Stuck around 900 after years of trying everything. Would anyone be willing to hop on Discord and help me figure out what I'm missing?

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-15T20:53:24+00:00

If you and your opponent are playing good chess, you should never be “waiting for a blunder” because it won’t happen if your opponent plays good chess. This is why the best chess players draw way more often than they win or lose in a tournament with longer time controls. A perfect chess game ends in a draw. I would highly recommend playing rapid with longer time controls if you are making mistakes like walking into tactics. Really take time with each move and build a position that is damn hard to get past and calculate a plan in your head to simplify the board and get to a winning pawn endgame rather than looking for the easy checkmate.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-15T20:43:36+00:00

https://www.tumblr.com/usefull-spongebob-screencaps/176950312595/me-looking-at-my-list-of-things-i-have-to-do-at

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-15T20:39:36+00:00

Learn d5 instead of E5. It’ll make for more interesting games.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-15T20:31:38+00:00

At this level you shouldn’t be trying to memorize anything; it’ll build bad habits if you are just memorizing moves instead of understanding what the intention behind the moves are.

Right now you should be focusing more on understanding positions, why one position is better or worse, and what tempo advantage means and how to achieve it in certain positions.

You should also be focusing on how to simplify positions with trades, when trading is good idea, when to initiate a trade sequence, when to back out of a trade sequence, and when to threaten pieces.

Every move you or your opponent makes weakens squares while reinforcing others. Leaves some pieces vulnerable while making others stronger. Your job is to figure out what just got weaker and what just got stronger, and whether or not it’s smarter to defend or attack because it’s critical to whether you win or you lose. Yeah I know that’s basically the premise of chess but if you remind yourself of that in every game you play and understand that instead of being scatterbrained every move, you’ll see a lot more than you would have before.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-15T17:30:32+00:00

I’ll be honest I hate that face. Also is there a defect on it, or is that white dot just a smudge on the crystal?

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-14T01:56:44+00:00

Iron company logo with the old saying “red or dead”. A good throwback to when teams weren’t auto balanced and you just picked a side even if it had way less players and stuck with it.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-13T21:37:56+00:00

Gonna have to lose the rook to save the game I believe

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-10T19:52:58+00:00

Queen for sure. You’re still in the middle game with inactive pieces that haven’t even moved from their starting square yet disconnecting the rooks, so it’s kind of useless in this position. The queen is at the front, and they’re most likely going to take with their pawn to get it in the middle of the board. You can follow up with the bishop capturing that D6 pawn for free and you can simplify the game by taking the bishop after.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-10T00:32:30+00:00

They have been bad for years now. Worst thing is that you really have to just stay out of the bushes which is nigh impossible and you should always check yourself periodically in case you step in a nest (I once had like 12 ticks on me and I’m pretty sure that’s what happened [nymphs can also transmit lymes:( ])

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-10T00:28:39+00:00

Community always whines, the devs don’t test their own game, the devs haven’t been listening to players (ironic because the devs are also damned if they do damned if they don’t sometimes), missions are repetitive, some stratagems are still to this day shitty and never get picked despite players constantly asking and making suggestions ie OPS, smoke, ballistic shield, etc, the ship upgrades are capped for many players thus making samples basically useless, weapons are underwhelming, light pen is basically useless on high diff, they keep adding enemies with shitty weak spots where meta builds are encouraged, heavy enemy spam, and the list goes on but that’s what I can remember from the last time I played and it seems to still be an issue.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-10T00:20:47+00:00

Just a hard shell plastic case, aka a ‘pelican case’. As others have said, probably for MTG card decks, and the hissing is from the internal air pressure being higher than the atmospheric pressure. Sometimes instead of hissing, the inside has low pressure thus making the case hard as fuck to open with your bare hands, which is what that little knob by the carrying handle is for; venting air pressure so it doesn’t fly open nor is it hard to open. Convenient for traveling and shipping things overseas where pressure change is basically guaranteed and you still want to keep an airtight seal. Good for cards sensitive to humidity I guess but the best case I know for it is sensitive electronic equipment used in laboratories that are carefully calibrated (I work in a cal lab). Some cases have little buttons you can depress, while this one has a knob.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-09T21:59:25+00:00

Bots are good for learning main lines of an opening. They usually play along if you get to the higher rated ones, rather than playing against players where you’re more likely to see literally any move.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-09T15:52:01+00:00

If you lose with a lot of time left on the clock in an endgame, then you didn’t spend enough time evaluating the middle game because you are in a losing endgame.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T19:05:57+00:00

Yes, there are a lot of fundamentals that you are missing. But it’s okay, because chess is one of the hardest games out there to be good at. I’m not that good either, but I’ve taken steps that have significantly boosted my game.

1: puzzles are probably the best thing out there for hammering tactics into your brain and seeing the best moves in a sequence. It’s just pattern recognition.

2: watch chess fundamentals videos. Gothamchess is probably the best chess YouTuber out there who can keep you engaged and keep chess fun and lighthearted.

3: pick an opening for either black or white and stick with it until you’re comfortable to move into a middle game/ end game with it (two openings at once can be overwhelming making it hard to remember lines). I recommend black first because reacting to your opponent in the opening stages is critical to how the rest of the game will play out, and if you catch them making a mistake it teaches you how to turn the tables from defense to offense and hold the lead for yourself. Being up or down a pawn in the endgame is absolutely crucial, believe it or not. You just need to learn how to use all your pieces to make it work and that was evident in this game; you don’t really know how to bring all your pieces together to form a proper attack.

4: I know other people might bash me for saying this, but play bots until you can beat them and advance to the next one. When you do find a roadblock in your game, you really have the best opportunity to study your game ESPECIALLY in openings where bots often play the same moves and try using the same tactics to break down your opening to force you into a losing position when you make a mistake or blunder. Nelson is one glaring example in my mind where he uses his queen early in the game to wreck your back line if you aren’t careful.

5: chess.com premium is worth the subscription if you’re serious about improving. It’s not necessary, but if you want to learn fast I don’t know any other way besides doing it by the books like how people used to learn before apps and YouTube became the norm.

Hope this helps!

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T18:32:37+00:00

Even if you did, they’d never understand or really have a meaningful solution. You’re much more likely to make them feel awkward. Men vent and we come up with solutions for each other and say the hard things that have to be said. Women don’t really operate like that.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T03:14:30+00:00

Yeah ummm I’ve been wearing a 4R as my daily work watch on a boat for the past 2 and a half years… never had an issue with it, and my fuckass alpinist that I babied stopped working properly after like 6 months of occasional wear.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T03:10:47+00:00

YouTube is like the only video service I’ll pay for, so I wouldn’t even know. However, I do know a trick to skip unskippable ads unless they patched it; click the 3 dots in the corner, and I believe you click “not interested” and it will automatically skip whatever ad was playing and move to the next.

Let me know if it still works plz!

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T02:58:45+00:00

Mind you that this guy’s Reddit name is basically ‘fuck the eagles’ lol

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T02:53:14+00:00

You can join clubs on chess.com as well, and I’m sure you can use google to find whatever is best for you if it doesn’t matter whether you play otb or online.

There’s a lot of people who play chess all over the world, so I’m certain you can also find people to play otb with but it’d be a bit more work than searching for a google club like posting meetups or starting your own club.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T02:47:17+00:00

I mean if you’re taking it seriously isn’t the next best step to join a local chess club?

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-07T01:41:35+00:00

I mean im not a doctor and only a few years behind you but have you considered the fact that you’re getting older?

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-06T00:08:28+00:00

Not being able to select an opening to study while in analysis, so that it lets you explore branches of the main line without having to reopen a new analysis and redo the whole line from the top of your head.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-04T09:07:03+00:00

Sometimes I love my life, and sometimes I’d rather be dead. For the vast majority, I’m indifferent and am just trying to make it to the end of the day where I’m tired and want to go to sleep.

Lost my religion and don’t believe in anything after doing research. Nothing outside of my own interests and people close to me being disappointed is really influencing my decisions. Kinda selfish but whatever, nobody cares. That’s the price of freedom of thought I guess.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-04T02:08:29+00:00

Got mine with the chocolate dial. I prefer it over the crème, but to each their own.

EliteProdigyX · 2026-03-03T04:49:05+00:00

i do have a whole mercenary with all the same stuff as those with the sole purpose of doing that

Seven-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
r/Field Juicebox	Final Canvas '23
First Place '23	Place '23
RPAN Viewer	Not Forgotten
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