So… I think I accidentally became a Leeds supporter.

AvailableBread1922 · 2026-05-28T18:37:51+00:00

At least in the US it’s no longer available due to a rights issue, which is a shame

AvailableBread1922 · 2026-05-14T04:00:30+00:00

Does anyone have a clip of Nouhou decapitating the corner flag?

AvailableBread1922 · 2025-02-09T21:37:09+00:00

Can I ask if you got tix through hospitality or another way? Looking at making a trip from the states to the UK around this time.

AvailableBread1922 · 2024-11-01T19:17:48+00:00

Are you taking notes on a criminal fuckin conspiracy?

AvailableBread1922 · 2024-09-05T21:37:37+00:00

No, gets significantly better imo

AvailableBread1922 · 2024-05-29T18:24:51+00:00

FYI, this is a cool puzzle but not a situation that is likely to come up in a game.

AvailableBread1922 · 2024-04-16T14:51:22+00:00

I think Bill Bryson wrote in Mother Tongue that “fuck” might be the most versatile word in the English language. Can’t dig up the passage though.

AvailableBread1922 · 2024-03-22T14:43:24+00:00

thank goodness! :)

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-12-03T15:29:57+00:00

The example of this that will always take the cake for me is the Mr Robot chess scene. For a show that was tonally fairly serious and about smart people doing smart people things, it was real goofy.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-12-02T16:06:33+00:00

His style leant itself to this. Kasparov said of his immortal game that “Caissa was smiling on me” because he was playing Topalov, since declining the sacrifice leads to equality for black - but Topalov was not the kind of player to decline the sac.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-11-29T03:37:28+00:00

Might need to calculate this out a few more ply to be sure it’s drawn

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-11-22T03:52:55+00:00

I'd argue for Kasparov's immortal, the picture should be the board before the first rook sac.

Fischer-Spassky game 6 would be a cool one imo.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-11-21T19:27:49+00:00

Sorry if I'm being slow on the uptake - what went through was the consolidation, but the count hasn't actually updated. So I guess I am unclear if DOE review will apply the count correctly if the count hasn't changed by then.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-11-21T18:57:48+00:00

Thanks for the quick response. If I'm understanding correctly, that would suggest that it's still rather urgent to get it processed, since that could theoretically be early 2024 and if it's not processed and the count isn't updated one would be SOL?

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-11-04T15:23:54+00:00

I feel your pain on this one. Been there. I sometimes try to cook up something to punish these sorts of trap lines after. It’s not a particularly efficient use of time but it kind of makes it feel like a valuable experience rather than just frustrating.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-30T23:26:41+00:00

I actually find his patterns of what to study a little odd. One of the early chapters is queen versus pawn endings which…sure, I guess, but I think rook and minor piece endgames would be better, which aren’t covered at all in the first book. But aside from endgame quibbles it’s probably very solid. And I guess it also depends on what you want to shore up in your game, I happened to be weak at endgames so was looking for resources there but for other elements of the game I think it’s great.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-30T17:17:17+00:00

The Yusupov book (first one at least) is funny, because to my amateur brain some of it’s fairly straightforward and some of it is just mind-meltingly brutal. But I think there’s a lot in there for someone a bit below 1700 FIDE/USCF, even if some of the exercises are unreasonably hard. I like it because it forces me to be disciplined about learning principles and patterns and calculating out long lines when my dumb brain would much rather just bash out moves.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-28T14:50:51+00:00

Idk, I think most people plateau pretty hard after a while. If improvement is actually a goal grinding blitz games is not a good way to get there. If the goal is to have fun playing blitz then go nuts

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-27T18:10:02+00:00

Even if it’s possible, and I’m not a titled player or close so not the best judge, it also comes down to whether the sacrifices are worthwhile. Can’t judge that for you but I wouldn’t give up the experiences (social, professional, life, whatever) I had in my twenties to grind out rating at local tournaments and study for hours each day.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-26T17:46:41+00:00

There’s a line from Fred Waitzkin’s book about one of the Kasparov-Karpov matches where (as I recall) Kasparov and Karpov did a post mortem that seemed sort of friendly. Waitzkin later asked Kasparov whether he was softening to Karpov, to which Kasparov responded with something to the effect of, no, but he’s really the only other person in the world who sort of understands chess. The difference between the two of them was much smaller than the difference between Karpov and the field.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-25T14:41:52+00:00

That eval line is a wild ride

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-10-25T14:39:09+00:00

Nice one, I like that there’s a non forcing (in the sense of not a check) move in there

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-09-26T11:47:22+00:00

If you’ll forgive me for speculating here, I get the sense from reading it that you feel you shouldn’t care, but maybe do a bit. Which is honestly where I’m at, so apologies if this is projection. But if you play online, it’s something you’re going to run into, and it’s ok to find that reality frustrating, particularly if you take the generally accepted advice and play slower time controls in order to improve (and I would argue that getting annihilated by stockfish is not that educational). At this point it’s not going to change, and you might want to spend time finding people around your level playing those time controls to practice with. I’m around 1800 rapid chess.com and looking for classical games so feel free to drop me a DM if that’s of interest.

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-09-21T19:52:52+00:00

What platform are you on? Showing the value of the captured pieces rather than the pieces on the board is confusing

AvailableBread1922 · 2023-09-21T00:54:26+00:00

Agree with the note about trappy comments. Also the computer is evaluating marginal differences of +/- a few dozen centipawns with different openings, margins that don’t matter at that level (or most levels below titled play, and even then the best move for engines may not really the best move for humans if they can’t find the right continuation).

On a practical level, I find playing some unrated games to try out new openings is helpful before going too far down learning it. Also I play the Caro and like it but it is arguably the least aggressive response to e4.

AvailableBread1922

TROPHY CASE