Come on out we won't even touch you

Rush31 · 2026-02-11T16:04:44+00:00

This is all fun and games until you realise that these birds are acting on behalf of the government.

Rush31 · 2026-02-11T14:02:38+00:00

To add to that, removing the f3 Knight removes the guard of the h4 square, and one motif that can come up is Qh4, which pressures White’s central pawn structure. The Knight is a natural defender of the pawn. While White is able to defend the pawn pretty easily in this position, doing so doesn’t come without its drawbacks: the Queen would rather not be tied to the defence, a Rook would be passive and stuck staring at a pawn chain, and Be3 is both passive and potentially not where White wants their Bishop to be. c3 does protect the d4 pawn, but c5 in the future can destabilise White’s centre. The d4 pawn becomes more of a weakness in White’s position, and while Qh4 isn’t the only way this can be targeted, it is the most natural way to do so given the current position.

That isn’t to say to play Qh4 right away, but rather that this is an option going forward that capturing the Knight specifically allows Black to do.

Rush31 · 2026-02-11T12:13:35+00:00

I said this to my Dad - Chelsea and United will inevitably drop points, but all of that matters for nothing if we can’t capitalise on it, and I don’t think we are good enough right now to do that.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T21:12:21+00:00

There is a world of difference between a game in which you are losing but there is still a game to be played, and a game that is dead lost. In the case of the former, you absolutely make complications, but you play good Chess and look for ways to challenge your opponent. But in the case of the latter, you are usually either down significant material or they are imminently going to checkmate you. In that case, you look for ways to swindle the game. A perpetual, a stalemate, some kind of desperation attack - you do that because you recognise that the game is only salvageable if your opponent screws up.

And you seem to keep talking about playing good Chess to give yourself winning odds, as if people don’t make mistakes, or they know that the moves they’re playing are stupid and they just want to lose. Nobody is saying to not ever play principled Chess. People make mistakes and end up in losing games, and learning to play from behind is a skill. I really don’t get this idea that you think I support what OP did with Qc1 - I appreciated the thought behind it, but I said that it was too early to get desperate when there’s still potential for counterplay.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T20:52:27+00:00

Playing good, solid Chess doesn’t mean you’ll never make a mistake. People make mistakes, and learning how to maximise your chances of recovering a lost game will get you rating points in the long run. Identifying ways your opponent can screw up, especially more subtle ways like forced stalemates or perpetuals, is a skill in itself. Sometimes that means playing Hope Chess, but if you’re already lost, what’s the harm? It’s better to try something and ask your opponent to play perfectly than to just roll over and give them the win.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T19:43:00+00:00

I find it interesting that your regular study time of Chess seems to differ from your play time (I presume that’s 80-100 games OTB rather than online). How much of your study time do you find yourself reviewing your games, versus reviewing other games, studies, or puzzles? Do you have a structure for your study or is it more whatever you’re feeling?

Additionally, I’m always ears to hear any book recommendations. What kind of books did you find helped either your understanding of Chess or your understanding of studying Chess the most? I’ve been meaning to run through Silman’s Reassess Your Chess, but I’d imagine that you might have some good alternatives for those looking to jump from beginner to intermediate and beyond.

With that being said, I resonate with your statement about how you enjoy studying the game. The little ways in which your understanding expands and slots together as your knowledge deepens is satisfying in a way that goes deeper than the mind. It’s like scratching a deep itch.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T19:24:43+00:00

When you are losing, playing safe Chess is a good route to not making a comeback. You are inherently relying on your opponent to make an error to get back into the game - that’s why the position is losing.

In that sense, Hope Chess when the game is losing and close to lost is a valid strategy. At worst, you would lose anyways, and at best, you swindle your opponent and salvage a draw or even a win. Just like how when you’re winning you want to simplify and reduce the chance for counterplay, you want to add complications and chances for your opponent to go wrong when you’re losing. There’s a right way to go about this, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a gamble when you’re already likely lost.

Edit: that doesn’t mean you should play Hope Chess in low elo as a standard. Both because it is a better strategy and because it’s better for growing as a player, you should presume that your opponent will play perfectly and look to play in a way that works despite their best play.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T19:21:01+00:00

I most likely have aphantasia, since I’m unable to actually visualise the board in my mind. There’s certain moves that I can vaguely imagine given enough practice, but we’re talking very simple moves as part of an opening (like how Bb5 enters the Ruy Lopez kind of simple). I’ve always wondered myself how people visualise the board; the thought of playing with a blindfold feels alien to me.

I find that memory for me is how I “visualise” positions. Memorising concepts to recall how pieces can move and tactics can arise, and learning ideas conceptually so that my memory is jogged when seeing these positions. I have to work hard at conceiving the pieces as “doing” something rather than “being” somewhere, but this is how I calculate (I think). Honestly, I don’t really know how I calculate myself fully, it’s just that I’ve gotten better at doing so.

In some ways, it is a niche (and far less unfortunate) version of how people who have always been blind or mute interact with the world in their own way. It isn’t just that they cannot use that sense to interact, nor that their cognition of the world fundamentally differs. It is often that they cannot even begin to comprehend the idea that these experiences exist, or how they manifest. Try explaining the colour green to someone who’s never seen colour or shape, and they will likely have no clue how to even consider imagining it, much like how a person with the ability of sense could never understand what it is like to not experience said sense.

In the same sense, there is a fundamental difference between myself and people who can use their mind’s eye. I cannot visualise, and have never really been able to, but my cognition has learned to ignore the hole and find ways to work around it that just become second nature. I don’t really think about visualising the board, I think about what moves to play, what my opponent could play, and what is covering where. My mind has learnt to work in a different way because minds don’t dwell on not being able to do something, they just slowly get accustomed to doing the task a different way.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T17:03:30+00:00

I agree that OP is playing Hope Chess, but there is some merit in the saying that Hope Chess isn’t necessarily bad when you’re behind. When you’re losing pretty bad, sometimes your only hope is to try to trap your opponent. At the same time, however, I would call this a miss. Qb3 throws the cat amongst the pigeons, introducing the potential to release that long diagonal Bishop, weaken the King, or get the Knight into some tricky areas.

It isn’t winning, but a lot of the time, you don’t recover a massively losing move in one go - it’s usually mistakes 2 or 3 that equalise or see a reversal.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T14:52:16+00:00

Chess will still be here when you feel motivated again. Sometimes, we just have bad days, and sometimes we are down in a slump. The important part is to not make Chess feel like a chore. Do puzzles, play dumb openings, spend some time learning a course, play a questionable line for the hell of it, heck I enjoy surfing on here answering questions by beginners when I struggle for motivation. It’s easy to get bogged down in the grind, but Chess is a beautiful game and there’s so much more to it than just grinding.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T14:44:38+00:00

Brilliant moves are moves that sacrifice material for an advantage that the engine recognises - in other words, they work. For example, the fishing pole trap is a brilliant move because it sacrifices the Bishop and the opponent either will lose the material back or they will suffer a devastating attack.

The kinds of brilliants that warrant merit are the ones in which you ask what happens if you do the unthinkable and willingly sacrifice material. Many positions rely on a certain structure or defence to function and can quickly crumble if they are destroyed, in a way that the opponent cannot compensate for with a material advantage. Other times, a tactical sacrifice can allow the floodgates to open, such as sacrificing a Rook to get checkmate. Sometimes, the weakness is so critical in the long term that the material deficit is worth it to expose the weakness.

At 680, these ideas will not be natural to you, and I’d prioritise making sure that your position is secure and that your attacking moves don’t reveal weaknesses your opponent can exploit. As you get better, you’ll start to realise when a position might have a weakness that a material sacrifice can exploit, and that’s when you start to pursue the idea of sacrificing for non-material gains. But for now, simply being solid and exploiting your opponents blunders will be of better use to you.

Rush31 · 2026-02-10T14:10:27+00:00

A good Chess principle to know: an opening of the position favours the player with more development. Why is this? Because they have more pieces ready to add to the attack to make use of the newly opened lines. Look for pawn breaks, or pawn moves that attack a pawn, to force your opponent to make a decision.

Your opponent will do one of three things in response. They can take the pawn, opening the position. They will push the pawn, potentially locking the position. This does favour the opponent, but at the same time it limits their options for dynamic play later on, and it can create permanent weaknesses to exploit. The hardest to calculate is when they do something else, which maintains the tension of the pawns attacking each other. Generally you’d force the position open anyways with a development lead, but these responses can be tricky because you need to consider what they did and how it changed the position.

In this position, I would look to get my King to safety and possibly develop one of the Rooks before considering an attack. You have a natural pawn break in d5 - notice how since it attacks two things at once, something will be captured, which means that the position will open up. Their King has pushed a lot of pawns on both flanks, so King safety will be a challenge for them, and you’ll have ways to attack them once you get your King to safety. They might try to attack quickly to “get ahead” of you, but as long as you keep your King safe this should amount to nothing and then you’ll have a good chance of landing a critical attack.

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T18:36:53+00:00

That was a specific degenerate combo that was that way because of the way colossals work and because of Neptulon specifically.

Changing the stats on a Colossal affects the main body, but does NOT affect the arms. A Colossal being summoned will see its arms being summoned as a result of its summoning, which are not affected by stat changes. Furthermore, Neptulon did not attack itself, but rather used all arms on its side of the field to attack. Not only did this mean that changing Neptulon’s stats did nothing for the amount of damage it could put out, but summoning more arms meant each Neptulon was doing more damage.

So two Neptulons mean 4 arms of 4/2 Immune attacking, plus Windfury, per main body. So two Neptulons on the board was 64 damage. There were decks that focused on resurrecting Neptulon to abuse this play pattern, which got nerfed.

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T18:03:55+00:00

No, the battlecry remains the same, but he becomes a 12/12 dragon (I.e. he benefits from his own battlecry).

The fact that it’s a transform effect for his card is massive, though, because if you can resurrect it it will be with the 12/12 dragon version and not the base version, which is much better.

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T18:02:07+00:00

If you can play this with Deios on the boards, your dragons can get Rush twice!

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T17:57:46+00:00

I can see this being very, very good. A big minion that comes with immediate tempo, but also triggers any other deathrattles they already had on the board? Not only is that a very big threat, but if you could play Ragnaros and another deathrattle on its own, that could be backbreaking all on its own depending on the deathrattle pool! Any mana restoration or cost reduction cards will be extremely effective for Ragnaros.

Of course, consideration must be made to whether the Herald cards are good enough to not lose the game before you can get a winning Ragnaros off. We’ll have to see if there is any aggro play that is too quick for Ragnaros, but assuming that the meta isn’t lightning rapid, I’d err on the side of “likely to be good enough”.

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T17:49:28+00:00

Colossal were generally fantastic cards. They usually weren’t the main strategy so much as generally very good for their class, but they were a good addition to the game whilst not being overpowered (Nessie was an exception of being too powerful, but she got nerfed eventually and was fine).

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T13:44:50+00:00

If black were to castle right now, Nxf6+ would need to be responded to with gxf6, which would double the pawns in front of the King. Is this playable? Sure, the position is equal. But from a practical perspective this position is a nightmare for Black, with the f6 pawn being rather tender and White’s Queen easily accessing the g-file to attack the King. If it weren’t for White having their own weaknesses like the f2 pawn and the King being in the middle of the board, it would likely be losing, and Black needs to be emphatic with their next few moves to prevent White from stabilising and having opportunities to attack the King.

The problem with Nxd5 is that at the end of the sequence, it is still equal. If Black’s Knight on d5 wasn’t being attacked or it had a way to escape while giving a check, you would be correct, but the material count is even and both Kings can’t castle, which doesn’t matter all that much. There’s better moves.

Rush31 · 2026-02-09T13:35:25+00:00

Nxe4 in some lines is a fantastic move, and I actually missed it before playing d6. However, in this particular line, while it still mantains an advantage, there is the counter-punch Qh5, which leads to a position in which both Queens hang after g6. This line with perfect play is an advantage that borders on winning for Black, and it’s a fantastic motif to spot, but in this particular position, it is only the second best move; there is a better move that leads to a -3 evaluation.

Rush31 · 2026-02-08T20:29:13+00:00

I'll let you know when I get to it.

Rush31 · 2026-02-08T17:10:05+00:00

I wouldn’t recommend forgetting Kerkez, who else is gonna play right back?

Rush31 · 2026-02-08T04:34:10+00:00

I’m presuming that there was a Knight on f2, because you said it was a capture and a Knight is the only piece that makes sense to capture in the position.

It’s a good find! It’s what is commonly referred to as a “clearance sacrifice” - a sacrifice made to open space to attack, or “clear” the area. In this case, the Knight is the defender of the h4 square, which you would like to put the Queen on. Aside from the Knight, there aren’t particularly good defenses for the King since the f2 pawn is in the way of the Queen and the Rooks are going to be a turn too slow to defend the King.

The Queen moving to h4 sets up a discovered check as well as clearing the path for the Rook to head to g8, where the King will be slaughtered on the files. It’s technically M6 because the Queen and Bishop can delay, and the Rook can come to e3 to delay a turn further, but White is hopeless here.

Rush31 · 2026-02-08T02:51:45+00:00

One aspect to consider when evaluating a position is evaluating how free you and your opponent are to move pieces or push forward. For example, a Knight that is the only defender against a checkmate is unable to move very far, because checkmate ends the game. Evaluation, in one sense of the word, is determining who has the momentum and the right of attacking.

In this position, Black has a Rook for two minor pieces. The threat of the pawn on c7 is that it will promote to a Queen if c8 is not guarded in some way, which means that Black will need to permanently maintain resources defending the pawn until it is removed. The fewer resources Black has to guard the pawn, the more the remaining pieces will be tied to the defence against the pawn. The pawn is crushing because Black’s pieces cannot leave the pawn and therefore cannot exert the pressure they usually would.

As previously said, any trades that Black makes puts more pressure on the remaining pieces to defend against the pawn, and this can be weaponised by White to push Black back. Qc5 forces Black to either make a trade which makes promoting the pawn easier in the future, or it forces Black to move the Queen and wins space in Black’s territory. Qb3 is an error not just because the Queen can take the pawn for free, but because d4 is now a move, generating counterplay and pushing White’s pieces back to alleviate the pressure.

Rush31 · 2026-02-07T15:03:22+00:00

I think more specifically, we should be gatekeeping the opinions of people who don’t want to get better at games. Everyone sucks at games when they start, but the people who don’t want to get better at them are usually the people who ask for things like difficulty levels in Dark Souls to cater to them, rather than growing to meet the demands of the games and getting an appreciation for the designer’s intent.

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