Anyone want to play a game of chess?

I used to play chess many moons ago, regularly against a local guy, we’d meet up once a week. I got decent enough that I could replay games in my head while I was doing other things. I could beat random guys in the park on occasion. Never tried a tournament.

Anyway, I still have a nice collection of chess books including some of those mentioned above, that’s I’d be happy to send for only the cost of shipping. If anyone is interested I can write out a list.

I’d be curious to see your list if you want to post it here. This thread is inspiring me to go back through some of my books and maybe start playing again.

I’d add Best Lessons of a Chess Coach by Sunil Weeramantry to the list of great books already mentioned.

A really good chess book that came out this year I am enjoying immensely is David Smerdon’s Complete Chess Swindler.

I bought it, just to be sure I can swindle my way out some time. Should really be reading it though, backlog!

It’s funny I read chess books, watch chess videos (I really like Daniel King’s channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMBATpFb--uLNAODOVWvCTA), follow chess players on Twitter (@polborta), read chess news and do chess puzzles, but I don’t actually play chess at all. I’m more into the ‘meta’ of chess than playing it.

I’m in

tenor

I said this in another thread, but if you can find a copy of ‘Bobby Fisher teaches chess’ that hasn’t been written in (it’s mostly workbook), grab it. I read a ton of chess books, and this one had an astonishing impact on my play, and how I viewed the game. After going through this book, the game became very simple, and instead of seeing unlimited possibilities, I saw the obvious moves. This book will reduce the game to very simple math problems, i.e. you have 4 attacking, he has 3 defending, you win. It will make you see a chess board in a completely new way.

well, that’s most basic stuff. Counting attackers and defenders of pieces and/or squares. And it is really important. You have to do it ALWAYS, before you move.

First come first served, free if you pay postage. I probably can’t ship until after the election.

4kerxt

I’m glad there’s a chess thread now. Chess is a huge love of mine. I’m currently rated 2016 USCF (United States Chess Federation), which makes me an ‘expert’ chess player. I have taken it seriously at different times of my life. My biggest accomplishment in tournaments was beating 2 masters back to back to win a tournament. My biggest accomplishments online is getting a number of wins against Grandmasters in blitz games (5 minutes per side, 5 0 ) on the internet chess club (where everyone used to play before chess.com and lichess.org became very popular).
I’d say I have around 30-40 wins against gm’s in blitz online (although my total score is many many more losses).

I agree with the sentiment that you shouldn’t memorize a ton of opening variations if you’re new to the game. Learn instead the strategic principles that you can find in books like Yasser Seirawan’s great “Play Winning Chess” series. (You can buy these books in digital format, and play all the moves over on a digital board with the forward chess app (pc and phone) here: https://forwardchess.com/products?search=seirawan ).

Once you’ve got the principles, the next thing that will take your game to the next level is solving tactical problems. Chess.com and lichess both have tactical puzzles you can solve, there is also a nice site https://chesstempo.com/ I’d say the most fun way to do it is to play “puzzle rush” on chess.com, which gamifies the process of solving tactics. You solve tactics in a timed scenario and the problems get more and more difficult as you solve them. At the end you get a score based on how many you have solved. My high score is 39 in 5 minute, and an average score of 24.7 based on 683 attempts.

Solving tactics will do wonders for your game. For instance in puzzle rush you will quickly learn to spot hanging pieces, simple 1 to 2 move combinations that lead to mate, etc. I personally believe solving tactics is the quickest way to see a very noticeable gain in strength. Doing it for 15-30 minutes a day might lead to 100’s of points in rating increase in 1 month at low rating levels.

I’d love to return to over the board tournament chess so I can get a master title, but I also love the chess boom we’re at online. Sites like chess.com and lichess have seen massive online player numbers as high as 80,000+ online and playing on a single site. There has also been a massive popularity gain of chess on twitch.tv because some top streamers like xQc have been playing, and GM Hikaru Nakamura was coaching him and seeing huge viewer counts.

As an aside, I really miss the chess master series.

Always liked that one myself, still have the last version released on steam in my games. Feels odd having a ghost program I still fire up now and again that others can no longer buy and I guess long term will be unaware of.

Not unlike the general history of PC games, everything I played in the 80’s and the two different BBSs I ran that fed into Fidonet that made up the internet before it existed, all gone like they never existed.

All these memories gone, like tears in the rain.

Ah, you warm the cockles of my heart with that reference.

Ironic the promise of technology juxtaposed against what it delivers. I thought like everyone digitizing stuff meant it would be saved forever.

Memories, you’re talking about memories…

@zenchess, I enjoyed your post and your advice about how to improve. I’m curious how you find playing online. Is cheating rampant on places like chess.com? Can’t people play you while they have their favorite chess engine running in another window?

Despite my Vulcan upbringing, I’m not sure I have the temperament for competitive chess. I lack the killer instinct. I feel guilty when I win! And I feel bad when I lose. It can be a brutal game. So despite my comments above, in a way I do prefer playing the computer, even though I know I can’t possibly beat it, if it can simulate a flawed player and give me a rough idea of my rating.

I actually got obsessed with making my own chess engine (using Game Maker Studio 2) a few months ago. My engine could give me a good game through the middle game, but I never got around to teaching it basic endgame stuff, like rook-and-king mate or queen-and-king, much less pawn-and-king. I might take it up again, but as everyone says, making a chess engine is an addictive black hole!

I think playing blitz 5 min usually makes it harder to cheat. Also, the best chess engines already run on your phone… And chess.com have means to detect cheaters (by applying statistics, rating comparison etc).

To play it proper, you could play rapid games at 10-15 minutes per player. Cheating could happen, but don’t be afraid. In the long run you will play more games against real people minus an occasional cheater.

On a technical level, when playing online how do you do an en passant move? Do you just move your pawn to the square it ends up in, and the computer handles taking the enemy pawn?

yes4567