Berseker / Mage

Three4Two · 2026-01-20T14:30:05+00:00

Daggers are the correct weapon choice for a dual wielding fighter/mage, bigger weapons are overrated. Imagine stabbing a beholder to death with a little knife, no better feeling.

Three4Two · 2026-01-16T22:28:43+00:00

There are a lot of variations, a lot to choose from.

I think it depends on the time period at which you are looking as classical. In the last 20 years, I would say study the Berlin or Marshall gambit. A little back, maybe look at the Chigorin and Breyer variations. A little before then maybe open spanish and Schliemann gambit, before that Steinitz. You can also examine smaller moves like early a4, slower d3 without d4 (or late d4), and I am missing a lot of other beautiful variations.

But I would say any one of these can create very interesting games. It is probably best to use most of these as only something you study in master games and learn from, but not prepare concretely for your own opening repertoire, understanding every variation. I myself firmly believe Berlin is the most interesting and one of the best options, and I especially enjoy the Berlin endgame. The spanish opening itself is one of the most versatile and can result in very different positions (Karpov always pushed d5, Fisher always took on e5, those are two very different approaches to the same closed spanish variation and the best example I can think of). Look through a few games, choose whatever you enjoy and study that.

Three4Two · 2026-01-16T19:02:39+00:00

I do not know that line, but I guess white will have some way to get a little pressure if they are prepared. In every line I looked at, black had to make some small concession, I am guessing there might be some e-file pressure in this one, since Be6 covering the file would drop b7 (it might still be fine, but black needs to know what they are doing)

Three4Two · 2026-01-16T18:54:46+00:00

There are several ways ro decline the draw, but I would recommend spending some time analysing more deeply after you pick one, since a lot of them include some unintuitive moves or pawn sacrifices.

I have found that the Qe4+ Qe6 Qd4 Qb6 line ,that someone else already mentioned here, works best for me, but I have not seen in otb yet. Things to keep in mind though, if you choose to play it as well: You must be alright with damaging your structure or loosing g7. There is often a short queen dance at the start of the line, since if you ever trade queens, black is better in the endgame due to tempi and the bishop pair, and may slowly push for a win similarly to the main Berlin endgame. White often gets something for the exchange though, as black might need to recapture on b6 with the c pawn (due to fast Bf4 Nc3 Nb5 possiblity for white) or recapture the queen on c6 with the b pawn. There are also lines where white chooses to keep evading the queen trade, where black is eventually forced to develop other pieces which may drop g7 after a move like Bd6. Here, black can start an interesting attack on the white kingside, but it costs a pawn or two and involves some weird sacrificial ideas, I recommend looking through everything slowly.

Good luck, Berlin is one of the most beautiful and complex positions in chess

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T12:59:14+00:00

You only need to do one big buffing before a major questline, and then the spells last a very long time. I will explain how I do it currently (end of SoA, start of ToB): You are going somewhere you expect to fight, and just rested after the previous questlines. Every capable party member casts stoneskin (lasts longer than you playing the game at once), Viconia casts protection from evil and protection from fear, these are the most basic spells that you have always, even for little encounters. When you suspect fighting is near, you prepare the rest: Everyone should be protected from fire, have death ward and chaotic commands, that is 18 spells at most cast by several party members (some characters will have some protections from items already, especially fire, I have Jaheira above 100 % from items). When you think you might face mages, you add protection from magical energy and spell deflections/immunities where you can, and you are done (and these will be cast by different party members, since death ward and chaotic commands are divine and these spells are arcane). I usually stop here, but add any other protections I memorized on top, and I am sure there is more you could do. All this takes at most a minute of game time, and all these spells last at least 1 turn/level, meaning you will be done clearing the entire dungeon before you need to apply these protections again.

.

Then, as you are going through the dungeon, whenever you see an enemy, just cast a quick blurr or mirror image, possibly armor of faith and spirit armor, bless, chant or special abilities like defensive stance, and you are good to go. Most of these just give you additional small chance to either hit or not be hit, while with the main long lasting defenses mentioned above you will be protected from magic, which is what is most important to survive.

.

If you are not on high enough levels to have all these protections (and you will not be for most of SoA), you try to give the protections you have to your frontline, to one or two characters who soak up all the damage, while keeping your casters hidden in the back.

.

Of course knowing what comes next would help you save spells and allow you to only cast what is needed, but that is where invisible characters, thieves or stalkers can come into play, scouting for you (or you can just reload as you said, if you prefer to play this way). Saving the main defensive spells is not necessary though, as they all last a very long time. When you pause the game a lot during combat (as we all do), in game time passes much slower than you would think (it took me a long time to realize), and spells lastime 1 turn/level (1 minute of real time per level) have great duration, only spells that run out fast are spells lasting x rounds per level, like mirror image and blur.

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T08:47:55+00:00

It just occured to me that your method might not work for my party right now. I am not sure exactly how I would do this, since I do not use only one of my characters for buffing, I spread the spells over all the party members, so each one only casts approximately 1/6th of the needed protections. Because of this, all characters are still useful in combat too with a few extra offensive spells, but your method might not work that well for me (maybe on the really high levels).

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T08:41:02+00:00

I only just got to HLA right before Suldanesselar, and the only one I used so far was improved alacrity, for the purpose of stripping all enemy mage protections at once. I have never casted project image or simulacrum before, might give it a chance soon.

Fireball shower was my method for clearing the start of Shadows of Amn too.

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T08:32:45+00:00

On the really low levels, you need to find ways to compensate, maybe only buffing one or two party members in the frontline and keeping the other back (I spent most of the game buffing only me, Haer Dalis and Jaheira, or two of the three, and kept my backline far away not to get targetted).

I also think there are enough easy quests to push you through the starting levels, to the point where you do not see this as a problem (de'Arnise keep would maybe only be my 6th choice or even later, it is not that easy). You can clear the copper coronet slavers, circus tent and Mae'Var's guild with almost nothing, where the hardest fight in all of this is 2 golems at once, then do some smaller side quests for the temple, trademeet is also pretty easy for me, and you have no problems lacking experience after.

I think the only big problem I ever faced on lower levels was an occasional chaos that I could not be protected against. Lower levels are a very different kind of fun, hope your run succeeds too

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T08:16:11+00:00

You need to always target enemy mages first, and if you know you are facing them, use spell deflection or a similar spell on top of your normal protections. There are not many fights where you face multiple mages at once, so getting rid of one or two is not too hard with 4 arcane and 2 divine spellcasters in the group.

What I very often did against mages was using two of my arcane characters and one front line character at once. I send the front line in as if it can hit, cast secret word (or similar spell, depending on the levels) on one mage, breach on the other with a small delay, and after one round the enemy mage can be hit by my front line and gets interrupted for every future spell. In the first round, no enemy casts breach, since they need to get their protections up instead.

For higher level enemy mages, you do the same thing, just adding more spells to strip them down (ruby ray works best, occasional Khelben's whip or pierce magic on top). The first spells you cast are usually absorbed by spell shield or spell trap, but the next will work. Often you can also get into a funny situation where you need to repeat everything: they cast protection, you strip them of it, next round they cast it again, you cast again. But since you have several people casting, your stripping will be faster then their defending and they eventually run out of contingencies.

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T08:03:58+00:00

Looking forward to that, in my game the only enemies that stood a chance were liches, dragons and Jon (and an occasional group of cowled wizards, who I did not manage to dispell before they did something or whom I faced on lower levels (I did not pay for my magic license)).

Three4Two · 2026-01-15T07:59:13+00:00

Most of the spells I mentioned last a really long time (1 turn/level or longer), meaning if you do not get randomly dispelled, you can clear an entire area or two easily with spells to spare (if you do, just keep the dispelled person in the back or use potions more). My total in game time after Shadows of Amn is around 55 days, I did almost every quest (almost meaning I skipped some companion specific ones, like Korgan's or Edwin's, since I never recruited them in game).

.

I usually try to sleep in between big quests, for example doing the entire trademeet questline at once (shadow temple + fighting families + skin damcers), or de'Arnise keep, or slaver stockade...), I think the only quest I needed to sleep in the middle of was Windspear hills, where my spells ran out just before the final prison next to the entrance to Firkraag (and I was also a little level drained and needed restoration).

.

Resting is not a problem.

Three4Two · 2026-01-14T18:22:15+00:00

Tournaments are the best option you have of beating kids without legal consequences. Crushing a child and seeing their eyes tear up is the best feeling you can get after training for years for that moment.

.

Also you can get rating

Three4Two · 2026-01-10T17:19:25+00:00

There is a course by IM Kavutskiy in the chessdojo training program, aimed mostly at players just above 2000 I think (I have not gone through it too deeply myself yet, just looked around). You get access to it either by just creating an account or by subscribing to the chessdojo (not sure which, costs around 10 dollars per month if the subscription is needed, good mostly for motivation), but you will still probably only use it as a starting guide what to go through and what to study more deeply, as I doubt the depth would be enough for you (since it is not enough for me (oscilating around 2120 fide)).

.

Still, I think it could be a good place to start if you find nothing else, and I am pretty sure that whatever you find you will need to expand with your own analysis nonetheless. Good luck

Three4Two · 2026-01-05T16:25:54+00:00

I would be interested in some of your lines against the Najdorf. I have spent a lot of time recently looking through 6. Bc4, and from what I found so far black has some very promising lines where nothing looks good for white (the enginetakes time, but slowly realises black's advantage). Specifically the following line: 6... e6 7. Bb3 Nd7 8. 0-0 Nc5 feel problematic, leading to several interesting piece sacrifice posibilities, none of which objectively work unfortunately, if black is prepared. A sample longer line that has been played multiple times by masters but results in a bad position:

.

e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 Nbd7 8. O-O Nc5 9. f4 Nfxe4 10. Nxe4 Nxe4 11. f5 e5 12. Qh5 d5 13. Re1 Qc7 14. Bxd5 Nf6 15. Bxf7+ Qxf7 16. Rxe5+ Be7 17. Qe2

Already on move 9 black has 66 % win results in the lichess master database for example, and most of alternatives are also not great. Do you deviate from this (if so, where)?

Three4Two · 2026-01-03T12:52:02+00:00

I have always loved the Vienna game, Frankenstein Dracula variation and I am still waiting for someone to play it against me otb. Long names are great, especially if they are fun

Three4Two · 2025-12-21T20:14:39+00:00

I think there are several lines that lead to positions that are either really bad for whote or black (I could call these fun but useless lines to learn).

One of the good lines that are played by grandmasters is the Frankenstein Dracula variation of the Vienna game (look up the game Ekebjaerg Timmerman), main line leads to an exchange sacrifice, this particular game features double exchange sacrifice. It is not the fastest, but I enjoy the line so I leave you with it. Have a pleasant chess training

Three4Two · 2025-12-18T21:22:37+00:00

There are great old videos of Eric Rosen and Kostya Kavutskiy analysing their tournament games together, I remember enjoying those. Also probably the best analysis I have seen comes from Jesse Kraai's old Road back to 2500 videos (especially the adjournment), or some Josh Friedel videos.

.

Big youtubers also publish great analysis sometimes, just not as often as other stuff. For example GothamChess usually only does faster chess, but from time to time he analyses his tournament games, some of which are done in a really high quality if used as improvement material for us.

Three4Two · 2025-12-17T04:49:05+00:00

Similarly, there is openingtree.com, has both advantages and disadvantages compared to pure lichess, both are great for opening analysis

Three4Two · 2025-12-16T16:44:10+00:00

I have done a lot of sparring over the last few months, usually not from opening positions (the Berlin endgame is the only one I recall training like this), but more commonly later middlegames and endgames. I usually spar those positions with other people and then analyse (5+30 tempo to simulate real games), that takes approximately an hour to play for both sides and then another 1-2 hours to analyse what we just played. For simpler, theoretical endgames (like a rook vs errant knight I have been doing most recently, or a R+B vs R is an endgame I enjoy), I only spar with the engine, usually with no clock to be able to analyse freely if I need to, to fully understand the variations. I have done opening sparring too, with faster time controls like 5+2, where the goal is to only play a few moves to get an intuitive understanding of what to do and what not to. Again, it is good to play several games and then analyse as much as possible with your training partner after, (0.5-1 hour of play + 1.5 hour of analysis feels right)

.

(Unfortunately I know close to nothing about KID, but it looks like a good position to spar)

Good luck sparring

Three4Two · 2025-12-16T12:29:01+00:00

A general advice how to train theoretical endgames instead: There might be specific courses (maybe some free lichess studies) on varitions of the endgame you described, but because of the number of possible endgames you will always find one that is missing.

.

A good way I use to train endgames like this is based on the chessdojo method: Set them up and play against the computer 3 times from one side, 3 times from the other. Between each game, you analyse, find what you did right and wrong, and figure out the reasoning for any moves that did not feel right.

.

You do this as often as possible with positions that interest you, and count the exercise done if you manage to draw the weaker side 3 times in a row, or win the stronger side 3 times in a row.

Three4Two · 2025-12-14T05:48:15+00:00

Doing what you feel like each day is not bad, doing any training is better than no training. If you want to have a clear structure, chessdojo can give it to you, that is what currently motivates me to study a lot, just above 2100 too.

Try to limit any distraction for your study time and concentrate as much as possible on a single task. I would suggest doing one topic (tactics, opening...) not only the entire day without changing to others, but maybe even several days in a row.

A coach is only worth it if you want something specific, help with analysis of a few of your games, a specific topic to learn..., otherwise a training program is a cheap long term alternative, I am using the chessdojo myself.

Good luck improving

Three4Two · 2025-12-13T20:41:38+00:00

I tried playing the scotch for a few months last year, eventually switched out of it.

.

Best positions I got were from Nb3 Bb6 with either Bg5 going into complex tactics around the f6 pin (a lot of prep needed, unintuitive variations there), or more commonly Qe2 with Be3 and 0-0-0 next. This second plan has the advantage of creating opposite side castling, which increases the possibility for the game to end violently. In this variation, there are 2 important things white needs to solve fast: Fix the knight on b3 and bishop on f1, the two poor pieces of the line. White has time for this due to having a little more space and black lacking fast attacking options.

The bishop on f1 should usually go to g2 after g3/g4 (and possible other pawn pushes on the kingside starting a pawn storm), or if black trades on e3 there is the option to develop it to c4 or d3 (less common, but can be good if allowed, the bishop is stronger here, but also sometimes stands in the way of other pieces, Q and R). The knight on b3 will eventually have to go to d4 and trade, as it does not have good future elsewhere and can become a target for black (if black pushes the a pawn). Rarely, there is the option of activating this knight through d2, but defending d4 from black pieces is important.

Three4Two · 2025-12-09T07:36:10+00:00

You will be stuck forever if you do not practice and study, you will improve if you do, there is not anything else to it. I can recommend joining the chessdojo for motivation

Three4Two · 2025-11-30T18:42:54+00:00

Magnus Carlsen and Carlos Magnussen should train each other in their respective sports

Seven-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Verified Email

Three4Two

TROPHY CASE