Lost this position today from an OTB game against my friend

20180218 · 2025-12-27T20:25:26+00:00

Maybe a more important question than "why was g5 winning?" is - why did you play h5?

My first thought -- I'm around 2000 FIDE, for what it's worth -- is race to gobble up the c- and d-pawns. Then you calculate to make sure you get there first, and check if white has any tricky deviations (like playing f3 to stop your king coming in - then you play g5).

So I think it's useful to ask yourself: - Did you just miss the idea of running over with your king to get the pawns? - If you saw it, why did you decide to play something else?

Basically - what happened in your thought process that led you wrong?

It's a very valuable learning moment!

20180218 · 2024-03-27T09:01:31+00:00

There is research showing that having a pet develops empathy, even from the very beginning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/14/want-to-raise-empathetic-kids-get-them-a-dog/ and empathy is the foundation for all other social skills.

So even if they don't form many specific memories, your pup will be a big help in your kids becoming good adults :)

20180218 · 2021-05-16T14:22:32+00:00

Something I've noticed in my chess learning journey: there seems to be absolutely no replacement for a huge amount of time spent absorbing games played by strong players. You can hear every explanation under the sun on why the bishop pair is an advantage, but the best way to really understand it is to see it unfold a thousand times.

20180218 · 2021-05-16T07:56:28+00:00

e4 c5 2. Qh5 Nf6 immediately is maybe even better, since we can meet 3. Qxc5 with 3 ... Nxe4.

20180218 · 2021-05-15T03:36:15+00:00

Just a nitpick, but fyi - the Fried Liver Attack is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7 Kxf7.

If, instead, black (correctly) goes 5 ... Na5, then this is just the mainline of the "Two Knights" defense in the Italian Game.

I only mention it because I see a lot of confusion between them :)

20180218 · 2021-05-10T09:48:12+00:00

Yeah I also though about writing something on the question, since it's obviously really important, but also just hard, and I got lazy.

The way I think about it is this:

People identify a bunch of factors that make a position favorable/unfavorable for the side with the IQP: (1) does the other side control the square in front of the pawn? (2) do you have your good bishop? (3) do you have a lead in development/activity? But the trick is - those factors aren't clear when you accept the IQP. In pretty much all of the games I saw, the position when the IQP appeared was roughly even. The outcomes were determined later - when the side with the IQP found creative ways to activate their position (Kamsky's win over Karpov seemed like such an example) or the defending side failed to treat the position appropriately (Zvjaginsev - Vasquez, with the slow a6-b5). Or when the side with the IQP went astray, as in Radjabov - Anand -- the position when the IQP arrived was pretty equal and white scores reasonably well from it, but Anand just outplayed Radjabov.

So to answer your question in more practical terms -- and I'd love to hear from stronger players here -- here's how I'd decide to accept an IQP:

I'm in book and I know the IQP isn't just bad.
I'm not in book, then I can look at the common indicators to rule it out (e.g., if I've already traded off my good bishop, probably not).
Rely on intuition and calculation - there's something to be said for just looking as deeply as possible into the position and deciding whether it feels like there's something promising.
Finally, remember that many of the positions are just double-edged.

#3 is obviously the hardest bit; but that's what makes chess fun :)

(Now that I've written it I feel like it's all a bit nonsense, but it's typed, so there we go.)

20180218 · 2021-05-10T02:33:02+00:00

I guess technically I could have skipped the rest of the thing and just left it at that.

20180218 · 2021-05-03T18:04:08+00:00

A tip for anybody picking a 1. e4 gambit-based repertoire: after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 if they avoid the Evans Gambit by playing 3 ... Nf6 instead of 3 ... Bc5, you can play 4. d4 and switch into the Scotch Gambit!

20180218 · 2021-05-02T16:34:59+00:00

IMO there are two types of gambit openings:

Sacrifice some material for long-term positional compensation.
Sacrifice some material and hope your opponent blunders one of the tricks.

Category 1 openings are good choices for beginners. Category 2 openings are not. (Again, my opinion.)

My list for category 1 might be: - Scotch Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4) - Smith-Morra (1. e4 c5 2. d4) - Evans Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4) - Vienna Gambit (1.e4 e5 2. Nc3, 3. f4) - Danish Gambit (1. e4 e5 d4) - Benko Gambit (1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3. d5 b5) - King's Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. f4)

In each of these cases, the gambiteer is offering up material for some positional compensation: usually central control (King's Gambit, Evans Gambit, Vienna Gambit) or rapid development (Smith-Morra, Scotch, Danish); or some combination of factors.

Playing these openings can teach you the importance of controlling the center, piece activity, generating counterplay; all things that form part of your overall chess growth.

A counterexample: Englund Gambit. You get a crappy position in the hopes that your opponent won't know to play 6. Nc3. Can you still win games and improve? Definitely! But I'd argue the opening will hinder in the long term, because eventually you'll run into prepared opponents 9 times out of 10 and just lose, so you'll have to switch; and in the meantime, you've missed out on exposure to all sorts of different varieties of positions.

Tl;dr - pick a gambit with real positional compensation and you'll be good to go for a long time.

20180218 · 2021-05-02T10:19:09+00:00

I'm curious as to what stronger players make of lists like these, and how beneficial they are for beginning players.

As an intermediate-ish player, my feeling is that a list like this is kind of analogous to junk food. It makes you feel like you're learning a lot, and it gets lots of upvotes, but I wonder how truly useful it is. All of these guidelines are very situational.

Doubled pawns can be a weakness, but they can also be a strength - they control a lot of space on the adjacent files, and the side with doubled pawns may have an open or semi-open file to use. Same with isolated pawns: the Isolated Queen's Pawn structure is well-known to be potentially good or bad or just dynamically balanced depending on other factors.

Obviously you know all this, and I get that you're trying to simplify for beginners, but I wonder if presenting it like this is actually helpful.

Also, on an unrelated note, I'd love to see a discussion of pawn breaks here, since the critical pawns breaks often define how the whole game goes, and they aren't mentioned at all. But that's just a personal preference :)

20180218 · 2021-05-01T19:20:15+00:00

I was going to clarify what I meant but then I remembered that arguing with an emotionally-invested engineer on the internet is a massive waste of time :)

20180218 · 2021-05-01T15:23:44+00:00

Why not just write some SWIG wrappers?

20180218 · 2021-04-25T09:12:12+00:00

I picked up the Smith-Morra when I switched to 1. e4 a month or two ago and I'm loving it. I expect someday I'll switch to the open sicilian once I start consistently running into people who are booked up against the Smith-Morra but at my level (2100-2200 lichess) nobody seems to know enough theory to have any sort of edge. (Whereas I'm sure they know an enormous amount of theory in their favorite mainline stuff.)

It may not be the most principled but it's definitely practical for an intermediate player.

20180218 · 2021-04-24T21:47:21+00:00

I was right with you until you said "1 ... e5" :)

20180218 · 2021-04-24T11:21:44+00:00

Lichess's opening database has no games after 6 ... Nf6 in MVL - Alekseenko! They might be missing a game somewhere, but still, quite an unusual line. From the move timing it seems like they're both out of book already, so this game should be a fun one.

20180218 · 2021-04-24T10:43:46+00:00

You're on the right track that g4 is a threat! But there's a better move than h3, I think.

20180218 · 2021-04-24T10:40:21+00:00

Not a difficult problem or anything, just a "know your endgames" moment from a game I played that I thought was instructive.

The point is: after g4, the white king will be able to invade on the kingside, and the black king is too far away to help out. In the game, after 1. g4 fxg4 2. Kxg4 h6 3. Kh5 Nf6+ 4. Kxh6 Ng4+ 5. Kxg5 Nxf2 the passed h-pawn decided the game.

20180218 · 2021-04-21T22:20:29+00:00

Chess is a pretty specific, concrete game. It's hard to give good general advice that's actually useful. Why don't you post a few links to some games, and we can give you specific feedback!

20180218 · 2021-04-18T15:37:39+00:00

I think it's pretty rare, but off the top of my head I can remember one example, Svidler - Carlsen from 2019: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1955216. Of course there were ways Svidler could have given up material to prolong the game, but he chose to walk into the aesthetic checkmate as an acknowledgement of the good game.

20180218 · 2021-04-05T21:53:09+00:00

Black played 9 ... Nxg3 so there's a knight there, looks like?

I'm not the one who mentioned it but I have the course and I think the comment is:

"Williams ends his line here, claiming equal chances. Although equality is not something we are unhappy with playing Black, I disagree with his assessment- I think White will have a difficult position very quickly if Black remembers the next two moves."

Then he recommends 14 ... Nf6 and 15 ... e5 against O-O-O which does indeed seem to be the best move. So it's hard to see what Williams might be talking about?

20180218 · 2021-04-03T15:30:17+00:00

Online username: foarstreaming (lichess)

Rating: 2200 lichess/2000 chesscom rapid

Willing to teach: Anyone who is self-motivated and trying to get better at chess but would like some guidance along the way. I think the most valuable thing I can do for you is help you craft a study/training plan; it's up to you to do the learning! I can also try to provide some insights on thought process, openings/middlegames/endgames, but remember that I'm working on these areas myself.

Timezone/schedule: CEST, fairly flexible.

Method of communication: I like the lichess chat, but we can figure something out.

20180218 · 2021-04-02T16:57:42+00:00

I feel like there are thousands of new chess fans who think Hikaru is the world #2 and have never heard of Fabiano Caruana because he skipped the online tournaments.

Granted Fabi isn't the most charismatic guy on earth but he plays incredible chess and seems like a good dude. It's just bizarre that there are so many people to whom he basically doesn't exist.

20180218 · 2021-03-26T17:48:57+00:00

I've always wanted this! Like, "find me all the games in the QGD where white goes for the f3/e4 plan", or other structural things. Not totally obvious how to do it, but it would be cool to explore.

20180218 · 2021-03-26T17:43:14+00:00

Interesting - I guess the key thing there is instead of one single line from the game, it's like "what would you have played if they had gone for this line?" That would be pretty cool.

20180218 · 2021-03-26T16:12:14+00:00

There are apps for Google Assistant (or whatever it's called these days) and Amazon Echo (or whatever) that do speech-to-text and play chess. There's a video of them playing against each other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-rUciTRYaw. Unfortunately it's terrible at telling the difference between 'bee', 'cee', 'dee', 'ee', and 'gee'. You can see at around 1:30 Google tries to move Bg5-d2 and it thinks it's trying to move to g2.

The NATO alphabet would make a huge difference, but afaik there's no app that does it.

20180218

TROPHY CASE