The Chess Thread

General Discussion
101

Actually my sentence to that disappeared and I don’t know where it is. :sweat:
Guess it was midpost and I wanted to copypasta it to the end, then forgot to paste it…
I wrote something along the lines of “And yes even Carlsen blunders, and this looks horrible horrible in the opening, but it’s not like him sitting in a -1 position by move 10 is a regular occurence, so I don’t think this tells anything meaningful”.

Is a good opening one that gives you the (currently viewed as) best theoretical position, or the one that gives you the best chances to win?
This seems to be the base thing we disagree on. In my opinion, the now 50 years old way of openings, openings, openings is past it’s prime.
I’m almost sure that Carlsen’s example will ‘spawn’ a new generation of chess players which follow his approach rather than sitting on chesspub and trying to edge out a .1 pawn advantage in the 38th move.

I’m not saying he gets a “theoretically” better out of the opening than his peers
I’m saying that his way of playing the opening (going for safe, ‘strange’ positions which lead to unfamiliar, complex middle-/endgames, rather than searching for that one move which turns the Najdorf into more than a draw and which will get refuted two days later) is the current future of chess - because ultimately, this is more likely to lead to a win.

I’m not sure what to make of this statement ?.? Of course highlevel opening prep (of Aronian’s “I will dig into this so deep it will plead me to stop” kind) ‘works’. We can also look at pretty much any known player of the last 50 years and get to the same solution?! The question is for how long will this continue to work, and whether there isn’t a different solution altogether that’s actually more effective.

And I do think Carlsen is on a good path there.

This book is from 1999!! What does this even have to do with anything? Capablanca stated Chess was ‘soon to be unlocked’, Bobby said opening theory was nearly the only thing deciding Super GM games… yeah this was “before the whole opening preparation revolution with Rybka” and oh wonder it was also “before the whole opening preparation revolution by Carlsen”:looney:
I’m sure you’ll find a GM Post-Carlsen who seriously states it’s not possible to win at a high level without extensive opening prep (though hey, I guess 50 openings all 10 moves far is also a sort of prep :B )… if you search long enough?

But again, what the HECK does this even have to do with what I’m saying?
My statement was:

  • Carlsen is winning (I’m sure you won’t argue on this)
    And:
  • Nothing about Carlsen’s style is bound to suddenly be defeated in matchplay (because one can’t actually ‘prepare’ for it)

Being an opening specialist is actually something that can be super effective in tourney play,
but then get overthrown by the extra time your opponent takes to analyze your games etc.
(and as such, it’s rather vice versa: Carlsen would be even stronger in a match scenario)

You answered my claim of “One can’t prepare against Carlsen and thus his tourney and match strengths are the same” with “What often dooms once-great players is not prepping openings”; what does that even have to do with each other…? (and for that matter, what the heck does this have to do with Carlsen?)

102

I think you’re probably at that early hurdle stage where in order to improve the answer isn’t just playing more games and seeing more stuff. Instead, you will need to start actually studying the endgame properly. At the same time, realise that some endgame knowledge is just beyond you at the moment - Just as it would be silly to try and learn 15-20 moves in an opening, trying to learn nontrivial rook-and-pawn endgames at your level is probably not the way to go.

It’s been a while since I’ve studied chess seriously, so I’m not sure what books are recommended any more, but I’m sure a simple google search will find you a bunch of (good and bad) recommendations.

103

So, I was on my school’s Chess team when I was 8, for about 2 months. Then I quit that shit.

Now that I’m more patient and care more about knowledge and can learn much better now at 20.

Where do I begin? I’ve forgotten everything except for board start placement and piece movement rules. Is there some sort of learning program for theory and things like that?

104

My genius steamchat beginnercourse –

[details=Spoiler]23:46 - Vulpes: okay, now for basic rules –

You play for:
23:47 - Vulpes: - Checkmate (obvious)
If that doesnt work, material gain
If that doesnt work, smaller things (tempo advantage, positional weaknesses in the opponents camp, central control, better pieces)

00:04 - Vulpes: -Opening: This is the beginning of the game and basically your resource management. The better you do here, the easier your job later becomes. What you do here is:
– Develop (get away from the back rank) your pieces as fast as possible (don’t move pieces more than once! as noted above, 2 mediocre pieces >> 1good 1bad one)
– Control the center (as noted, your pieces ideally want to go there later!)
– Ensure your kings safety (castle away - i hope you know what castling is xP)
00:17 - Vulpes: -Middlegame: This is the stage after pieces are developed and the kings left the center. You abuse whatever mistakes your opponent did in the last stage
– Improve your pieces’ positions (put them onto more influential squares - now that everythings out, youre allowed to move pieces a 2nd time)
– Play what the position calls for (eg if you have an open file or the opponent has a weak pawn, pieces go there)
– Possibly do a central breakthrough and/or a mating attack on the opponents king
00:29 - Vulpes: -Endgame: After most pieces (and some pawns) are exchanged, the last stage of the game begins. Rooks become stronger (as theyre not blocked by their own pieces/pawns anymore), the King becomes a weapon and marches towards the center (as he no longer is in the immediate danger of getting mated).
– Create a passed pawn (a pawn which cant be attacked by opponents pawns anymore), bring it to the opponents 8th rank, win (in case you didnt know; if a pawn reaches the 8th rank (1st for black players) it “transforms” into a piece of the players choice (you’ll most likely want a queen))

01:01 - Vulpes: Random general rules (note: rules are meant to be broken. guidelines is probably the better way to put it):

  • If you can capture smth with two different pawns, capture towards the center
  • A “tempo” in opening/middlegame is worth 0.3-0.5 pawns (so if you have the option to capture a pawn but in doing so allow the opponent to develop 3 pieces while you run away with that snatch of yours, it’s a bad trade
  • Other pieces are worth: Knight 3 pawns, Bishop 3.3 pawns, Rook 5 pawns, Queen 9 pawns.
  • Two pieces are generally better than Piece+Pawn (so even though 2 Knights are 6 and Rook+Pawn are also 6, the former is desirable)
  • Rooks are artillery, firing from afar (note that they’re the only piece on the chessboard that doesn’t get additional squares of influence when sitting in the center)**
  • Rooks want to sit in open or at least semi-open lines (open: no pawn obstructing, semi-open: an opponents pawn is on the line, closed: both one of yours and the opponents are there, semi-closed: one of your pawns is there), and <definitely> want to sit on the 7th rank (where they attack the opponents position from the side)
  • Develop Knights before Bishops (because knights almost always go to c3 and f3, while bishops have a plethora of good squares (eg the kings bishop sometimes goes to e2, sometimes c4, sometimes b5) and you dont instantly know where to put it
  • ALWAYS PLAY THE MOST AGGRESSIVE MOVE!! (note: aggressive doesnt mean gazammm attack sacrifice. it means “grasping the initiative”.)
  • bishops are stronger than knights for two reasons: 1) the bishop pair controls an entire chessboard (put bishops on a1+b1 and see how the two diagonals are impassable) 2) a bad bishop can often exchange itself for a good knight because the knight has to be deep in the enemies territory; a bad knight can never exchange itself for a good bishop because he can shoot from far away
  • beware of knight forks! the strangely moving knight can easily attack several pieces at once, winning them in a flash (eg imagine a white knight on d5, black queen on c8, black king on g8 – Ne7+ and wins the queen)
    01:08 - Vulpes: - pawns are the only piece on the chessboard that cant move backwards. be extremely careful with pawn moves!
    20:08 - Vulpes: ah btw an easy way to see whether a piece of yours is properly protected (rather than being forced to calulate “he does this, i do that, he does this, i do that”) is to count attackers and defenders
    20:08 - Vulpes: you need as many defenders as attackers to hold a piece

**every beginner should put knight, rook, queen, bishop and king each on squares D5, E1, A1 (on an empty board) one after another and count the available squares every time, then think about the implications[/details]

You can play on eg chess.com to get a bit back into the game

There are zillions of books for all playing strengths

Theory isn’t something you should bother with at all (unless it’s uh, “How to mate with a Rook+King vs King”)

105

I think the first thing to do would be to just play for a bit just to make sure that you actually enjoy playing chess, and not just the idea of playing chess. After that, I’d just pick one or two sensible openings as white and black and then work incrementally on your tactics and endgame knowledge as necessary.

Also, sites like chess.com have reasonably detailed learning plans (here), so if you’re looking for something structured then that might be the way to go.

106

Thus chess does mimic fighting games, especially street fighter games (non versus series); and especially high level chess is similar to high level street fighter (again, non versus series)

Does anyone play on Yahoo! Chess? I’m up for a few games.

107

Maybe my homeboy can teach me something, as he’s naturally an endgame genius when he makes it this far :rofl:, it probably would only make sense to him tho… but from what I see, he’ll be better than me eventually:sad: that’s why I’m tryna step it up…

But he can’t see big picture moves, so he takes major pieces thinking of it as a gift and ends of getting forced checkmated(sometimes)…

It’s natural chess play, we read no books… but it looks like that’s gonna have to change…

108

Start with king and pawn endgames and work your way up. I really loved Silman’s “Essential Chess Endgames” when I was a kid. It might be out of print, but he also has a book called “Complete Endgame Course” that is quite good. From there, learn some basics of the other endgames, especially Rook ones. (Even memorizing the standard building a bridge position as well as the Philidor should help a lot)

109

Keep your trolling in the respective dogshit thread in the SF4 section please
This “discussion” has no place here

110

Well, obviously it’s not a regular occurrence. But it tends to happen to Carlsen more often than other top players, which is the point. His openings are among the very weakest of any top 15 player.

The thing is, Carlsen’s approach is neither. In fact, Aronian (who has arguably the best openings among the top 15) adopts the latter approach; the best chances of victory, even if his continuation is theoretically worse. Here is an example against Giri from Wiijk An Zee this year;

In fact, I believe just about every top player goes for the practical chances.

I see what you’re trying to say, but elite players have been choosing the variation with the best practical chances for at least the past 20 years.

It has everything to do with the discussion, because Carlsen spends less time and energy (and has less interest in) on the opening than other players, and thus, it’s not surprise that he gets worse positions from the opening.

Again, he manages to win these positions IN SPITE of his opening play, not because of it. He is not getting these “complex, unclear positions” you are talking about from his opening play; in fact, he is getting the precise opposite.

If you think his endgame position against Radjabov qualified as “complex and unclear”, then you just don’t understand those words in the context of chess play.

Again, it’s just a testament to Carlsen’s greatness that he can win even “simple” positions over someone as awesome as Radjabov.

Match play is largely about opening preparation these days, and that’s the area where Carlsen is weakest.

The idea that he is somehow impossible to prepare against is silly. Carlsen’s opening repertoire is not that wide; certainly narrower than Anand’s. And yet, Gelfand successfully prepared against Anand. Gelfand did this by investing a MASSIVE amount of time and study into the opening, and learning several brand-new variations himself to an elite player.

In a match against Anand, Anand is far more likely to win this opening preparation war than Carlsen is.

111

I’ve been looking at games, and now I don’t feel so bad about making 1.5 pawn blunders against the computer/analysis program…

People with ELO’s in the 2000> make game ending blunders by the 17th move sometimes…

And their skill level is >>>>> than mine has/probably ever will be…

Looks like I have lots of work to do… I want my moves to be theoretically perfect until a certain point…

I guess 1200-1300 is still much much weaker than I thought it was…

EDIT: Back to Fred Reinfield’s combination books:sad:

I still have to finish the Brilliant Chess Sacrifices book…

112

^Will look into that, I never finished Capublanca’s “How to Play Chess”. I’m more green than a lily pad, and at the same time am learning how to play Go/Weiqi(much further along there). I had joined the Chess Club at my school but despite their claims that beginners were welcome they immediately went into playing games, and instruction/tactics discussion ceased, hence I lost interest :S. There’s a local chess club that offers formal classes so I may look into those.

113

^@BEWD Practice pins, forks, checkmate in 1,2, and 3’s…

Escaping checkmates, etc…

Get your basic tactics up son… the concept of occupying the center of the part and wrestling for control of it… etc…

Then you can do other stuff… read a book called Bobby Fischer teaches chess(very basic beginner book, should be free somewhere like Scribd or the like, use google my dude) and that should make you stronger…

Don’t dig into theory and play the common sense moves…

Fred Reinfield books such as Brilliant Checkmates and Brilliant Sacrifices recommended(free online, I’d rather have a paper book though, I’ll order it today if I can find it somewhere for cheap)…

Because reading things on the computer is just the worst… I’ll be better once I read and solve the puzzles in the book…

EDIT: Eh, they are like 10 bucks a piece, even though they were published in like 1955… hmmm w/e no big deal…

114

Just bought
Learn Chess - John Nunn
going to be a pro in no time

115

For those of you with Android devices, this is the app for you imo…

For Kindle Fire at least it’s 2 bucks… I think it’s 2 bucks for other devices too… needs online access…

But ranks you based on your ability to solve them… for weaklings such as myself, it helps get the art of zugzswang down…

After setting a chess computer program on easy(which was still play a decent game as far as someone who didn’t know opening), I was able to find various blunders in the opening of the Scotch game if the main line wasn’t played correctly(by black) after these moves

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4

There are tons of forced moves in the beginning…

I recommend it highly… it allows you to better critique your own games if you solve enough of them…

EDIT: It’s good for higher level players and keeps their minds sharp, but I don’t think it’s as much as a necessity for them, but it’s definitely something good to pass the time, if you don’t like reading puzzle books…

DOUBLE EDIT: However, some puzzles do have faults…

Like 1 or 2 appropriate puzzles had faults… there was a simple knight queen checkmate in like 4-5 moves and that answer was marked as wrong and instead the so-called correct response did the same thing with way more moves…

Maybe they just wanted you to think more outside the box, idk…

116

So Magnus will be the next champ?

117

If he actually enters the next cycle, then probably yes. But he claims to have significant objections to the way FIDE runs the WC, so I wouldn’t expect to see him in a title match for some time.

118

okay so where do i start to learn how to play chess? i know how the pieces move and stuff, but i basically just put my pieces to defend that a piece so i can take back if they attack. i dont ‘see’ strong spaces or whatever. where would i start?

119

It’s a hard question to answer. First you should make sure you know all the rules (especially castling, en passant and promotion). Then, either consider joining a local chess club or start playing on a site like chess.com (As with FGs, the best way to learn at the beginning is to play lots).

If you’re looking for advice on what to actually study, then I’d suggest learning the basic principles of the opening (piece development, center control, etc.) and then diving into tactics and basic endgames (e.g. how to mate with a king and rook vs. a lone king, etc.)

120

i play chess. badly. youtube for chess vids ftw.

@blanka, seriously, if youre new to chess, watch kingscrushers vids on youtube. watch plenty of them. lazy man way to learn chess w/o having to read books