Board 8 > Do you know how to play chess?

(+) Yeah! (+)

how good are you at it?

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Yes

I'm not

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

Yeah I mean I know the rules but I'm not good
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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

But my brother is very good

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Yes

Have competed at a regional level during uni.

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Yes. I actually have gotten into chess a lot more during this summer but I'm still really bad (the only real knowledge I had was how the pieces move). Working on learning some more openings and I watch probably an hour or two of instructional videos a week. Also been following the Skilling Tournament happening right now which has been a banger.

rip hikaru tho

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Yeah I'm pretty decent at chess for someone who never really got into chess

I know opening principles and how to not blunder pieces. That will carry you quite a way against the plebs

XIII_rocks posted...

Yeah I mean I know the rules but I'm not good

trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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My ELO on lichess is in the 1700-1800 range which probably puts me at the level of an average club player? Maybe a bit below average?
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what I'm taking away from this is that somebody should organize a chess tournament and that pyresword will dunk on all of us when we do so

I'd volunteer but I am not currently on top of my life enough to take on additional projects

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Yes, but I'm hopelessly bad at it. I can't think more than a few moves ahead.

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I know the pieces and how to move them all, but I can't really tell you any strategy

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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I do know how to play chess. The best I can do is win against the computer pretty easily on beginner mode.

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Yep, been grinding on multiple websites recently! I just switched up my Sicilian to no longer run the accelerated dragon as Ive been struggling to position my pieces correctly in certain variations

finally hit 1700 on chess.com in rapid this week and Ive been hovering around 1950 in rapid on lichess for a while now.

Now im working on hitting 1700 chess.com / 1800 lichess in blitz but I keep getting in big time trouble with the faster time controls.

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Yes but I always forget the rules for Castling

p.s I learned to play it thanks to Lego Chess

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eek two people around 1800

I'm like 800 >_>

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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Sort of.

I'm terrible at it. But I learned it because my daughter likes to play.

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Yes

Im okay, but I have not played in a long time in any serious matter. I also never took real time to study the game, like board states etc and my entire game was just seeing lines of play based on the current board state, which doesn't work at the upper levels unless you are a super genius.

I'm like 1550 on lichess, which is pretty bad.

changmas posted...

Yep, been grinding on multiple websites recently! I just switched up my Sicilian to no longer run the accelerated dragon as Ive been struggling to position my pieces correctly in certain variations

finally hit 1700 on chess.com in rapid this week and Ive been hovering around 1950 in rapid on lichess for a while now.

Now im working on hitting 1700 chess.com / 1800 lichess in blitz but I keep getting in big time trouble with the faster time controls.

Those ratings are pretty impressive. Playing on longer time controls is better for improving in Chess though. Also if you're playing Sicilian you're really better off playing the Najdorf.

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Yeah, been playing for a long time. I blunder away pieces too often to be good at it, though. Never been able to commit to an opening either.

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Yes but I haven't played in like 20 years

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I'm currently 1900 correspondence and 1800 classical in lichess. I'm not great at rapid or anything faster than classical tho.

I still have the provisonal ratings for all three since I don't have a ton of games played.

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Yes, but I am nothing exceptional. I can say I am the best in my family at the game, but that's not saying much. Definitely not on a competitive level with the game.

But...do you know how to play Atomic Chess?

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Atomic Chess hurts my head

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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XIII_rocks posted...

Yeah I mean I know the rules but I'm not good

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I know the rules and some vague recollection of openings, but past that I'm far too rusty to play a competitive game.

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I'm not a Sicilian player or a 1. e4 player so I haven't really looked at this, but my impression of the Dragon was that it was a fine opening for black if they know the theory, but if they don't and make a misstep they can find themselves in a lot of trouble very quickly.
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I do and I actually think im decent at it

My dad taught me and I used to play him and my brother growing up

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Also the best chess variant is Three-Check imo. Had some really insane games playing that in the past.

Edit: Ok I guess I mean best not-really-serious variant because Fischer Random is also pretty neat
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pyresword posted...

I'm not a Sicilian player or a 1. e4 player so I haven't really looked at this, but my impression of the Dragon was that it was a fine opening for black if they know the theory, but if they don't and make a misstep they can find themselves in a lot of trouble very quickly.

Although actually, my recollection is that the Dragon and the Hyper Accelerated Dragon were fine, but that the Accelerated Dragon was borderline unplayable. Not to the point that it likely matters against low to mid level opposition but yeah.

For anyone else, yes these are 3 different openings for the record. >.> The "accelerated" and "hyper-accelerated" terms basically refer to how early in the game black chooses to make a particular pawn move that defines this opening.

Edit again: Okay actually I think I'm confused here. The variation I'm thinking of which I think is considered bad is 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6. However, it looks like the version where black plays Nc6 instead of d6 is ALSO called the Accelerated Dragon and has been played a lot more frequently. (Presumably with the idea that black intends d5 in which case d6 would have been a wasted move) Chess openings are confusing.
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Yes, I used to be in a chess club and played every day for a few years. I was rated around the 1700s but I haven't played consistently in a while now, so I'm definitely not as good as I used to be anymore. I had someone accuse me of being a cheater which left a really sour taste in my mouth that completely turned me off of the game. Still think the game is fun casually though.

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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yeah. i was in chess club in high school for a year but it was pretty casual and i basically haven't played since then.

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Yes, but I haven't played it in forever and I was never very good at it. I'm not good at planning ahead the way you have to in order to do well at it.

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pyresword posted...

Although actually, my recollection is that the Dragon and the Hyper Accelerated Dragon were fine, but that the Accelerated Dragon was borderline unplayable. Not to the point that it likely matters against low to mid level opposition but yeah.

For anyone else, yes these are 3 different openings for the record. >.> The "accelerated" and "hyper-accelerated" terms basically refer to how early in the game black chooses to make a particular pawn move that defines this opening.

Edit again: Okay actually I think I'm confused here. The variation I'm thinking of which I think is considered bad is 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6. However, it looks like the version where black plays Nc6 instead of d6 is ALSO called the Accelerated Dragon and has been played a lot more frequently. (Presumably with the idea that black intends d5 in which case d6 would have been a wasted move) Chess openings are confusing.

My knowledge of opening theory is relatively weak, so I'm out of my opening theory pretty quickly most games, but yeah, I do play 3. Nc6 typically. A lot of times my games will go something like this:

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 g6
5. Nc3 Bg7
6. Be3 d6
7. Bb5 Bd7
8. O-O Nf6
9. f4 O-O

(sometimes I play a6 on move 7 instead of Bd7 and the position will look different, but overall these two problems still happen for me)

So at that point, I really start to struggle with two problems in this position:

How do I stop the white f-pawn from opening up my kingside?
And where is my Queen supposed to go? So often I want to put the Queen on b6 but that's such a horrible square with white's dark-square bishop always on that diagonal, but I can never figure out how to make my queen useful in this line at all, or at least until a bunch of pieces are traded off.

So to avoid these problems I've adopted my defense against the Grand Prix as my normal Sicilian defense.

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 e6

And then I play for d5 and castle kingside, and that's been working a lot better for me. It's probably fundamentally less sound, but it plays to my strengths better, I think.


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I know how the pieces move, but I wouldn't say I know how to play

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I know how to play, but I am really bad at planning ahead to the extent that you need to for chess.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Yes, I used to be in a chess club and played every day for a few years. I was rated around the 1700s but I haven't played consistently in a while now, so I'm definitely not as good as I used to be anymore.

This is basically me without being in a club. Just knew some Chess fans and played a lot online/chessmaster (which is where I get the 1700 estimate) and did some studying on some of the theory.

Still like the game a lot though. In a different life I could have been better. The passion was there just not enough time and in person competition

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yes, not

hate playing with my brother because he takes a billion years to make a turn and I'm the opposite

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Im terrible at Chess because I just want to open it up to my Rooks so they can kill the opponents pieces.

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trdl23 posted...

Yes

I'm not

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Yes. I used to be bad at it but good enough to usually beat people who don't play much, now it's been probably ten years since I even played so I'm probably hilariously shit at this point

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