Chess thread

[Nyx Erebos]

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one here who love chess. Let's talk about strategies, ask questions, give advices...

I begin. I'm trying to get better thanks to a french website (+ de 100 parties commentes - Mieux jouer aux Echecs) which shows different games organized under different categories. Here is one of the games :

1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. d3 g6
4. g3 Bg7
5. Bg2 d6
6. Nbd2 e6
7. O-O Nge7
8. Re1 O-O
9. Nf1 b5
10. h4 Bd7
11. h5 gxh5
12. Nh4 Ng6
13. Qxh5 Nxh4
14. gxh4 f5
15. exf5 Rxf5
16. Bg5 Qe8
17. Qg4 Qf7
18. Ng3 Rxf2
19. Ne4 Ne5
20. Nf6 Qxf6
21. Bxa8 Nxg4
22. Bxf6 Rxf6
23. c3 d5
24. Re2 Rf8
25. a4 Rxa8
26. axb5 Bxb5
27. Rxe6 Bxd3
28. Re7 a5
29. Ra4 c4
30. Kg2 Be4
31. Kh3 h5
32. Ra1 Rf8
Then white resigned.

So I'm wondering after 16. Bg5, isn't h6 better than Qe8 ? Even if 17. Bxd8 Rxh5 it would take some time I think for the bishop in d8 to get out and be active again. What do you think ? Maybe I'm missing something, after looking closely to each move I'm tired.

 

[Watty]

Maybe I'm missing something, after looking closely to each move I'm tired.

You mean you got tired of looking at a long, drawn-out sequence of numbers and letters? Noooooooo.

 

[GizmoJunior]

I've always enjoyed chess and just started playing again recently. I'm still a noob but if anybody could offer some beginning strategies I'd really appreciate it.

 

[ZEBOV]

I'm not new to chess by any means, but I have no clue how to translate that.

 

[Rustee]

So I'm wondering after 16. Bg5, isn't h6 better than Qe8 ? Even if 17. Bxd8 Rxh5 it would take some time I think for the bishop in d8 to get out and be active again.

 

[Chickenhawk]

I've always enjoyed chess and just started playing again recently. I'm still a noob but if anybody could offer some beginning strategies I'd really appreciate it.

Get your knights out ASAP. Keep your queen and a bishop in a position to defend your king.

At least that's the mindset I keep to kick my dads ass. We are FAR from good players, though. Not even average, with jackasses like Magnus Carlsen fucking up the curve.

 

[GizmoJunior]

Get your knights out ASAP. Keep your queen and a bishop in a position to defend your king.

At least that's the mindset I keep to kick my dads ass. We are FAR from good players, though. Not even average, with jackasses like Magnus Carlsen fucking up the curve.

Ill keep this in mind, thanks! My friend actually beat my ass in chess today

 

[tacotiklah]

I play this on my phone all the time, although I'd say I rank at about 800, so I'm not that good.

I tend to follow the knights opening as white since it's the most fluid and versatile. I rarely play as black, so that will probably affect my approach to the game a lot. The key to winning the game is to find ways to control the center squares, do your best to NOT lose your queen if you can help it, develop the back row of pieces as quickly as you can, castle when it is safe and legal to do so, and keep forcing your opponent into schadenfreude. Make your opponent hate your guts by the end of the game because you force them to sacrifice powerful pieces to avoid mate, only to end up in mate anyways. My uncle is a genius at this game and I've suffered some really bad beat-downs at his hands. But his weakness is arrogance. He likes to try and take every single one of my pieces before checkmating me, so I've managed to use that to my advantage and win a few games against him.

But I'm totally down to play a few games against people, provided I have the time to sit down for a game.

 

[tacotiklah]

A friend of mine posted this on facebook and I had to repost it here. It's the most legit game of chess ever:

 

[Nyx Erebos]

You mean you got tired of looking at a long, drawn-out sequence of numbers and letters? Noooooooo.

I don't play just with the moves in PGN notation (that's how it's called), I use an internet chess board (iEchecs - L'Echiquier en ligne - www.iechecs.com - L'univers des échecs - (c)2001-2013..) and then I export the list of moves.

I'm not new to chess by any means, but I have no clue how to translate that.

When the move doesn't begin with an upper case letter it means that it's a pawn which is played. For example h3 means that a pawn is moved to h3 (the only possible pawn to be able to do this is the one on h2).
Otherwise the first letter in upper case is the piece which is moved,
K = King
Q = Queen
R = Rook
B = Bishop
N = kNight
For example if you move your bishop in g7 it will simply give you Bg7.

There are some special notations, so here are some random moves to show them :
Qb6+ means that moving your queen in b6 made check on the opponent's king
Qxb6 means that you took the opponent's piece in b6 with your queen, if it's a pawn that eat the piece it'll be something like this axb6 where a is the column of the pawn
Rab6 means that you have both of your rooks in the same row (6 here, imagine that you have one rook in a6 and the other in h6 with nothing between them) and that you move the one in the column a in b6
O-O is the little castle and O-O-O the big castle (I don't know if it's the right term in english)

You can combine them, Raxb6+ means that both of your rooks could eat the piece in b6 but you choose the one in the column a, then moving to b6 made check on the opponent's king.


I'm not a really good player, my only achievement is to be able to win with the white against the vista chess game on level 10 but here are some advices for the beginners (who want to play just for fun) :
-study (lightly, just to see how it looks like) the most played opening
-in the early stage of the game develop your back row pieces the most, avoid playing to much the pawns
-when you can't find a good move either castle to get your king safe or begin to concentrate the attack power of your pieces on one of the opponent's piece (usually a pawn for the first attack), then when you feel that you can lauch the attack and get out with an advantage go ahead
-try to build attacks difficult to guess, for example (I don't know how it's called in english ) when you move one of your piece it makes the one that was behind attack
-when there's going to be a serie of exchanges don't make the first move because it generally means that the opponent will make the last attack so it's one of his piece that will be well place (as always be aware that if you both wait he could add a piece to the attack and then go for it to get an advantage of material over you)
-if you begin to get good study special moves like gambits, sacrifices, fianchetto...

Remember that your opponent will use that against you too. There are muuuuuch more stuff to know but I'm not good enough to talk about it (for now ).

 

[mr_rainmaker]

I`ve been playing since gradeschool,not many(groups) play any more near me,so what's a good chess engine,I`ve got half a dozen different games,all have BUGs...

 

[facepalm66]

You know why chess is a rasist game?
Becouse white always start first

 

[Nyx Erebos]

I`ve been playing since gradeschool,not many(groups) play any more near me,so what's a good chess engine,I`ve got half a dozen different games,all have BUGs...

If you're a good player and play often you should consider Rybka (Rybka - for the serious chess player. [ #Home ] [ Home ]) there's a demo version which is, according to the site, the seconde version of the engine (rybka 2). I have rybka 4 and I use arena chess as a GUI, it's a great piece of software although I'm not good enough to fully benefit from it . The windows chess game is quite good too but I'd rather recommend rybka over the windows one which has an "inhuman" behavior (when you're not a the maximum difficulty the game plays perfectly and then make an obvious mistake, at maximum difficulty the engine tends to always follow the same strategy).

 

[Mprinsje]

I'm not a very good chess player, but i always start with putting my castles in front asap. This might not be the smartest thing to do but it's something different than the middle pawns as opening moves every time.

 

[mr_rainmaker]

If you're a good player and play often you should consider Rybka (Rybka - for the serious chess player. [ #Home ] [ Home ]) there's a demo version which is, according to the site, the seconde version of the engine (rybka 2). I have rybka 4 and I use arena chess as a GUI, it's a great piece of software although I'm not good enough to fully benefit from it . The windows chess game is quite good too but I'd rather recommend rybka over the windows one which has an "inhuman" behavior (when you're not a the maximum difficulty the game plays perfectly and then make an obvious mistake, at maximum difficulty the engine tends to always follow the same strategy).

hey thanks for the lead

 

[Nyx Erebos]

I'm not a very good chess player, but i always start with putting my castles in front asap. This might not be the smartest thing to do but it's something different than the middle pawns as opening moves every time.

You mean knights ? I don't think it's a good idea not to move your middle pawns if you move your knights in the opening because the purpose of the knights is to protect the middle squares (in the opening atleast). So the middle pawns are forward operating bases protected by your knight(s)

 

[tacotiklah]

You mean knights ? I don't think it's a good idea not to move your middle pawns if you move your knights in the opening because the purpose of the knights is to protect the middle squares (in the opening atleast). So the middle pawns are forward operating bases protected by your knight(s)

This. So much this. Not moving your middle pawns first is a waste of time and slows your development of your pieces way down. This gives your opponent a headstart in complete smashing you to bits. I've seen some weird opening lines before where knight pawns get moved first to open up snipe lines for bishops, but nobody except a novice moves the rook pawns forward first.

The goal is to make the strongest moves in the shortest number of them. Controlling those 4 center squares early on and opening up holes in the front lines in your opponent's pawns, while getting your back pieces active and protecting your king is the key to a great start in any chess game.


Edit:
Here's a great video by Grandmaster Smirnov (I know, I know ) on why playing smart chess instead of aggressive chess is better:

 

[Nyx Erebos]

Edit:Here's a great video by Grandmaster Smirnov (I know, I know ) on why playing smart chess instead of aggressive chess is better:

Yep that's what I meant when I said "don't make the first move in a serie of exchanges", cool video. As he said at the end it's not always true.

I saw that on the recommended videos :



Carlsen is amazing, even though Aronian made some questionnable moves he made some great attacks that Carlsen dodged beautifuly. He's a strategy genius, those calm moves... The people who say that Carlsen isn't one of the best ever are so wrong, he's definitely up there with Kasparov Fischer & co.