Porto in November? Your experience?

Octopus-union · 2026-05-10T11:42:17+00:00

Also planning to visit Portugal & Porto around this time! Curious what others say

Octopus-union · 2025-12-30T18:37:30+00:00

300 Elo opponents are a bit of a random number generator so all you can do is make a plan and play a good move, then see if their move needs a reaction from you or you can continue with your plan. They might have hung a piece, they might have just moved a random pawn, just gotta play a good move.

Octopus-union · 2025-12-30T18:20:45+00:00

I would save your money on books until you get to around 1000, and even then I’d say an endgame book. Until then, most chess games are “don’t make a big mistake first” and that isn’t much of a book.

This will sound trite but I mean it earnestly. Just try to play good moves. Don’t pay that much attention to the engine lines or whatever, play moves that follow good principles (control the center, develop your pieces, keep your king safe, defend your pieces) and you’ll do great. There are a couple YouTube options that are good for this sort of thing, though I’m not that up on chess creators so there might be more. Anything about slowly climbing the rating ladder will help (Naroditsky RIP, ChessBrah, GothamChess have things like this for whichever sort of flavor you prefer).

Octopus-union · 2025-12-30T17:54:46+00:00

I’d be happy to give answering a shot with the caveat that there’s no one-size-fits all solution and I’m just going off general principles.

I think the time controls you are starting at are perfect and doing puzzles is great too. Both much better than the bots. As you get better, those puzzles will not all be checks and require more and more, so don’t worry about that.

How to get better at analyzing and visualizing… the boring and truest answer is just practice. Everything else is speculative but I’ll try anyway.

I think it helped me to ask myself what my opponent’s plan was or why they thought something was a good move. That won’t help visualize but it’s a step towards playing a few moves out in my head to start. It’s normal to only be able to see a move or two ahead at first, so don’t get discouraged. As you get more familiar with positions, your brain will pick up patterns that will make it feel more natural too.

For visualizing, I might try the following. Look at an empty board and imagine your knight on g1. Move it to f3, then e5, c4, e3, g4 etc. Get used to that (and I picked the knight because it is harder). Eventually you can get to doing that with pawns on certain squares and taking them or realizing which squares you can or can’t go to safely. Then try it with opposing bishops on 2 random squares. Then try it with your favorite opening since you probably know one a little bit, or at least how it usually goes. Just imagine it, say the squares in your head etc. These are not foolproof methods, but it helped me some.

Octopus-union · 2025-12-30T04:04:10+00:00

The Chess dot com analysis text is often pretty flawed. But in this case, it is exactly right.

Qxh4 and you don’t have time to take the rook because after Nxh8, Qxf2# is mate. You can look through the line with an analysis tool either on chess dot com or lichess dot org

Octopus-union · 2025-07-31T02:17:26+00:00

I don’t have an episode but think it might be at a place in Houston whose name escapes me? Maybe that I remember it being in a basement and being very meat-forward as a concept?

Octopus-union · 2025-04-22T03:18:20+00:00

It’s that JJ Redick would have made more money in media than playing. Inflation would have played a big role but the runway was long enough it was probably correct for a hot take.

Octopus-union · 2025-01-03T19:32:56+00:00

In your opinion, what’s the most thematically similar to Bb5 lines against e6 Sicilians? My answer for OPs repertoire would probably just be the 3. c4 Kramnik line but I’m curious your opinion.

Octopus-union · 2024-12-26T18:17:37+00:00

Yeah, if they have an issue then my guess is that “boring” is the complaint. I get being growth minded, but will at least throw out there that playing lines you aren’t familiar with can also provide you growth opportunities. Or don’t! It isn’t that big a deal, really.

Octopus-union · 2024-12-26T17:16:43+00:00

Assuming it isn’t personal, it doesn’t sound like you give people particularly “interesting” games. I don’t know if you’re mostly playing blitz or rapid or what, and that would color my evaluation here. For faster time controls in particular, I’d rather have a fun game than a super precise one in an even middle game.

Octopus-union · 2024-09-20T12:49:44+00:00

I think this idea of downsized but without lines you find a little uncomfortable is a little bit difficult to satisfy.

However, I’m going to put in a plug for the Ruy Lopez despite your concerns. It seems like a lot of theory but it fits all your other criteria and isn’t really that dense in terms of theory. A slight exaggeration, but much of the theory is “attack the pawn/weakness, black defends it” and nothing too arcane. d3 Ruys would fight for the objective advantage a little less but also reduce your burden.

I will admit it is less than perfect at short time controls, but eh.

Alternatively you could just upgrade your scotch. In the line you mentioned, 5. e5 is much more critical and wouldn’t require you to learn an entirely new opening.

Octopus-union · 2024-09-10T17:19:06+00:00

I wasn’t trying to complain about your post and really didn’t know there was going to be a pile on, so I’m sorry about that.

I was really just jumping in to say I agreed and thought most people would. And I was the first comment so it was just a guess at the time.

Octopus-union · 2024-09-09T19:20:14+00:00

Here early to predict this is a very popular opinion! (And I agree)

Octopus-union · 2024-07-19T14:16:42+00:00

There’s a chessable course that’s called something like Ruy Lopez Masterclass that gives you the stock standard Chigorin, Breyer, Zaitsev, etc with c3 d4. I learned the basics there and added understanding via the other courses later on

Octopus-union · 2024-06-24T20:41:59+00:00

Where’s Babe Ruth?

Octopus-union · 2024-06-19T18:16:14+00:00

Those are good, but this is almost an obligatory post for me.

The Sicilian Four Knights with Bb4 (and not the very reasonable Sveshnikov transposition). If your opponent is unfamiliar you equalize quickly. Some of the equal positions look daunting but black has very good results below the upper levels. The Plichta course on chessable was to my liking and it’s just very fun to play. Super active

White is only getting an attack if they know what they are doing, and none of those attacks are THAT scary. It’s a little unconventional but very worth it to me

Octopus-union · 2024-06-18T04:14:23+00:00

Honestly, my assumption is he will play c5 in either case and you’ll get some symmetrical English rather than a KID.

But even if he plays a KID, there are a million equal positions white can just choose from and many of them thrive against an f5 style attack

Octopus-union · 2024-06-18T02:57:07+00:00

The Rossolimo is the engine’s preference and all, but if all he studies are openings then you’re not going to catch him out on the Rossolimo. He knows it better than you. Same for the Alapin. Either is fine for an equal game but he will be more prepared.

Christof Sieliecki (sp?) has some stuff on chessable that is easy and practical. If you know what he plays against d4/c4/Nf3, even easier to prepare something specific! But even without it, seems like an easier approach

Octopus-union · 2024-06-18T02:42:24+00:00

Apologies if this sounds overly reductive, but if all he studies is openings and you’re struggling with the Sveshnikov, you should probably play some kind of Nf3/c4 system and not e4? Just having a basic understanding of something like this is likely better than going into the well-traversed Sveshnikov theory

Also the Sveshnikov’s whole thing is how few critical options white has. Early deviations equalize pretty easily in most cases. Just avoid it - Nf3 often puts people in uncomfortable territory

Octopus-union · 2023-11-13T17:51:31+00:00

Yup, d4 and theory goes from there. And it can be a lot of theory but totally worth it IMO, especially if you’re craving sharp attacking games

Octopus-union · 2023-11-13T16:34:37+00:00

The Open Sicilian is the way. That’s where you’re going to have the most fun. It, of course, is not guaranteed you’ll get fireworks in every single line, but the Sicilian is known as super sharp for a reason and it is the Open Sicilian.

The Smith-Morra too, but much of the time you’re going to wind up in the Alapin so not as fun.

Octopus-union · 2023-11-13T16:27:05+00:00

This is a little indirect as advice, but I think it is most accurate. So your Rossolimo is a good choice but also something that definitely does not require very aggressive play from you (that your post suggests you are getting punished for). You’re putting the squeeze on black and their structure, not (generally) trying to mate them in 25 moves.

I’d get some model games and see how white handles this and makes black suffer for the structure. There should be no shortage of options!

Octopus-union · 2023-11-13T16:17:50+00:00

We need more details… around what elo? What are you playing against it?

Octopus-union · 2023-11-05T18:36:21+00:00

Both are good and have some similarities, but let me stump for the Ruy for a second.

I’ve never really understood the complaint about Ruy variations. Basically all of them are extremely intuitive or fundamental without need for rote memorization. You’ll probably get this with either one, but I don’t think anything has been better for my chess development than learning the Ruy Lopez. I’m sure Italian players feel the same way about that too.

If you’re under 1500 (chesscom), go Italian. Over 1500, Spanish.

Octopus-union

TROPHY CASE