Author Topic: Chess players? (Read 8703 times)

tomq04 · « **on:** January 17, 2014, 05:27:12 PM »

Anyone here play chess? I picked up the habit recently on chess.com and their mobile app. Used to play as a kid, and in high school, love the game, but am not very good anymore :(

Would love to play just about anyone, perhaps even discuss the game.

Tomq04 is the user name on chess.com

Kriegsspiel · « **Reply #1 on:** January 17, 2014, 05:51:28 PM »

I am WesternWatch on chess.com. I will destroy you.

tomq04 · « **Reply #2 on:** January 17, 2014, 05:56:00 PM »

Started reading Gary Lane's Improve your chess in 7 days, promptly have started "losing chess for 7 days"...hope to snap out of it here pretty quick.

onemorebike · « **Reply #3 on:** January 17, 2014, 08:35:04 PM »

I'm elguapo on the free internet chess server and I will gladly crush anyone interested in playing. :)

vern · « **Reply #4 on:** January 17, 2014, 09:00:12 PM »

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 g4 5. 0-0?!

vern · « **Reply #5 on:** January 17, 2014, 09:09:04 PM »

Love the Double Muzio Gambit! It's pretty rare to see nowadays at the top level, but every now and then...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfZK_KqKBtY

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1074916

basd · « **Reply #6 on:** January 18, 2014, 03:01:08 AM »

basd on redhotpawn.com. Recreational and very average player, though I hope one day to have more time to advance a little bit (1500 level would be a big step already).

lentilman · « **Reply #7 on:** January 18, 2014, 07:36:07 AM »

Best free chess spot on internet is FICS (free internet chess server) as mentioned in previous post.

I've been playing chess for fun for the last 25 years. Prior to that, I was playing chess for blood for about 20 years. Prior to that, I was just wandering around aimlessly wasting time...

tomq04 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 18, 2014, 10:12:16 PM »

any tips for 5 min/2sec games? I keep making unbelievably stupid mistakes...practice I suppose. I do pretty well at correspondence chess, but it took ~20 games to clean up the basic mistakes. Now i'm making them all over again at blitz.

Kriegsspiel · « **Reply #9 on:** January 19, 2014, 09:24:00 AM »

I had the same thing when I was playing longer games. I gradually started playing the shorter games. When I started I just lost a lot of games, and eventually started winning more. Maybe you just develop better heuristics that let you play smarter moves? I'm not sure, but you're obviously going to be playing more games in the same amount of time, so you see a lot more, and I'm sure that's getting integrated somehow.

market timer · « **Reply #10 on:** January 20, 2014, 06:33:11 AM »

Yes, I played a bit in elementary school, but could not find any good competition where I lived. Did not seem fun to play against the computer all the time, so I lost interest.

Started playing again in 2004, and have plateaued around 1900 rating for the past several years. One of my goals in early retirement is to become a chess master.

Chess is a great hobby for FIRE-types, much better than expensive hobbies like skiing or golf. I find the study of it endlessly rewarding. Now with the internet, it is easy to find opponents of any ability at all hours of the day. I'm also a big fan of the YouTube chess channels, like ChessNetwork. Hope to get my son interested as well, seems a better use of time than video games.

tomq04 · « **Reply #11 on:** January 20, 2014, 10:05:46 AM »

I'll check out Chessnetwork, I was curious about podcasts/youtube channels. I think this will get us started.

Do you have a blog/journal on your journey to master?

grmagne · « **Reply #12 on:** January 20, 2014, 10:11:41 AM »

Quote from: tomq04 on January 20, 2014, 10:05:46 AM

I'll check out Chessnetwork, I was curious about podcasts/youtube channels. I think this will get us started.

Do you have a blog/journal on your journey to master?

Schemindmind.com is my favourite chess site. It's for correspondence games, and if you like that style, it's got lots of great tournaments and variants of every type you can think of.

Another great game that I love playing is Arimaa (8x8 board like chess, but with very different rules). The World Championships are in progress over the next 3 months and there are a lot of commentated games. Humans are still better than computers in Arimaa and there's an annual match between the top humans and computer every year.

onemorebike · « **Reply #13 on:** January 20, 2014, 10:16:07 AM »

Two books that will help any intermediate player ascend to a new level:

The Amateur Mind

and

How to Reassess your Chess.

Will · « **Reply #14 on:** January 20, 2014, 11:24:41 AM »

An excellent online gaming site is www.pogo.com

They have all kinds of games that you can play for free (including chess). They have board games, card games, casino games, hidden object games, word games, and puzzle games. It is set up so that you can play against real people or computer players.

There is a separate pay area called Club Pogo that is not free, but there are so many free games that it is worth looking into!

market timer · « **Reply #15 on:** January 20, 2014, 04:07:12 PM »

Quote from: tomq04 on January 20, 2014, 10:05:46 AM

Do you have a blog/journal on your journey to master?

Nothing right now. Maybe I'll start one once I've finally pulled the plug and retired. It's a good way of staying motivated for long term goals.

tomq04 · « **Reply #16 on:** January 20, 2014, 04:32:31 PM »

Do any of you folks play the old timer card game Bridge?

My old man is a life master and after starting to understand the game, I believe I can safely say there is no better game. It does require partners, but the communication required through bidding is amazing, and the subtleties said can mean so much. What draws me to it is the "no-bluff" factor, you must describe your bids on a "bid card" when you start playing and lying/bluffing is not allowed.

Quite an interesting game to study along the lines of Chess. I'm always looking for people to play with on BridgeBase, but i'm somewhat side tracked until I pass my CPA in June.

vern · « **Reply #17 on:** January 20, 2014, 10:15:35 PM »

Magnus Carlsen of Norway just won the World Championship last November in India. He's only 22 and is the highest rated player in the history of the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_v9mTfhC8

Daniel King has a really good chess channel on youtube. He has a knack for explaining the top games for us mere mortals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9h1UqIcrUw

Richard3 · « **Reply #18 on:** January 20, 2014, 11:22:16 PM »

Quote from: tomq04 on January 18, 2014, 10:12:16 PM

any tips for 5 min/2sec games? I keep making unbelievably stupid mistakes...practice I suppose. I do pretty well at correspondence chess, but it took ~20 games to clean up the basic mistakes. Now i'm making them all over again at blitz.

Learn one opening and possible variants really well. This has two advantages - saves time early and also you'll find yourself in the same kinds of mid game situations over and over so those decisions should become easier.

basd · « **Reply #19 on:** January 21, 2014, 03:52:06 AM »

Quote from: tomq04 on January 20, 2014, 04:32:31 PM

Do any of you folks play the old timer card game Bridge?

Learning to play bridge is on my to do list.. I've heard lots of good things about the game.

Do you by any chance have any good resources for a total newbie?

Will · « **Reply #20 on:** January 21, 2014, 07:23:31 AM »

Bridge is one of the free games at www.pogo.com

tomq04 · « **Reply #21 on:** January 21, 2014, 08:24:45 AM »

http://www.amazon.com/Weeks-Winning-Bridge-Alfred-Sheinwold/dp/4871876098

This is the book I read for bridge, of course it helped having my dad around when I read it. If i'm not mistaken he found it at a used book store for $1-5.

basd · « **Reply #22 on:** January 21, 2014, 08:42:00 AM »

Quote from: tomq04 on January 21, 2014, 08:24:45 AM

http://www.amazon.com/Weeks-Winning-Bridge-Alfred-Sheinwold/dp/4871876098

This is the book I read for bridge, of course it helped having my dad around when I read it. If i'm not mistaken he found it at a used book store for $1-5.

Cheers for that!

tomq04 · « **Reply #23 on:** January 21, 2014, 10:04:37 AM »

What are some favorite opening strategies? I've been focusing in kings Indian attack and defense. And am now looking into the standard scicilian defense against king pawn opening (e4?)

basd · « **Reply #24 on:** January 22, 2014, 12:09:08 AM »

For some reason I always play Queen's Gambit. Either that or Sicilian when black and faced with 1.e4.

I should try out some other openings..

vern · « **Reply #25 on:** January 23, 2014, 09:17:14 PM »

While we're on the subject...here's a really neat free ebook about Paul Morphy's famous tour of Europe in 1858.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34180

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Author Topic: Chess players? (Read 8703 times)

Kriegsspiel

Kriegsspiel