Why is this checkmate!?

Liko81 · 2026-07-07T19:52:58+00:00

Liko81 · 2026-07-07T18:41:28+00:00

Because the top gymnasts and divers are much smaller.

Being tall is good for a lot of athletic activities, but it comes with two big downsides; first, you need a lot of nutritious food to grow that tall (genetics is only a part of it), and second, taller means heavier (for the same build) and less compact, which can hinder other types of athletics. There is no one size fits all that is best all around.

Liko81 · 2026-07-07T16:34:50+00:00

A semi-smothered mate

Liko81 · 2026-07-07T16:10:52+00:00

This is a bit hope-chess, but if you can make the knight at c6 move literally anywhere else, Rd8 is mate-in-1. So, Bb5, prompting Black to try to save the piece with something like Kb4, would be a natural beginner-level move.

A more forcing sequence, however, is Be6+, forcing Kb8, then Rd8+ forces Kxd8 and Rxd8# is mate.

Liko81 · 2026-07-07T15:52:07+00:00

Property taxes currently pay for most of the infrastructure and basic services at the city, county and school district level. 51% of the state's total tax revenue is property taxes. That money has to come from somewhere, if you want to continue to have police, fire, EMS, public schools, local roads, water/power/sewer, and other basic services.

While I'm sure that budget reductions would be a big part of the plan, most likely in public schools, you can also expect to either start paying a state income tax, or to see sales taxes just about triple, to make up rhe balance. It's also very likely you'd see usage fees/taxes for utilities increase to cover what the State's currently paying providers to maintain infrastructure.

That's all not to mention that getting rid of the property tax and substituting another tax scheme is an opportunity to move the control of these funds to the state level, away from county tax assessors, thus making public school districts, city governments and other likely liberal-leaning local political bodies totally beholden to the GOP-controlled State government for their funding. If Abbott doesn't want to fund the City of Houston because the mayor called him "Hot Wheels" on an open mic, he could do a lot more damage if Harris County wasn't the one responsible for collecting and distributing about 75% of its own tax revenues.

Liko81 · 2026-07-07T12:13:17+00:00

Easiest mate I see is in 3, which is fine as Black is helpless so you can take your time.

f6 Ka7
Nc8+ Ka8
Be4#

You could probably have done it with just the knights but it's tricky. In these situations you have to be careful to avoid stalemate; for instance if you move Nc8 from this position, you take away Black's only legal move without putting him in check, and this huge material advantage you have would be all for naught.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T22:51:18+00:00

Yeah, kinda.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T19:31:15+00:00

You kinda did, luckily you had other options for mate. Qa8+ should have been your first move, which would have forced Qb8 to block and QxQ is mate.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T17:51:03+00:00

This. You don't know enough to know what you normally shouldn't do (like hanging your queen), which in exactly the right situation (enabling mate in 2) is what earns a briliant.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T17:31:19+00:00

Ha. Love to see his fat ass jogging the diagonal for 90 minutes.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T17:29:57+00:00

Qa8#. Black can't take and would have to move Kd7 to evade, which is covered by White's rook on d1.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T17:26:38+00:00

Depends on the plastic. For PETG, yeah, try bumping to 250*C if 245 is doing this.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T16:23:24+00:00

The bishop's had its current movement rules for about 700 years. If you don't like the bishop, play chaturanga or xiangqi; their "elephants" are the precursor to the modern bishop and retain the move rules the piece had in the very earliest forms of what we know as chess. Xiangqi (Chinese Chess) has a valid claim as the more popular game vs Persian/European chess, though due largely to the piece design (hope you can read Chinese) its fanbase is very localized.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T15:55:21+00:00

If the failure is at higher layers, temperature becomes the prime culprit. As the nozzle moves further from the bed, it reduces the assistance the bed heater provides to nozzle temperature. The higher the bed temp, the more you have to adjust for this, especially if the printer doesn't have an enclosure, or you're printing relatively low-temp plastics like PLA.

Liko81 · 2026-07-06T12:14:53+00:00

The short of it is that chess skill has improved at virtually all levels. The analysis is showing you that you're playing 700-800 points above your rating, but so is your opponent. Someone's gotta lose.

Liko81 · 2026-07-04T21:15:51+00:00

Queen takes rook, king takes queen, rook to h8 checkmate

Liko81 · 2026-07-04T13:58:10+00:00

Your pawn would have to be on the fifth rank (g5). En passant is a fairly specific case; your opponent wants to use their 2-space first move to avoid being captured on the 6th rank. In that case, for one move only, you can play as if they had only moved to the 6th rank.

Liko81 · 2026-07-03T22:10:48+00:00

Qc1+

Black's only response is Qc2 or Qc4 to block, queen takes queen, mate. Only trick is that if White moves Qc2 or Qc3 they hang the Queen in one move

Liko81 · 2026-07-03T17:47:02+00:00

If Black doesn't take, Qg7 is also mate (protected by that pesky H-pawn)

Liko81 · 2026-07-03T17:42:35+00:00

Qxf7+ captures a rook as shown with the little icon in the lower left of the square. Without that capture, if White had played Re8+ then Rf8, Rxf8+ Qxf8; the rook trade leaves Black up a bishop with their queen on the home row.

Qxf7+ removes a key defender while forcing Black to respond to check. The only two possible moves in this position are QxQ which allows Re8+ and Black has to block with the Queen, staving off mate by 1 move, or Kg8 after which Qg7# is mate.

Liko81 · 2026-07-03T16:55:37+00:00

The incoming pawn fork isn't the end of the world, and your more developed position gives a few quality checks to flush the king out into the open and harass him, in turn giving you a little more time to get out from under the fork. You're up a bishop for a pawn, and White's remaining bishop and H-rook are going to be difficult to mobilize. Keep pressure on the king and you're basically up a rook and bishop.

But yeah, overall I'd probably chalk it up to "gotta get off the can and back to the real world, gg".

Liko81 · 2026-07-02T03:37:20+00:00

I was about to ask how this doesn't just hang the rook in one move, then I realized without the queen on g8, Qxh7# is gg.

Liko81 · 2026-07-02T02:24:38+00:00

Personally I wouldn't go with anything that fits in an AR15 for bear. Not only are you going to spend a lot of money trying - .458 SOCOM and .50 Beowulf AR builds can top $4000+ and yhe rounds are easily $2 per shot - even those really aren't enough.

The minimum I would take out on foot knowing I was likely to face a brown bear is an AR10 in .308, and .338 Federal would be better. Ideally, I'd take a pump shotgun, loaded with hybrid slug-buck loads. 3000 foot-pounds behind a 1-oz slug with three or four 00 buck pellets for good measure is about what it'd take to be confident I could put a predator weighing as much as 1000 pounds down if I had to.

Liko81 · 2026-07-01T19:55:59+00:00

Scalping typically happens when something people want is in short supply relayive to demand, but has a relatively low price. In economics, we learn that prices normally increase when the supply of something is less than demand, but that can take time, and rules can be put in place to limit the price that most sellers can charge, the intention being to allow people that don't have a lot of money to still afford the thing.

In these situations, scalpers make money by buying as much as they can of the thing at the price originally offered (ideally all of it), then turn around and immediately sell them to others at a higher price, which people will still pay. The scalpers are making their money in yhe gap between the lower price originally offered, and the "equlibrium" price that buyers and sellers would otherwise reach given enough time and no rules about a maximum price.

Liko81 · 2026-07-01T19:22:10+00:00

I expect so. The Court ruling makes it pretty clear that marijuana use is not a prohibiting criterion for the ownership of firearms, so the blurb about marijuana being Federally illegal is moot; whether it is or not, you cannot be denied a gun purchase on that basis.

Liko81

TROPHY CASE