How do you play on Chess.com ?

I ask this literally, because the ability to see the pieces should be similar online as it is OTB (I dont really know and dont want to insensitive).

So the difference in experience should only differ from how you input your moves to the game. Do you someone else to whom you dictate the moves for example ? Then most likely you can talk with the organization to accomodate for that situation. Alternatively, if you must move the pieces yourself, there are tactile boards in the market. You would probably again need to talk to the organizers, so that you always play on the same board instead of having to move around and setting up every round (assuming tournament play).

Overall, the experience itself of keeping track of the board should be similar I think, and for other difficulties, I would be suprised if organizers or club managers wouldnt be able/willing to help and accomodate.

It is a tough position to defend, and in a practical game its not super clear how you refute it.

Should you accept the computer evaluation ? Yes, but only in the sense that you should not actively look for these kind of moves as they are bad habits. They can be used as attempts to win if you don't think other options as better alternatives.

But when you say "probably calculating against best possible line" although true, it does not mean that a strong opponent can't also stabilize the position. One thing players also forget is that as good as Stockfish defends, they are probably not able to find good continuations on the attack like Stockfish can.

Practical attacking choices can still be parried by humans.

Black has some difficulty developing his c8 bishop, as the d7 pawn is currently blocked. What would make sense is to play a6-b5 and develop the bishop to an excellent square on b7. a6-b5 is a common idea when c5 has been played, keeping pawns together. Furthermore, b5 would hit your queen and there is potentially c4 after that, hitting the bishop. So this could be very disruptive for White. While b6 to develop the bishop is always possible, it's a bit passive and a6-b5 is a lot nicer.

So a4 is aimed against this plan. You might think "well what's the hurry? After O-O a6 I'll just play a4 then". But this doesn't actually stop b5, because if axb5 axb5 after that, your queen and rook are both hanging and you will lose material. (The second-top move of Nc3 does stop b5, because after 8. Nc3 a6 9. a4, Black cannot allow 9...b5 10. axb5 axb5 11. Nxb5 Rxa1 12. Nxd6+ when f7 is hanging with a fork. It's good practice if you can try to visualize all this).

After a4 immediately, if Black tries a6, White can always play a5, permanently shutting down the idea of b5 as White will always be able to take en passant.

I know the game plan for a double bishop checkmate, but if I can just make a queen why would I go for the more difficult option? I'm just trying to win, not flex.

I can’t entirely tell the full extent of the exchange that happened on e5, but I am guessing it won you more than a pawn. Obviously if they take back you win the queen, but I don’t see any other big big threats you have if they don’t take. So I imagine this is after you won their knight or dark square bishop.

Learn how to properly review your games. Try not to rely too much on the automated review. How much is really sticking if you are quickly clicking through the review? Go through it first without an engine and then again with the engine turned on. What were you thinking when you blundered? Why does that not work? Without the engine can you find the idea you should have gone with? That really helped me get from 800 to 1200. It takes a lot more time away from playing but you end up with quicker improvement in my opinion.

The premium pieces I find are the 3x weighted pieces. They tend to have a heavy bottom and don't tip over easy. But if you're a woodworker, I'm sure you could make your own Staunton set of pieces. If your daughter has interest you could even make the pieces together.

Ones you like! I may look specifically for pieces that are easily able to tell which side is which and which piece is which (especially king from queen). You’d be surprised how many sets don’t do that. Apart from that, people look for the weight of the piece (heavy enough to feel solid, but easy to move). But first and foremost is just whether you like the look of them and are they in budget.

Different time controls are very different styles of games. Blitz lets you make mistakes that aren’t punished because there isn’t enough time to analyze the mistake. Especially if you are playing 3|0. 10|0 with the same play will allow your opponents to punish the mistakes that might go unnoticed in blitz. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You will get back on your game if you stick to one time control.

Without seeing your games we can't tell you why your accuracy is dropping.

From what you've told us, all we can tell you is "bring your accuracy back to 82%", but that means absolutely nothing by itself.

On a general note, you're technically not playing the KID.

The KID move order is 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6. By playing 1. d4 g6 first, you're allowing your opponent to transpose into some pirc lines by never committing to c4. For example, 1. d4 g6 2. e4 d6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4.f4 is the austrian attack of the Pirc. Mainly reached through 1. e4, funnily enough.

This is a very different type of position to both the accelerated dragon, which is your main choice against e4, and the KID, which is supposed to be your main choice against d4. I don't know if this matters to you, but this is very important to note anyway.

Is my dark bishop always useless? I feel like it's a piece that I want to trade off whenever the chance appears.

The bishop in KID is notoriously bad if white closes the center. It usually gets in the way of Black's attack — if you've seen any classical KID games, you know that a common regrouping for black is Rf8-Rf7 with Bg7-Bf8. One way to get rid of this bishop is by playing Bh6 in some specific cases.

I play Na6 instead of Nd7 so that they can't play b4 in response to Nd7

This is mostly fine, but loses flexibility. Black is rarely scared of an early b4 since it can be immediately undermined with a5 or c5.

...

Your main problem seems to be unfamiliarity with the tactical flair of KID-like positions. After going through some of your games, it's hard to pinpoint problems unrelated to your tactical vision, but I'll try:

1. Nh5-f5-f4 isn't the only plan in the KID — be more flexible. Queenside play with Nc5, a4, c6 might be better if you still haven't commited to f5. Or, to give an example, in the second game instead of Nh5-f5-f4 you should've went for fxe4 instead, since it was obvious that white was not going to castle kingside, and you need the open f-file for counterplay anyway.
2. e5 isn't the only break in the KID. In main line theory, if white goes for something goofy, like an early f3, c5 could be chosen over e5. Actually, if traditional KID lines keep missing for you, you can experiment with late benoni lines instead — always going for c5 instead of e5.
3. Don't lose on the queenside if you can avoid it. Your first game was fine, until you inexplicably allowed your opponent to execute the only chance at counterplay they had.

I like the Step Method workbooks, just because it's a cohesive, clearly defined path all the way to master level. Each workbook is like $10 for 700+ puzzles, a small discount and free shipping for bulk (I think ordering all four Step 1 workbooks at once will get you there).

If you're gonna be spending money, hiring a coach even if an amateur one is probably better than those options.

Or buying some good chess books. Although, if you go the book route I would argue that there are plenty of free ones on the Internet Archive you can work through first that will make a significant difference.

My bigger point is, unless you're a professional there is no need to spend money for serious improvement. And if you're doing it casually simply because you can afford it, then just choose whichever seems more fun for you.

On a curious note, you make the argument that Qe7 is a move that defends Mate and defends the Bishop, but in my opinion O-O is a more feisty move (full disclosure, the engine doesnt like it).

White can't take the Bishop because of Nd3, so our now castled King sits safely, and we're gonna have time to defend the Bishop.

I simply mention this because I don't like Qe7 very much and the way it clumps up the position.

Edit: the ultimate boss move, and engine approved, is to play Be6 to defend mate and attack the Queen so it moves (and actually makes it more tempting to capture the Bishop, which it still can't do without falling into Nd3)

You're definitely putting in way too much text for each move. I (and by that I mean you), dont wanna be reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" whenever I want to check one of my games.

The point of annotating is to be concise about your ideas, so you yourself can very easily check your notes. So a lot of text means you don't have a clear enough understanding of the position or what you're playing for, or you might be over complicating it.

You also write down variations in your comments, when its far easier to just play those variations and then adding a shorter comment at the end of each of them. When you do so, it also becomes easier to notice what variations are more important to take a look at (and you can also just write down which ones are more important as well).

For me personally, seeing this wall of text makes me already very weary of reading it fully, particularly because your style of writing just feels very dull to read, and I mean no offense you dont have to be a full-time writer to annotate well. My bigger point is that, if I have that feeling then maybe others will as well, and most importantly you will that way as well in a month or two if you want to check back on this game.

As for the game, you did well in just playing very solidly and your opponent decided to play for tactics that dont exist. Learning to "not interrupt" your opponent when he is making a mistake and just moving your pieces very calmly is a nice skill to have. Overall an easy game for you, and just a "nonesense" game from your opponent.

It looks like you have an inescapable checkmating attack if black plays 1...Bxf1 2. Bxh7+!! Kg7 (2... Kxh7 3. Qh5+ Kg8 4.Nf5 Re8 5. Qh6 with mate on g7) 3.Nf5+ Kh8 4. Qh5 and mate follows shortly.

Try practicing king and pawn endgames. The better your endgame knowledge, the better you can see how to win if you trade off all the pieces.

Exchanges are very hard to get good at. One thing you can do after games is review both positions of exchanging and not exchanging. Generally what I see with newer players is always accepting trades. Unless the position is truly balanced one player will benefit more from a trade than the other. Being down the middle of not always accepting and not always denying trades is the best way forward. At your elo (according to your flair) the biggest thing is to not hang pieces. Even trades (same amount of material) likely won’t greatly influence the outcome of the game

In endgames with few pieces on the board, an "outside passed pawn" as they are called becomes very valuable. The easy example is a king and pawn endgame where let's say one side has an outside passed pawn and the other a central passed pawn, plus some other pawns for both sides. This is probably winning for the side with the outside passer because after both kings go to stop the pawns for each side, one king will be centralized and the other badly misplaced. I guess the way to put it would be that as the value of the king as a piece goes up (due to fewer pieces on the board), there is a corresponding increase in the power of outside passed pawns, as it is so hard for a king to help deal with them.

Earlier in the game, with more pieces on the board, central pawns in general are more valuable, as they help control the center, and central passed pawns are no exception to this.

If the question is, without knowing anything else, would I rather have a central passed pawn or a passed Rook pawn (A or H), then however interesting that question is, it's borderline impossible to answer. The value of a passed pawn by itself is the same for either pawn, meaning its in the prospect that it will promote to another piece.

All the pieces influence the position, for better or worse. It is true though that a Rook passed pawn is typically easier to draw against, with nice examples featuring each minor piece, and the Queen herself as well.

However, in the specific cases of a King vs Pawn endgame, there is of course much value in how far this particular pawn is for everything else, and of course that value lends itself into other endgames if we still have Rooks/Queens on the board.

But now we're getting more specific and adding on information to the question, that's how we could go about ranking each of them.

On a different example, this is not a way to dodge the question. If you ask me "would you rather have a Knight or Bishop in the game?", while similarly not giving me more information, then I would prefer to have a Bishop. That doesn't mean there are no scenarios the Knight won't be better, but the Bishop has more inherent value than a Knight when we remove all other bits of information.

TL;DR - I personally dont know anything that would make me prefer one pawn over the other.

Hope this helps, cheers!

I'd say the best way to study openings like this is to go to an opening database of master-level games, and see what masters played in the critical positions. In this case, the critical difference between 2.g3 and 2.Nc3 is that you're giving black the opportunity to play d5 on move 2.

I don't know if masters play exd5, since it allows Qxd5, threatening white's rook on h1, and preventing Bg2.

If the critical line doesn't happen, the game would just transpose into a closed Sicilian.

In other words, the only reason to play 2.g3 is if you want to encourage this critical line. So, look for games in chessbase or chessgames or downloaded from your database of choice and see how masters played after 1.e4 c5 2.g3 d5. If you like how it looks, play this opening. If you don't, then play Nc3 and aim to play g3 early.

Looking at what masters did is more important than looking at the engine's recommendation. By a lot.

When I study chess, it's mostly through reading books, listening to lectures, and analyzing master-level games without the help of an engine.

GM Noel Studer has a very nice video about how he recommends people study that he calls the 1/3 method. Essentially, of the time you set aside for chess, 1/3 of the time should be spent practicing tactics, 1/3 of the time should be spent playing and applying what you're learning, and the final third should be split evenly between Game Analysis (by hand), Positional/strategic concepts, and opening study.

While we're on the subject, I'll also share this other video of his, focusing on how to properly analyze your games. A very worthwhile video if you're currently letting engines analyze your games for you.

Just start playing 1.e4. At 1400 Lichess you will get a fine position just following the basic principles. Put a pawn in the center (1.e4) two if possible (d4 usually), develop your pieces, castle.

You need something against 1...e5 (I would recommend the Vienna, that way you don't have to deal with the Petrov or with offbeat stuff like the Elephant or Latvian Gambits) and something against 1...c5 (up to you, lots of options, you could try the Alapin).

Most of the other openings can be defused if you don't care about trying to seek maximum advantage. Just play the Exchange in the French (you can castle Q-side and try to get some play that way) and the Caro (attack on the K-side with pieces). I guarantee you Black does not have some sort of super-secret prep in these lines. Pirc you can just play the Classical (put two pawns in the center, develop classically, castle K-side). The Qxd5 Scandi, play Nc3, d4, Nf3, then Bd2 and try to castle Q-side rapidly. The Nf6 Scandi, Play Bb5+ Be2 and then develop. This is all to get up and running, then if you decide something sucks (looking at you, Exchange French) you can replace things as you go.

I think there are elements here that can be mentioned, and then each person might weigh differently how important they are.

1 - The material imbalance favors White, so Black needs to play for an attack and towards keeping their initiative.

2 - Because the White King is a bit exposed, Black gets to try and be very agressive.

3 - White needs to maneuver their pieces for attacks, so we need to not give them time to do that (again by keeping the iniatitive).

With that, my analysis of the position, which was little more than looking at it for 1-2 minutes so I could be wrong, is that the idea is that after Rxe4 fxe4 Qxe4+ , we have a Pin on the Knight against the Rook and created a passed pawn. White's Queen is shooting at the air so it's not very troublesome, while we can just try to push this pawn to bother White and or/win back material.

If we move the King to H8, then we have locked up our Queen to defend F7, or we need to maneuver one of our Rooks. We played 2 moves to defend F7, but we can just see that F7 is already defended by the King, and since we want to play actively (we need to if we want to win) we can't be wasting those 2 moves, nor can we afford to let F7 fall when material already favors White.

Also, it's the F-pawn that becomes a passed pawn.

Hope this helps, and if Im wrong, let me know, cheers!

Well, I may be blind, but you also still lose the pawn on A2 if Black decides to capture. They even gain a tempo on the Rook which isnt in real danger, but it does mean you dont really get to try and trap the Queen.

The move itself isnt marked as a mistake, just as an innacuracy. This means that the nuances between the two moves is likely not that important

White has a huge lead in development and the Black Queen is out of play.

As Chris explains, it's a difference on what the moves are trying to do.

F3/F6 is obviously, at a first glance, typically a defensive move to support the E4 pawn, while F4 will usually be trying to advance an attack, possibly against the E5 pawn.

As a defensive move, F3/F6 usually leave more holes in the position that weaken your King, than the defensive value of supporting E4. On the other hand, F4 usually gives more attacking chances than the defensive weaknesses it also gives. But also, again as Chris explains, F4 doesn't give as many weakness since it doesnt take away flexibility to add other defenders, such as having a Knight on F3.

Mind you that, while F3/F6 has a solely bad reputation for most cases, it's not like F4 or F5 aren't also seen as dubious attempts for attacks. F4 is the second move of the King's Gambit for example, which is seen as a dubious Gambit.

f3/f6 also occupies the square which is normally occupied by a knight which is a useful defender, so that is an additional way it weakens the castled position.

Beyond that, it's a question of context. f3/f6 are often played as defensive moves, while f4 is typically part of an expansion plan on the K-side. If I am expanding there, then clearly I feel I am strong on that side of the board and therefore not concerned that weaknesses there will be exploitable.

It is hard to give an answer to this question, because it always depends on the concrete position, but I will give it a try anyways:
When you play f4/f5 after castling, you try to gain space and start to potentially push the pawn in order to attack the opponents king, while at the same time potentially opening up the f-file for the rook. It obviously also reduces your king safety. If you go for f3/f6 you don't really gain any space but still reduce your king safety.

Once again: Hard to make general statements.

White just takes on e5 with check.

There are some things that I feel should be said.

Chess is not a good way to measure mental state/ability. People will sometimes use their rating as a pseudo-IQ Test, which is wrong, and it's also wrong to say you're winning and losing games only due to your mood.

Both will have probably have an effect, sure, but they impact your entire life, not just Chess. So it's wrong to use just one thing to measure either of those things.

Chess is however, a game. And games are supposed to be played for fun, simple as that. Its okay to want to be competitive, and its okay to desire improvement. I will be the first person here to say that I get very upset if I perform badly in a tournament, but thats a reflection on me and something I need to work on, and not a good habit.

What Im trying to say is, if you feel Chess is taking a bigger part of your life than it needs/should, then that's obviously not healthy as you have yourself noted, and as Tatsumaki has also reaffirmed. Do you need to stop playing altogether ? Well maybe, but I would personally not like that solution, in my total ignorance to your very real issues and what needs to be done to deal with them.

You simply need to reajust your mindset towards the game, and learning to take loses and setbacks in stride is part of any kind of "sport". When I say "simply", it does not mean it should be easy. Im not trying to diminish your struggles, but I think we will agree that the deed itself is rather simple.

If you feel when you're more "blue" you shouldn't play as it will be bad for you, then resist the urge to play. Otherwise, again, you're not enjoying the game, and games were made to be enjoyed.

I think you already know this, but this subreddit isn't the place where you're going to find the answers to tough questions like "How do I play chess in a way that doesn't potentially put me in a state of crisis?" You've taken the issue of "I'm currently surviving depression, and my relationship with chess seems to be actively making that more difficult.", and decided to focus trying to find a way to keep your chess skills from deteriorating while you're working through the depression.

I hope you're already working with a professional. I'm not one.

Chess skills deteriorating during an extended break from the game should be one of your lowest priorities right now. When you say that "stakes are too high", this paints the picture, to me, of somebody who has created a contingent self-worth, associated with their chess skills. You have worth regardless of this game. I imagine you have a friend or family member you've played chess with. Somebody you care about, that is much worse at the game than you. Do you think that person has worth? Do you think any less of that person because they happen to be worse at this game?

There are no stakes to chess. None at all. I understand you might want to use chess as a sort of litmus test to measure your mental state, but that's not a healthy relationship to have with the game, and it sounds like you've already identified that.

Best of luck going forward. I'm rooting for you.

IMO kinda. I think it takes longer though. You need a lot of good intuition for blitz due to the time constraint. The “this is a good move” if I took longer I could explain why but don’t have the time. Playing longer games you can prove your thought right or wrong before moving. You can’t do that in blitz. That way it has to be done through trial and error which is inefficient compared to slow methodical games to build up that intuition more effectively

Assuming that you're also studying and practicing chess, analyzing your losses and reflecting on your mistakes, yeah.

But classical follows those same rules. If you only play chess, there's a very limited amount of improvement to be had, especially once you reach the point where your board vision is totally developed. Most improvement in chess happens off the board.

Sounds like you're trying to run before you know how to walk. The rote memorization of opening theory (memorizing the moves and different lines/variations) is the most study-intensive, and least impactful aspect of opening study.

Once you reach the end of your line, you need to Play Chess™. Piece activity, center control, king safety, active play, preventing and responding to threats, making your own.

Whether or not you're in the opening, you should never play a "random move". You should be able to explain all of your moves.

You're 1600. If you want to study something, I recommend Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. The entire book talks about positional evaluation, how to identify and formulate plans, the ideas around different positional imbalances, and so on.

I set aside an hour or two, get my board out, and either continue where I left off, or if I'm re-reading a book, I'll go to the section I wanted a refresher on. I set up every position the author displays, and play through the lines and variations written as I read along.

Sometimes I can get through a dozen pages in a couple of hours, sometimes I only get through one. All depends on the author's writing/teaching style. If the author favors teaching you things in the annotations of example games, it takes a lot longer than if they favor paragraphs supported by composed positions.

Not strictly about Western chess, but relevant.

"All I ask is that the reader not do anything so foolish as to finish the book in one day. It should be read deliberately, a chapter a day at the fastest, and a fortnight to finish the whole book. If the read will then spend another fortnight re-reading it and learning from it as he would from a good instructor, I think I can promise that he will surmount the barrier of his present rank"

Toshiro Kageyama, Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go

I've been working my way through "How to Reassess your Chess" for a year now. =P

Mostly I read sections, focus on that for awhile, then come back to it later when I'm feeling like playing more isn't the answer.

One thing I recommend is looking at free courses on chessable. They are generally pretty good for lower intermediate players like us. Giving some theory but a practical use of it. For example, caro kann for club players is free and includes a lot of lines with middle game ideas. I also really liked the 1 e4 for club players. Another free course that gave me a really good baseline so I could focus on developing other parts of my game

The Kan is a difficult example, not that I know a huge amount about it (never having played it with Black and generally avoiding it as White) but it is a cagey, flexible opening where Black tries to react to White's play, so "the ideas of the Kan" is a very nebulous topic. Adding to this is the fact that there are all sorts of anti-Sicilians to deal with before you even get to the Kan starting position.

If you want to dabble with the Sicilian, I would recommend a more straightforward variation like the O'Kelly, because then you will easily be able to find YouTube videos and suchlike to explain to you how to play it, and you will be exposed to more general Sicilian ideas more easily. The reason you can't find an easy Kan explainer article or video is because it is too big a topic; it's the sort of thing that takes a whole Chessable course to cover.

"Bad bishop" and "good bishop" are temporary titles which are bound to change throughout the game. Often, when you end up in very closed positions which you'd get from the advance caro, in the middlegame both sides' bishops are going to be quite "bad". I don't play the advanced variation against the caro, so I might be wrong on that assessment. Someone else probably has better insight into that.

In general, you can consider, in a given moment:

1. Is my bishop controlling a lot of squares?

2. In a reasonable number of moves, could I get my bishop to a position where it is safe, and controlling a lot of squares?

3. Do I have both bishops (i.e. "the bishop pair")? This increases the value of either bishop: I've heard the that having the bishop pair is worth as much as a pawn.

4. Of course, always look for tactics either in a move or "tactic ghosts" hanging out around the board which you might be able to pressure your opponent to fall into.

Consider all of that, and then do the same for your opponent. You should then get a feel on whose bishop is worth more or if they're about equal.

I hit a plateau at 850-ish because of accuracy issues. I dont know if this works for you, but for me it helped to slow down my game and find smaller advantages that bear fruit. Trying to attack pieces early on would result in many miscalculations.

Middlegame strategy is determined by so many different factors and is different from game to game. If your endgame skills are up to snuff, then an effective way to look at the middlegame is as a catalyst to a winning endgame. Maintain good pawn structures when possible. Control open files.

Every time you get to a key position ask yourself, "If the board looked exactly like this, but only the kings and pawns were left, would I win?" If you think you would, try to find opportunities to trade material (especially the queens), if not, then do the opposite. Make decisions that keep the position complicated.

For example, you find yourself in a position where you don't like the potential endgame. Your knight is on a really nice outpost. Your opponent moves their knight to attack it. If you use your knight to capture theirs, or you let them capture yours (then you recapture it), you are shambling towards the potential endgame you don't like. Taking your knight off the nice outpost keeps the position more complicated, and unless you had a good justification (tactical or otherwise), you should keep the position from becoming an endgame, unless it's on your terms.

Even at 900 every move should have a purpose/idea/objective behind it. Constantly as yourself what can you do to improve your position. Constantly ask yourself what is your opponent trying to do? Should I be scared?

The middle game is the most complex. Don’t worry about accuracy. It’s not a good measurement. It doesn’t take into account complexity. If you are up 8 points every move is good so it’s easy to play accurately.

This post explains how you can choose your flair on mobile.

This is incorrect, because the board coordinates (a1-h8) are absolute. White always starts on the 1st and 2nd ranks, and Black always starts on the 7th or 8th ranks.

I only resign if three criteria are met:

1. I can clearly see the path for my opponent to win.
2. My opponent has demonstrated they also see it.
3. I have no off-the-board advantages (like my opponent being in time trouble).

I would have most likely resigned before this point, unless I had a reason to think that my opponent might accidentally deliver stalemate (like, if they were rated in three digits, or they were a child, or something).

Probably. I really try to play until checkmate most of the time but that seems like a straight forward mate for your opponent. It is up to you to decide when the “never resign” rule applies.

I think the simplest explanation will revolve around the D-pawn as you sort of seem to have figured out.

In your scenario #6 there is a Knight on D6 preventing the Bishop from being developed (we cant move the D-pawn), and since we are making threats then Black doesn't have time to play b6 to develop the Bishop from the other side.

This is important because we need to keep a mating threat on E8 so overload the Knight on D6 (it won't be able to take back the Knight if we capture it)

In case #10 if we try the same move, then as you said, Black gets to play d6 with a tempo against our Rook. We don't really need to lose material, but Black is then able to move the Bishop and the Rook on A8 joins the defense which in turns frees up the Knights.

As you correctly noticed as well, by attacking with the Knight instead, we create a situation where again, Black doesn't have time to take the Rook because we are threatning to Check-Mate.

You want a non digital DGT ? Thats like asking for a car without an engine lol.

But there are surely lots of places to order a weighted chess set of your liking, be it wood or plastic.

Look for shops in your area or just google it. There are probably also sites where you can easily compare product prices.

That's a weird scenario, but it probably still only accounts for the rating when the game started which feels more natural.

But it is a Chess.com question, probably best to just look in their FAQ or something of the sort.

Your question about the clock is hyper specific, but if the claim is legitimate then as per usual you get some extra time (I think Rapid and Blitz awards the player an extra minute for example, not sure about classical).

I've actually seen on youtube someone whose clock ran out, they made a complaint to the arbiter that a friend of the opponent made a distracting noise (of excitment or whatever) and the arbiter accepted the complaint.

FIDE Rule 12.6:

It is forbidden to distract or annoy the opponent in any manner whatsoever. This includes unreasonable claims, unreasonable offers of a draw or the introduction of a source of noise into the playing area.

Penalty is at arbiter's discretion, anything from a warning to game loss or even expulsion from the event.

This visually does not look winning but black is the only one who could really lose

The computer might jump like that because the web evaluator isn't running at a high depth

If your opponent gives up multiple pawns in a row to you as part of a gambit, don't be too greedy. And don't get your queen trapped. Other than that take away

If you can take a center pawn do it, if you can take a flank pawn with a center pawn generally don't do it. Be very careful about taking on b2 in the opening with the queen.

This post explains how you can choose your flair.

You can. no one will stop you. I would suggest playing some humans and you’ll get a better understanding of your elo against humans. Most people use that number

1500+ imo Doesn't matter that much til closer to 2000

I'd say that answer changes from person to person. It's also worth mentioning that when you say, "Opening Theory", that could mean a few different things. I'd say that around the 1300 level is where a player should have an idea of what openings they play, and be learning about the regular middlegame positions and pawn structures those openings result in.

I’m at 1600 chesscom rapid. I’d say it hinders me now. I need to study openings now to improve. Because if you’re making mistakes in the opening, it can ruin the entire rest of the game if your opponent plays well

Sounds like you're not having fun. Maybe try a different hobby / game?

You are way overrated. Did you select intermediate when you signed up for Lichess? I started around 1000 or 1200 rating when I signed up and I'm roughly in the same spot.

I looked through several games and I see two things you can improve immediately. First, you seem to forget which pieces your opponent attacks in the middlegame and which ones you attack as well. There were too many games where a pawn was simply hanging and you ignored it, for both you and your opponent. If you can keep your pieces defended and capture the free stuff your opponent leaves, you'll be in a better spot.

Secondly you are trading too willingly. Very often when you trade you are allowing your opponent to improve the positioning of their pieces. For example, in this position you decided to trade rooks. Even though stockfish can justify the move, from a human standpoint you are ceding control of the c file and white used it to infiltrate with their queen. Instead if white imitated the trade you would be the only one with a rook on the c file and you would've been able to generate more counter play.

Your issue isn't that you're not improving (though that might also be the case). Your issue is that you're overrated. You're losing more games than you're winning simply because you're playing against people better than you.

Your first two opponents resigned, which artificially skyrocketed your rating. Now, the only games you're winning are resignations and time outs. I looked at your most recent checkmate win, and you blundered an entire rook in it, then your opponent ignored your attack. This is a new account, right? What was the rating of your old one? You're going to lose most of your games until you're around that rating again. Any improvement you have in the meantime won't be apparent unless it's so drastic that you start playing at the level you're rated or higher.

But you asked for chess advice, and I haven't shared any yet.

Stop making unsound sacrifices. If there's no way to progress the position without making a sacrifice, and you don't have the time to properly calculate it, then don't progress the position. Some middlegame positions deserve to be drawn, and trying to force a win from a draw puts you in a bad place.

Tighten up your endgame technique.

Stop resigning in endgames where you have drawing chances.

Similar to point number one, cool it with these kingside attacks in positions that don't call for them. Also, understand that an attack can be considered a success even if it didn't result in checkmate. If you win material or even provoke a weakness, these are accomplishments.

A fork is when two or more enemy pieces are attacked simultaneously. In this case, your opponent attacks the queen and the rook at the same time with their knight. That is a fork. Moving the queen up one square as a response is another fork, the queen forks the king and the knight. Because that queen move checks the king, the king has to move and then the queen can capture the knight

Forgot the picture

ironically this lost him the game, the big dump in white is the forced en passante

https://preview.redd.it/wf2tqv7has0g1.png?width=1628&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc6ec22679e92761869a6c2cd498ed40f5dfe1af

Very good. I was at 400 elo when i started. It took me 4 years to get to 2300 where i stand today. Chess is a long learning process and if you just continue playing and studying regularly you will see pretty fast progress (i'm mainly basing this on the fact that your graf seems to be already steadily climbing up). Good luck on your journey:)

Very good. Proud of you

In no attempt to discredit your achievement whatsoever, I will say that it’s much easier to have rapid improvement as a beginner. Anything you do helps you learn. At higher levels progress typically becomes slower because your study has to be more intensive and specific

There could be a few issues at hand, and without seeing your games or some sample positions, it's hard to say for sure which is the main issue, or if it's a combination of them.

Piece coordination, King Safety, Killer Instinct, and checkmate pattern practice are the four things that come to mind. Of those, the only one that is easy to practice are Queen-specific checkmate patterns. You can use chesscom's custom puzzles or lichess' puzzle themes to practice specific checkmate patterns. Here are the main ones I can think of that make use of the queen:

• Dovetail mate
• Swallow tail mate
• Triangle Mate
• Epaulette Mate
• Greco Mate
• Max Lange Mate
• Queen Battery Mate

Offhand, I don't know if all of these are on these two sites, but whichever ones you can practice, should help you in all of the aspects I wrote above. Take note of your opponent's lack of king safety, see how the pieces coordinate. Set the difficulty to the easiest setting and just grind out each one of these for 20+ minutes. Really focus on getting the pattern recognition down. Do it until all the puzzles start looking "samey", then do it some more.

I think you mostly had to just not blunder if you wanted to push your pawns with your queen (not necessarily promoting, but at least forcing white to give up more material to stop it), stockfish finds ways to make it work (even though pushing pawns is not close to it's preferred moves) but it's not the plan I would have gone for.

You're technically up material, but your rooks aren't connected, don't have good open files, and your bishop is stuck defending a pawn and can't really move (also contributing to the rooks being bad). And your pawn moves were also weakening your king, while it may have seemed safe because of the material advantage and the fact that some pieces were traded off already, white still has quite a few pieces that can help.

In the position on move 28, whites bishop (and queen, but they can freely move that) is defending a pawn that helps trap one of your rooks and prevents your bishop from moving (by preventing the b pawn from pushing). Their knight, queen, and rook are active, and are free to attack the kingside. In contrast, you're up material, and the engine prefers your position, but you have many problems you need to solve in order to prove your advantage.

In general, you should develop all your minor pieces relatively early in the game. If your pawns are preventing you from doing this, then you need to figure out a way to push/trade them safely (but ideally you are already considering how you will develop your minor pieces while you're pushing your pawns.

Good question! The trick here is understanding that we can reply to Rd8+ with Re8, blocking the check with our rook and preventing any back rank troubles. This works because the rook on e2 hasn't moved yet to capture on b2.

If your wife wasn't in check and couldn't make a legal move (a player cannot make a move that puts themselves in check) then she was stalemated and the game was a draw.

Take a step back.

Does your gf care about getting good at chess, or does she care about spending time with you and sharing a hobby together?

That distinction is pretty important.

If she just cares about sharing a hobby with you and spending time together doing something you clearly enjoy, then consider playing "Hand and Brain" with her against bots, or friends/family, or anonymous/unrated games. Maybe watch your favorite chess content creators with her. Heck, cuddling up on the couch and watching Building Habits would give her some fundamentals, and be quality time together (might help you too).

But if she cares about getting good at chess, I recommend the two of you finding opportunities to learn together. Attending clubs and tournaments, studying books, listening to lectures, maybe even hiring a coach eventually. Here's a list of things I would make sure my students knew and were applying before teaching them anything else, back when I was a coach:

• Material Value (How much the pawns and different pieces are "worth")

The three basic checkmate patterns:

• Ladder Mate (how to perform it)
• Back Rank Mate (how to perform it and how to prevent it by making luft)
• Scholar's Mate (specifically how to defend against it).

Basic Endgame Technique:

• Identifying and pushing passed pawns
• Activating your king and restricting their king
• How to escort pawns with your king
• How to escort pawns with your rook

The Basic Opening Principles:

• Rapid Development
• Address King Safety
• Control/occupy the Center (e4, d4, e5, and d5)
• Connect your rooks

The slightly less basic but still basic opening principles:

• Developing moves should be done with tempo when possible
• Be wary about moving your f pawn early
• Be wary about bringing your queen out early
• Be wary about moving the same piece more than once before the opening is finished.

1. I wouldn’t recommend teaching an opening as much as teaching the opening principles.
2. Even at your level as 1k you shouldn’t ever play a “random” move. Every move should have purpose behind it. I would recommend watching videos together about developing and coordinating pieces. You should start growing the intentional move thought process even at the beginning of a chess journey. Creating a strategy can be as simple as using the standard check list. Check captures and threats/attacks.

Instead of recapturing bishop for bishop, you could have moved your bishop to c4 where you would have captured that trapped rook. The only thing that would block that move would have been another rook. But then you would have likely lost your bishop the move after (if they dont try to block it with the 2nd rook). So you took 1 rook and lost a rook and a bishop in the process.

I'm not sure if I'd call that brilliant, but maybe there's something I'm missing. Im a beginner too.

If you click “show” it gives you the sequence of moves as the follow up.

No, it's not necessary to learn theory to break into 1300. I'd expect a 1300 player to have some basic ideas about the openings they play, and to know the common pitfalls and how to avoid the common opening traps in their openings. I'd expect a 1300 to have a solid grasp on King & Pawn endgames, and to start really diving into the topic of positional strategy. Things like how to identify, provoke, and leverage weak squares, outposts, backwards pawns, open files, and so on. I'd also expect them to be able to see basic tactics and make fewer (if any at all) counting errors.

The difference between a 1300 and a 1500 or 1700 would be the ability to apply positional understanding, how accurately they can evaluate positions and come up with plans, how well they can calculate, and the depth of their endgame knowledge.

I recommend starting by tightening up your endgame technique, and once you're feeling you've reached a new height of endgame understanding, start studying positional chess with Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman, or Reassess Your Chess (also by Jeremy Silman).

1. Puzzle elo is like bot elo. It is really only comparative to its self. 1k puzzle is easier than 1500 puzzle but that’s all you can conclude. Most of my progression my puzzle elo was roughly 1k higher than my current elo. Does that mean my tactics are at a level of a player 1k elo higher than me? No, not even close. Your puzzle elo is independent from playing elo.

2. Learn theory for 1300 no. Tactics are the best way to get to 1300. Some end game skill helps. Some middle game ideas help too

I recommend going to the start of the game and playing it out.

Since you've asked for a quick primer, I'll prioritize players based on their popularity, and strength, while also prioritizing people that share your nationality. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're American, since you've got a post in a subreddit about American football.

You said you're already familiar with Magnus Carlsen. He is not participating in the world cup. He's considered by most to be the current strongest human chess player in the world. He decided not to defend his world champion title a few years ago. More recent World Chess Champions were underdog Ding Liren (who was invited to the world chess championship when another player couldn't participate, then ended up winning the whole thing), and current world chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju.

Hikaru Nakamura is the highest-rated American player. Like Magnus, he is also not participating.

Wesley So is the strongest American participating. As far as I'm aware, he's got a fine image and isn't particularly disliked by anybody for his accomplishments. He's in his 30s. He was the first world champion of the Fischer-Random (also called Chess960 and Freestyle Chess), and is a three-time US Champion.

Levon Aronian is also participating. He is the former world blitz and world rapid champion, and a former World Fischer Random champion. He's in his 40s. Like Wesley So, nobody would catch any flak for cheering for him. About ten years ago, he was the fourth-highest rated player in history. He is Armenian, and switch federations to play for the US three or four years ago.

Of the other 10 participating Americans, the one that is most important to know is Hans Niemann, who is currently rated higher than Aronian. He is in his 20s. He has not won a championship, as far as I'm aware. His most recent tournament results are from September of this year, where he placed 5th in the US championships. He is controversial. He's admitted to cheating in online chess, and there have been cheating allegations leveled at him in OTB chess. He's trashed hotel rooms and gets as much attention from his fans as he does from his critics.

There are a lot of other interesting, very strong players worth talking about, but since you asked for a quick primer, these five are the most important ones for you to know.

That being said, the cup's been going on for a few days now, and I haven't been following it.

I run a chess club at a brewery. We've found tilt to be more manageable with a beer or two (can't say the same for our chess).

I recommend some introspection. Why is it important to you that you play against humans?

If you arrive to the answer "It isn't important to me", then there's no reason to push yourself to do that. If you arrive at a different answer, use that answer as a source of motivation.

The fear of losing can’t be stronger than the will to play. If you cannot play because it will bruise your ego you might want to find a new hobby. Chess is incredibly humbling.

I think your ego is working against you here. You are more afraid of losing than your want to go enjoy your hobby.