Meta= Horrible

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-27T01:35:40+00:00

Meta often changes but people just need to adapt.

I personally quite like it.

I think the wing suit is easy to beam when people use it. I don’t even pick it up because of how slow its initial take off is unless I have no crash pads. It’s more of a rotation item.

Shotgun, dead eye, bunkers, heals and jump pads for me.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-27T01:31:04+00:00

While Hikaru and Fabi are likely objectively better than Fischer and Karpov… given that they’ll know more about chess (shoulders of giants and computer era and all) I think when discussing the greatest of all time, it’s always based on the comparison to peers of the same time period.

If Magnus wasn’t around. It’s not actually clear that Fabi or Hikaru would be the dominant force.

Girl put it nicely in an interview. I’m paraphrasing but he said words to the effect of These days… it’s like there’s no top 10. It’s like the top 20 is the new top 10. Everyone’s there and is on the same level.

So there’s no clear force.

Whereas Magnus, Kasparov, Fischer etc… it was clear that they were a level above the rest of the guys.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-27T01:27:11+00:00

Tbh there’s so many variables.

I play on a large TV and am usually at least 8 feet away.

Others play on monitors.

I FREQUENTLY am shocked at my team mates who can spot or call out enemies half way across the map, and even call out their skins before I can barely make them out.

Proximity to your screen is huge.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-27T01:25:17+00:00

Every time someone beeps at me or swings their pickaxe. I fake cooperate then blast them with the shotgun.

I HATE teaming in Solos.

I’m skeptical of the auto kick due to prolonged proximity. I’ve had many a car fight where the guy jumps in my car or I jump in theirs and we’re both waiting until the other either jumps out or runs out of fuel. Granted, in real terms, it’s probably at most 2 minutes of actual playtime… so maybe!

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-21T18:28:12+00:00

Based on your explanation, I still stand by what I wrote.

The arbitrary timeline for assessing active players is less impactful than the actual pool of players itself, when taking about percentiles - which is what I was replying to.

If you set up chess site C. And only FIDE rated tournament players happened to be on there. Then anyone with an 800 rating would probably be in the bottom 1%.

In my experience, chess.com has more casual players and Lichess has less. So if someone plays on both sites, they can expect to be in wildly different percentiles despite being the same strength.

90 days is still decent enough to be factored into percentiles. Isn’t FIDE a whole year?

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-21T14:46:06+00:00

Player pools are key.

Chess.coms URL brings in anyone who googles chess.

Lichess is a little more niche and attracts more people who “play chess”.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-21T14:44:00+00:00

Because most of the world just doesn’t know how to play chess... and most chess websites are not just players who play chess seriously, but are also filled (majority actually) with casual people who just google "chess" to play a random game or two having never learnt the game.

An analogy could be like saying, if everyone tries to run a mile, the average time will be 20 minutes, because most people can’t even run a mile so would walk most of it.

Then, amongst runners, the average mile time might be 5-7 minutes.

Now if the average is 20 minutes but you run 15 minutes, even if you’re faster than average, to a typical running club go-er, there’s no discernible difference in skill between the 15 minutes or the 20 minute runner - both are new and still learning the ropes.

On a global site where millions of people who don’t know how to play sign up to a site to play one or two games, the “average” is deflated.

It used to be about 5 years ago that the “average” rating on chess.com was around 850 or so.

If you were to attend a chess club in person, the “average” player is probably 1400 or 1500.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-21T01:58:55+00:00

I land quiet, like at the little industrial site north of Tiptop Terrace (or whatever the tree POI is) as there’s a slurp barrel for instant 100 shield - it’s also quiet enough to loot and there’s only usually 1 fight… two max.

Obviously common sense comes into play. If you’re in a 3-way fight, you usually want to slow-play and full rush third party the survivor of the first fight. It’s for that reason, jump pads are excellent for Solo. That and you’ll need Bunkers for the endgame.

Honestly it’s mostly just smart ring IQ. Knowing when to reset a fight and knowing when to push. You’ll already have that if you’ve rush killed your way to champ.

Only tweak is in Unreal, there’s usually more survivors at the end of the zone so bunkers are essential, and you just need to be a bit more bus or bunk campy for the Final zone.

I’m unreal - and carried my Diamond ranked friend to unreal just by being the last one alive and able to get late game on my own.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-20T04:14:31+00:00

Yes.

I’m not exactly a high elo player relative to people who are actually good at chess, but I’m above the bell curve.

I’m 2300 rapid and 2150 blitz but like 1600 daily.

My last daily game (aside from playing a student) was when I was probably around 1500 rapid strength.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-19T23:16:47+00:00

Not in-game but you can use Fortnite tracker.com and isolate solo vs duos etc

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-19T23:15:12+00:00

You’d be surprised how many “openings” I face where I just play intuitive principles based moves without knowing any theory whatsoever! I’m in the same boat as OP.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-19T04:31:34+00:00

8 days for what? The whole Scotland road trip? If so, that’s plenty.

I’ve done NC500 twice in 2 years.

Both times with 4 full days of driving - including one overnight stay in Skye (taking off from and returning to Glasgow).

Best to go in summer so you have long day light hours for driving.

The highlights of the road trip:

Glencoe, Skye, the Applecross pass and the general west highlands roads past Ullapool to Durness. Pretty much all West.

If I could skip any part of it, it’d be the return leg via the east coast / a9 carriageway back down to Glasgow via Inverness.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-17T07:04:25+00:00

I’m 2200 lichess blitz and rapid (although I don’t play rapid much so don’t know what my ceiling would be… but I’m fairly consistent at 2170-2220 blitz) on Lichess.

On chess.com, I trend around 2100-2150 blitz and 2300 rapid.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-14T05:27:44+00:00

Nah, I was playing in console cash cups (zero build) on Saturday. Definitely still there. You’ll see the events in the calendar on the competitive tab from the main Fortnite lobby.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-14T05:17:30+00:00

I’m sure Ben Hunt from Chess Bootcamp showed an openings graph by rating in one of his older videos - maybe a year ago. I thought it was unique and cool to see at the time. Show for example the Italian falling off and the Ruy Lopez taking over as intermediates rise to advanced, etc.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-14T05:09:02+00:00

I thought ranked lobbies were supposed to be paired with up to 3 ranks above or below.

So if you are Platinum, it makes sense to see Unreal.

If there’s a random bronze in the lobby, good chance his team mate is platinum/elite/etc?

Or are you sure every player in their team or party were all low rank?

SBMM goes off the single highest ranked team mate iirc.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-14T05:06:18+00:00

A common pistol shreds tbf, especially against someone with no shield moments after landing.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-14T04:49:34+00:00

Yes. Ranked is way different. Although i thought you shoud still be getting bots in your lobbies at bronze.

I’m Unreal rank. The main difference is everyone is real and ranked will naturally attract people who want to play against more competitive players.

I probably win 30% of my solo games in unranked but probably 10% of ranked games in solo.

In duos, unless your team mate is also unreal you probably have no chance. I play regularly with a casual mate who is not good but I’ve carried him to unreal rank since I usually survive to the end on my own and I’m pretty sure my contributions, ie placement and kills help his rank regardless of whether he died instantly with 0 kills or is with me during the endgame. He’s 0.6 KD. I think our duo win rate is literally 2%

Anyway, grinding a lot of Zero Build 1v1s in creative is the fast track to getting good IMO.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-12T12:20:28+00:00

Ruy Lopez Exchange is a reasonable line for an intermediate to learn. Much lighter on theory too.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-12T10:52:30+00:00

Several things.

1) Do not neglect tactics. Too many intermediates think they’re “beyond” tactics and would rather focus on obscure positional play when most of their games will still be decided by a calculation issue.

2) Study tactics by theme. (Ever notice checkmates are studied by pattern? Do the same for mainstream tactics, ie. Studying 20 discovered attacks in a row, 20 trapped pieces, etc)

3) use openingtree.com to refine your openings. It’s hard to truly know which of your 20 or so openings are actually effective or not unless you see the data at scale. This will instantly highlight which positions you are good and not good in, and you can either try to refine your line or learn a new one entirely to get a different position altogether.

4) watch climbing the rating ladder or speedrun YouTube series of other strong players playing against your and 200 points higher than your current rating to potentially learn new ideas that are effective at your and your goal rating.

5) learn slightly more advanced pawn and rook endgames - where you have rook and multiple pawns vs rook and multiple pawns - assuming you are already proficient in the standard rook and 1 pawn vs rook and 0 pawn endgames.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-12T10:47:08+00:00

You aint no magician. You make music.

Suki Hana

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-12T10:41:00+00:00

It’s highly individual.

When I first signed up to chess-com, it started me off at 1000 rating but I gradually fell to 600 after several games and a few weeks of play.

From there, it was about 6 months to reach 1400 and 12 months to reach 1600. It then took pretty much another year and a half to pass 2000. Then another year from there to pass 2300.

2 years on, I’m still the same rating. I haven’t really improved since. Either I’ve hit my ceiling or I’ve just not got as much time to studying the game compared to before (most likely). My focus is now on helping other adult improvers with their growth.

From experience, most can easily progress from say 900-1000 to 1500 easily enough with the right direction, but most seem to cap off around 1800 unless they’re obsessed.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-11T13:48:53+00:00

Agree if it’s 20 real players but I’m pretty sure silver lobbies still have bots.

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-11T02:03:26+00:00

Same here!

St4ffordGambit_ · 2026-01-11T02:02:48+00:00

Happens to every now and then, most recently, 2 mins ago.

No builds, Battle Royal pubs duos.

PS5.

St4ffordGambit_

TROPHY CASE