate in 4 after black played 7 ..g5. I found the general idea but messed up one step. still got mate a few moves later anyway i have a surprising number of wins because people pushed their f and g pawns to chase a bishop or something jesus WEP fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Oct 12, 2021 |
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Oct 12, 2021 09:40
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I originally thought mate in 2 Qh5+ Ke7; Qg7# but didnt see the escape chute to d6 until I ran it in analysis, only c5+ Bxc5; Nec4# from there. Full disclosure I'm only 700 in rapid so quite pleased with myself for seeing it at all!
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Oct 12, 2021 10:05
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https://lichess.org/N1ZxRPJC/black#32 Pretty fun sequence ending in an epaulette mate.
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Oct 13, 2021 00:10
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Finally cracked 1500 today in Rapid, I started out around 1000 when my ELO was first calculated this summer. Crazy how many games I had to play just to reach the level of "average lichess player" e: I still suuuuck at bullet however (<1100 ELO, and not for lack of trying) dhamster fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 06:39
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dhamster posted:https://lichess.org/N1ZxRPJC/black#32 nice!
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Oct 13, 2021 06:50
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I had not seen or heard of an epaulette mate but it's very pretty! Clearly need to study my mating patterns.
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Oct 13, 2021 07:51
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I remembered it was called an Epaulette Mate because it looks almost like the King is wearing shoulder pads. If the king is in the back row with two pieces on either side, he has no escape squares against a Queen attacking from this angle.
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Oct 13, 2021 14:03
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Yeah, it's a perfect name especially when the pieces are rooks. And I guess they mostly tend to be rooks as knights could take the queen and bishops or a queen could block, unless pinned by a rook of your own.
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Oct 13, 2021 14:17
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Anyone seen the chessbrah building habits series? I've been really enjoying it https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8N8j2e7RpPnpqbISqi1SJ9_wrnNU3rEm
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Oct 13, 2021 17:05
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Bookmarking for later. Got up to 638, then went 4-12 last night and crashed back down to the 500s. And now I seem to have forgotten entirely how to play my opening. So, back to basics.
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Oct 13, 2021 18:44
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If you actually follow the "don't hang free pieces, take free pieces" rule reliably that alone should get you to over 1500. Even just "don't hang your queen, take free queen" might be enough to get close.
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Oct 13, 2021 18:52
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I think I need to take a break from bullet chess. I feel way worse at it than Rapid even though I'm not actually running into time pressure that often. I'm just making a lot more mistakes at it.
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Oct 13, 2021 21:10
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VictualSquid posted:If you actually follow the "don't hang free pieces, take free pieces" rule reliably that alone should get you to over 1500. Even just "don't hang your queen, take free queen" might be enough to get close. This is surely an exaggeration - opponents at my current (~1200) level almost never just hang pieces in my experience. Maybe it's different in rapid though I dunno
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Oct 13, 2021 22:24
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Maugrim posted:This is surely an exaggeration - opponents at my current (~1200) level almost never just hang pieces in my experience. Maybe it's different in rapid though I dunno Maybe they're talking about Lichess. There's quite a gap in what level the ratings are between Lichess and chess.com
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Oct 13, 2021 22:27
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101 posted:Maybe they're talking about Lichess. There's quite a gap in what level the ratings are between Lichess and chess.com But, aman is playing blitz in his videos. Where I do stand by my statement as written.
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Oct 13, 2021 22:39
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My last ~1100 chess.com opponent hung a piece. In a daily game. And I missed it too  Sometimes it's not time pressure, it's just brain fog.
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Oct 14, 2021 02:34
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In lichess blitz, "don't hang pieces" gets you to at least a thousand. I'd speculate that "don't miss one-move tactics" gets you another four hundred points. At any rate I'm about a thousand and virtually all of my losses involve plural tactical car crashes. Either inflicting them on myself or failing to inflict them when my opponent hands them to me. (And for that matter I still hang the occasional piece.)
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Oct 14, 2021 04:21
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I'm about 1200-1400 on lichess and when I play on chess.com (normally when lichess is down) I'm about 900-1000 so that tracks. Fun forced mate sequence! Saw the initial move almost immediately but spent almost a full minute double and triple checking in case there was some way to stop it. White to move and win. 
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Oct 14, 2021 05:07
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h3 Because you're a rook ahead and the only way not to win would be to miscalculate a forced mate and get back rank msted yourself.
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Oct 14, 2021 07:16
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"Circling the drain" 1.Nd6+ Kd7 (c pawn is pinned!) 2. Qxc7+ Ke6 3. Qe7+ Kd5 4. R1b5+ Kc6 5. Qc7# I definitely wouldn't feel confident about a forced mate that long!
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Oct 14, 2021 07:58
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Maugrim posted:I don't mind if you edit the OP or start a new thread, but I did notice when looking for a chess thread to post in that the series discussing current tournaments over in (I think) SAS petered out years ago. Maybe best to roll tournament discussion into this one since it's not super busy? There are usually candidates/title threads that's about it. I made one where I made every chess player a cowboy, I'm not entirely sure it worked but I tried. Hand Knit posted:In other news, I kinda wonder if it's time for a new thread. The OP of the thread is... more than a little bit out of date. 9 years old... seems fine.
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Oct 14, 2021 08:35
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VictualSquid posted:yes, I was thinking about lichess. 1500 is the median rating on lichess, iirc on chess.com it is around 1200. That's fair then, I actually thought your post was a response to BUGJUG who plays rapid games. And I only play daily games. Very different scenarios
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Oct 14, 2021 09:43
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fisting by many posted:"Circling the drain" Nd6+ doesn't work because rook can take. I think it's - Nb6+ Kd8 Qxc7+ Ke8 Rb8+ Rd8 Qxd8#
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Oct 14, 2021 09:56
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