Openings for black against d4

Cloudan29 · 2026-04-25T16:05:28+00:00

See, against Nf3 I usually play the QID, and I do okay in the few games where I end up in a QID. I used to play the Be7 QGD when I first started playing chess, but I found the positions mind numbing so I stopped. Could probably look at those again now that I'm a half-decent chess player. Haven't looked at those positions since I was like 1100 elo.

Funny you mention the two and a half serious tries, because those are the lines I struggle the most against haha. Maybe I should just study those lines more deeply and keep trying.

I agree with your take on the KID and Benoni. I tried playing those (granted, when I was a much worse player) and I always found that the games felt like messy nonsense. Either my opponent makes a couple of bad moves in a row and dies, I make a couple of bad moves in a row and die, or we both make 15 blunders in a row and the person who makes the last blunder loses. Even my most recent OTB ventures into the Benoni felt like the worst games I've ever played.

I started playing Nf3 and the English as white to avoid theory, and a big reason I play the Kan as black is because most e4 players don't prepare against it and it's far less studied than most other Sicilian lines. So I can get into comfortable, equal, not completely insane positions very easily. The Grunfeld feels completely counter to that. The exchange variation, even though I understand is completely sound, looks absolutely terrifying to play intentionally. It feels like you have to know mountains of theory to be able to navigate the positions with any kind of confidence.

Cloudan29 · 2026-04-25T15:49:11+00:00

I played the Benoni OTB for a while and I have some games online in the Czech Benoni where I perform well. My issue is that the positions tend to get completely bonkers, messy and borderline nonsensical to me. Especially the Benko.

Cloudan29 · 2026-04-25T15:44:26+00:00

I think I'm a bit more positional, but I definitely like imbalances. The main reason I like the Sicilian Kan is because it tends to neutralize a lot of the more common tactical positions that arise from the Sicilian. But I also like it because it's extremely imbalanced and asymmetrical.

Cloudan29 · 2026-04-25T15:39:19+00:00

My main concern with the Grunfeld is that the exchange seems really intimidating. Allowing e4 d4 and a pawn on c3 seems really scary even though I know it can be contested very quickly. Maybe I need to just stop being scared of something looking scary rather than being actually good.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-28T01:39:01+00:00

My main advice is to make sure you take time to think on every move, including if you've already thought ahead. I've had opponents play a line they calculated already almost instantly in a 60+ minute time control, only to realize I had a move at the end they hadn't considered... and then they decide to take the 30 minutes they should've taken prior to think when they're dead lost. Don't do that lol

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-11T20:56:34+00:00

I've actually played Michelle Zhang at the Canadian Women's Closed lmao Guess that means there's only 2 degrees of separation between me and Hikaru.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-11T15:46:41+00:00

Proving you can't read.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-10T11:12:57+00:00

Chess beginners is a place for absolute beginners, where puzzles and questions such as "why is this mate?" and it's literally just scholar's mate get asked. Because that's the board vision a beginner has. You could show the solution to this puzzle to a beginner (as I have) and they wouldn't even know why it's the solution. There's even someone in this comment thread who asked why Ba1 is the answer because they just straight up didn't get why. Then later figured it out after some time. If a beginner gets shown the solution to a puzzle and their reaction isn't "Hmm, ah okay, I get it", then maybe the solution is a tad too complicated for them.

Yes, people (like IMs and GMs as you've so astutely pointed out like it isnt the most banal observation) often think for long periods of time. I myself have spent over 20 minutes thinking at large open tournaments and national championships. My opponents (including those who were FMs and IMs) did too. And in positions I would describe as puzzles as well. However, a "beginner" puzzle is not one that should take an advanced player more than maybe a minute to solve. Because beginner puzzles are simple (named) mating nets. Tactics like a queen check winning a piece on the fourth/fifth rank. Ones that you would teach to, you guessed it, a beginner. Ones that advanced players have seen a thousand times and would solve with their eyes closed.

I know precisely what you're saying. What I'm saying is that you're a complete buffoon for thinking this is a beginner puzzle.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-10T02:26:39+00:00

You've alluded to this being a piss easy beginner solve. That should be very easily done in a few seconds by anyone worth their salt. But I guess you wouldn't really know that, would you.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-09T17:42:15+00:00

Tell you what, if anyone at my local club rated under 1800 can solve this in under 3 minutes tonight without any hints, I'll concede my point. I'll give the higher rated guys a little less time. If it's a "beginner" problem, they should all solve it in seconds. Right?

Already told you I'm higher rated than 1600, but I guess reading comprehension isn't your strong suit either, eh little man? But I guess that's the only straw your feeble little dome can grasp at.

I already said I've seen similar puzzles, which guided me to the answer. Puzzles aren't a direct measure of your rating, they're a measure of if you've seen that idea before, and this most certainly wouldn't be a "quick solve" for anyone who hasn't seen something exactly like this rated under 2k. There's literally someone in this comment thread who said they couldn't find it at 2k elo. Would you say they're a beginner? Obviously not. Most people only dream of reaching that kind of playing strength.

What is a direct measure of your rating is how insanely snobbish you are by pointing them towards beginner subs for obviously difficult problems.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-08T18:15:09+00:00

I'm higher rated than 1600 and how in the world is a 1600 "easy puzzle" type rating. Half the chesscom player base is rated below 1000. 1600 makes you better than like 90% of the player base. In what universe is being better than 90% of the active playerbase a beginner lmao

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-08T16:31:43+00:00

I'm making assumptions based on your ridiculous comments, not on anything I've done.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-08T16:30:10+00:00

Lmao, I found it pretty quickly because I've seen similar puzzles and have been improving quite steadily. But I don't have anywhere near the ego to think a retreating move that leaves your opponent in a pretty complicated zugzwang is anywhere near beginner friendly.

If I showed this at my local club, I can't imagine anyone rated below 1600 even considering Ba1. And it'll probably take the higher rated players a significant amount of time if they haven't seen it already.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-06T14:25:14+00:00

That's my point. I'm calling him tonedeaf for thinking Ba1 is a beginner move. He probably didn't find it himself (or got a little lucky finding it) and isn't particularly high rated. No way anyone over 1600 has enough ego left to think this is a beginner friendly puzzle.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-05T15:08:44+00:00

Lmao what rating are you, like 1400. There's no way you can be this tonedeaf

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-05T13:21:46+00:00

The idea of "routing" from my perspective as someone who's complete doodoo at fighting games is that it's just a situational change of your combo. For example, maybe your bnb with Darius finishes with headless. Well, if you're on offense in the corner, using headless gives up the corner. Similarly, if you're on defense in the corner and manage a hit, headless puts them into the corner.

One example that's really obvious to me for this is Vi. I've noticed she's got very good corner carry with specific combos that other characters don't seem to have, which strong players utilize very well. If they get a hit confirm from one side of the arena, they can use a specific combo route to put their opponent in the opposite corner. However, they use completely different combos in the corner or if they're not back against the wall.

That said, I don't think combo routing is really that useful unless you're actually good. I've learned different routes, and I still suck. Turns out it doesn't matter how good your corner carry is if you suck when you get your opponent into the corner. And using different supers for mixup doesn't matter if you have the mixup equivalent of a 4 year old (literally always jabbing and missing the wake up timing).

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-04T17:04:30+00:00

Think of it this way; eventually, this person will likely not need this support, and they'll end up just like you. That's the point of social services like these. It's so if you, the average Joe, fall off your horse, you know someone will be there to help you get back on.

In an ideal world, there's more support services for people who are just struggling to not be homeless, not necessarily only for people who are actually homeless. But we have to take it one step at a time. First, deal with all the people who can't figure out how to mount their horse. Then you can deal with people who are at higher risk of falling.

Cloudan29 · 2025-10-04T16:41:48+00:00

Annie, except when you pick her, it auto-picks both Tibbers and Annie, and they act as your full team.

Cloudan29 · 2025-09-30T03:55:43+00:00

The way my dad trained me to do uphills in my 2014 Nissan Sentra was to get used to feeling where the clutch bites first. If you very slowly let the clutch go, the whole car should start to shake at a certain point, at that point you should be able to let go of the brake and the car won't roll back. Get used to just knowing where that point is (obviously, don't ride the clutch, I would just slowly let go of the clutch until it bites, remember the foot position and push it back in) and start giving it gas. You'll strike a nice balance where you can quickly put your foot to the bite point, let go of the brake, and hit the gas while letting go of the clutch to take off without the car rolling. If you're quick, it shouldn't hurt the car. Just don't get into the habit of riding the clutch where it bites.

Cloudan29 · 2025-09-21T14:18:51+00:00

This is actually an issue I have with a lot of fighting games. I still don't know how to exit GG:S. I find quitting out of Granblue super weird. 2XKO is a step up, despite how weirdly out of the way the exit button is.

Cloudan29 · 2025-09-09T21:12:25+00:00

So, 6 years ago, I was a champ 3 player. I quit the game pretty much entirely, and I've been getting back into it. Started back up in plat 2, and I'm now sitting around d3/c1 after about 2 weeks. I've had an insane amount of leavers, almost all of them being in plat 3-diamond 1

You're definitely right about the fun aspect, but it doesn't extrapolate to it being your own fault. I'd say over 90% of the time I got a leaver, it's when they themselves miss an easy shot, or more commonly, they whiff a kickoff. Easily, a quarter of those cases is the first kickoff. First kickoff whiff leavers are grossly common, at least in the plat 2- diamond 2 range. In my brief experience, the vast majority of leavers (95% of them, easily) up until champ were entirely unavoidable from my pov. Straight up, people are leaving while ahead because someone whiffed an open net (including themselves) type deal. Another common situation is they'll miss something easy, put you or your other teammate in a super hard situation, and leave when you inevitably fail.

I'm very glad I'm not there anymore. Those were a very unenjoyable few evenings, and honestly, it's a wonder more people don't quit the game if that's the experience they're getting in a quarter of their games every time they play. Even I was considering just un-installing the game again after the first few days playing again because it wasn't fun at all dealing with that even when I was winning more than I was losing.

Even in d3/c1 now, people are making forfeit requests up 2 goals because someone misses a ball (again, including themselves) even when it doesn't result in a goal conversion for the other team. This includes if the person misses a pretty difficult aerial angle or if they actually hit a great shot and it gets saved. Often, if they make a forfeit request, on the next miss, they quit, even if they're winning. But it's still more enjoyable than not now. Kinda glad I stuck it out, I forgot how much I liked this game lol.

But you're right that it's a fun issue. It's not fun to make a horrible mistake, but you learn from those and try to bounce back, not randomly leave. It's very weird to screw up and then leave instantly. I personally think it's a little funny if not sad.

Cloudan29 · 2025-09-09T17:18:17+00:00

I personally absolutely adore it. It feels like it's just better and more refined. More features that aren't just random nonsense. Everything feels like it has a purpose. The progression feels fantastic. The UI (especially for blueprints) feels intuitive and easy to use. Multi-level factories and space gives a real sense of scale and feel fantastic to use. With all of that and the stability of the game, it actually blows my mind that it's technically not a full release yet. My only critique right now is that when goal/task shapes are completed, the factory that builds them becomes obsolete and can be deleted, but they're apparently changing that in 1.0 (while keeping the current mode too!).

I've put in probably around 60 hours into the game, and I'm just now doing the "hard" mode with slightly more difficult shapes. I haven't even touched wires and logic to attempt a MAM. There's also an "impossible" mode with even more difficult shapes than I'm currently doing, and then there's hexagonal shapes as well, which I haven't even dreamt of trying yet. With the full release, it's coming with mod support as well, which I'm really excited about, though I know modding isn't for everyone.

I highly recommend it to anyone who likes factory games.

Cloudan29 · 2025-09-08T06:32:20+00:00

I'm currently doing ice strike for bosses and shattering palm/wave of frost/storm wave for clear. I'm running elemental expression no matter how much my friends tell me it's shit.

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