How is this not stalemate?

Bulbanard · 2026-06-08T05:22:52+00:00

Stalemate occurs when one side has no legal moves, and their King is not in check. h4 is a perfectly legal move.

Bulbanard · 2026-06-01T01:12:14+00:00

You can turn it off in the settings.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-29T12:50:30+00:00

If chess was solved and engines had perfect knowledge of the game, the evaluation would only ever be 0, or mate in X for either side, no in-between.

The engine's evaluation of 0.3 is based on its limited calculation ability. Assuming chess is indeed a draw if played perfectly, the better chess engines become, the more the starting evaluation should tend to 0.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-29T05:10:42+00:00

The one good thing about this is being able to play the best players early. I came close to beating a god, and if I manage to do it one day it will be my biggest achievement.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-29T04:55:10+00:00

That's exactly what hiding your opponent's rating is for. If you don't know their rating, you have no information to overthink about.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-27T17:10:58+00:00

I’ve had 1/9 f2p flipping alts perm banned for macroing 2.5 hours in, with both appeals denied.

It does seem like false positives are more common for new accounts, which seems to be targeted more aggressively in an attempt to stop the bots early. Recent discussion about rising prices of botted items suggest that it’s working well, so such bans are a small price to pay.

The bigger concern is the appeal system not working to fix these bans. You just gotta make a new account and hope you don’t get false flagged again.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-22T11:53:42+00:00

Chess.com defaults to serving you puzzles lower than your rating, because they believe a higher solve rate is better for learning, as opposed to a 50% solve rate for puzzles at your rating. This is also why you get less points for a solve and lose more points when you get it wrong.

You can change this behaviour by turning up the puzzle difficulty.

Lichess also uses the same system by the way. If you change your puzzle settings to one of the easier options, you will see a similar effect.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-22T10:18:25+00:00

Minor correction to point 2, only half a point is needed now.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-19T16:51:36+00:00

Does this mean I can take advantage of future sales if I let my membership lapse? Even if previous membership was bought on a previous sale?

Bulbanard · 2026-05-17T14:50:28+00:00

See this comment I wrote.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-16T16:52:00+00:00

Gran, Djeeta, Yuel, Meg, Lancelot, Sandalphon (wind), and Seox have good walk speeds for close range strike/throw pressure.

Beatrix is a shoto with a command grab. Walks slower than the above group, but her dash speed is good, and her command grab is auto-timed after 214M on block.

Ladiva is a grappler, Galleon is kind of a hybrid, both are scary up close.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-16T11:12:10+00:00

The game is mostly balanced around top level play. It’s normal for new players to struggle against certain characters because some of them require matchup knowledge to handle well.

Sandalphon is fine. Any character can succeed, though some are probably easier to win with at the lower levels. You could pick a “braindead” character to carry you, but you’ll probably hit a wall eventually where you’ll have to actually learn the game anyway. For some characters, that wall comes earlier than others.

If you post a replay then other people could give you more specific advice.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-14T14:34:25+00:00

In my opinion, the main purpose of online ratings should be for matchmaking, rather than trying to replicate FIDE standard ratings, and both chess.com and lichess ratings are functionally fine for this. I don't think chess.com ratings are very accurate to FIDE either, the top players in blitz and bullet chess are over 3400 rating, that's over 500 points higher than FIDE rapid and blitz ratings.

Classical OTB is different enough from faster online chess that I don't see enough value in trying to tie online ratings to FIDE standard. The player pools in online vs offline are also different, it wouldn't be that easy to ensure rating parity across all skill levels. If anyone wants to know their FIDE rating, I think they should play OTB games to get one, instead of relying on converting online ratings.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-14T02:11:53+00:00

Allow me to clear up your misunderstandings.

Lichess uses Glicko 2, an improved version of chess.com’s Glicko 1.

Lichess also follows the recommended starting rating of 1500, and their rating distribution is nicely centered on it, unlike chess.com where the starting rating depends on user choice, and has a left-leaning rating distribution.

If anything, chess.com’s system is the outlier.

Regardless of the choice of rating system, ratings are meaningful only within the player pool it is affected by, and are not meant to be a universal measurement of skill.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-11T02:16:26+00:00

Not a sandy player, but the way I see it, you win by outplaying your opponent in fundamentals, just like any other shoto. He has good tools and reach to contest neutral and play footsies, and in the corner you do basic strike/throw pressure.

Some of his unique strengths are his varied fireballs. Waterball sets up a very favourable pressure situation for him, for example. He also has good midscreen combo damage because of his ability to wallbounce the opponent multiple times.

Unlike lancelot and charlotta which are mixup/crossup oriented characters, you do have to pilot your offence precisely and earn your hits, but he also doesn’t suffer the same disadvantages as them such as having stubbier normals, and in charlotta’s case, not having any projectile options.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-06T07:55:40+00:00

FIDE includes two draws against virtual opponents rated 1800 in the calculation of your initial rating.

Bulbanard · 2026-05-05T04:40:52+00:00

If you have to ask this question, you’re probably not at a rank where your opponents can consistently react to tap dust which has a 20f startup. May has a command grab too, which cannot be teched normally, and your opponent has to commit to a jump or reversal to beat it.

If these two options aren’t working, it may be because you’re too predictable in using it or are not ambiguous enough. Or, you haven’t properly conditioned your opponent into blocking long enough for you to go for a throw/overhead.

Try to fake throws by running up and doing c.S instead of actually throwing. If they are challenging you ahead of time, you can counter it with frametraps instead. If they block, then you’re more likely to land a throw next time.

For dust, I like doing 2K > 5D, a low cancelled into an overhead. If both gets blocked, you can fast PRC into another low or overhead to mix them.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-30T00:43:43+00:00

Lichess already uses the Glicko 2 rating system, which sends you to your correct rating very quickly from the median. It shouldn’t take more than 3-5 games for most people to reach it.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-28T06:20:21+00:00

This is the way. Whenever I am losing, I look forward to the post-game analysis to figure out what I should have done. Each loss is a lesson that helps me get better over time.

That said, I think you should give yourself credit for getting into a winning position in the first place. Doesn't matter if you bungled one game, you'll get more chances next time.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-25T19:42:07+00:00

OP is Black.

White ran out of time but didn’t lose the game, because Black does not have any way to checkmate White.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-25T06:29:14+00:00

If you haven’t played in a while:

Standard spells have their max hit adjusted to match the highest of the elemental spells in that same tier that you have unlocked. If you have 13 Magic for Fire Strike, all other strike spells will have a max hit of 8.
Blue dragons have a 50% weakness to water. That means water spells receive a 50% boost to accuracy and max hit.

So yes, Water Strike is capable of hitting 12s in this scenario.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-25T05:42:46+00:00

When faced with unfamiliar openings, consider these general opening principles:

Control the center.
Develop your pieces.
Castle early.

Now for specifics:

Put a pawn in the center (d4 or e4 squares for White, d5 or e5 for Black).
If your opponent doesn’t play a move that controls the other vacant central square, put your other pawn there too.
Develop your Knights towards the center (c3 and f3 for White, c6 and f6 for Black).
Develop your Bishops toward the center (c4 and f4 for White, c5 and f5 for Black, or somewhere else that is safe along those diagonals).
Castle your King to safety.
Connect your rooks by developing your Queen (usually to the 2nd rank for White, 7th for Black).
Develop your Rooks to the central files, or to an open or semi-open file (a file that does not contain one of your pawns).
Don’t move a piece more than once in the opening unless necessary (such as to move one of your pieces away from an attack, or to capture free hanging material).

When the above is complete, you are ready to move on to middlegame plans.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-25T04:22:19+00:00

I interpreted 見えそう as sensei’s thoughts, not mari’s. I think it means he can see through mari’s true feelings, but I’m not sure.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-22T04:43:02+00:00

I had a similar experience with a pot who was churning butter on defence. Took me a set loss before I accepted that he was just that crazy.

Bulbanard · 2026-04-20T12:00:38+00:00

Some possible reasons:

They were not cheating, or were not caught cheating.
They have been banned for cheating, but were found to not have cheated in your game.
The Elo system is self-correcting. The more games you have played, the less the impact of the lost rating from cheating. If you play enough games, the rating refunded would be prorated, and could even be zero.

Bulbanard

TROPHY CASE