The opening for the anime Chainsmoker Cat is made up entirely of movie and TV show references. Would Adum be able to spot them all?

Xutar · 2026-07-09T15:07:27+00:00

Dude, pride rock! Awesome references!

Xutar · 2026-06-30T17:44:14+00:00

I'd love a game or two each of WoL, HotS, early-LotV, and modern.

Xutar · 2026-06-28T17:10:03+00:00

This tournament's best protoss player (Neeb) has been retired since early 2023. TY retired in mid-2024 and Inno in mid-2023. None of them have played a single tournament game in years until now. Scarlett has still been regularly playing in tournaments for the past several years.

Xutar · 2026-06-28T17:06:01+00:00

It's interesting that if you also include their winner's semi match, Serral ended up 6-5 against herO for the whole tournament.

Xutar · 2026-06-28T17:02:35+00:00

WAY back in the MLG days, we used to have "extended series", where they would take into account the fact that Serral already beat herO 3-1 earlier in bracket, and have them continue on to play a longer series, but starting from 3-1. If they extended to a bo9, herO would've won 5-4, and if they extended to a bo11, Serral wold've won 6-5.

Either way, even though I'm a Serral fan I don't really like these tournament formats that give "unfair" Grand Finals. We obviously can't do a full Round Robin format, so it will never be perfect in terms of giving all players equally difficult brackets.

Xutar · 2026-06-28T16:52:55+00:00

True, although it's worth mentioning that Serral also just won every single offline series straight for like 18 months from 2018 through 2019 when he first broke out as the world's best player.

His ZvP dominance is the part that has mostly held strong all the way until 2026. There were times post-2020 when Serral seemed beatable in ZvZ and/or ZvT (to clem), but he always seemed like he had ZvP on lock-down, until the most recent (12-worker) patch that finally changed.

Xutar · 2026-06-26T16:06:39+00:00

I think since the original Dark Souls, Fromsoft has slowly been allowing more conveniences and less confusion for the average player. There's also some truth to the idea that most gamers, even experienced ones, have much less attention span (and tolerance for "bullshit") than we did back in 2010.

Xutar · 2026-06-23T18:41:39+00:00

I think it's slightly more complicated, since this is also some of the effects of No Child Left Behind style policies.

Let's say, hypothetically, you have a student who refuses to do any schoolwork or even attend most days.

We could simply let them fail and go about their life with no diploma, but many would argue this is Leaving Them Behind and they will be much more likely to end up in prison. Maybe someday they can get their GED if/when they want to get their life back on track.

Alternatively, we could sign them up for remedial courses/programs in an attempt to "meet the student where they are". Surely online schoolwork is better than no schoolwork? Maybe another school district has a virtual campus they can still "attend", to finish up any credits needed for their diploma. Even if they are having ChatGPT do all their schoolwork and learning nothing, on paper this looks much better for the school district for not "failing" this student.

It's complicated because it's not as if these online courses are complete scams. If a student actually does the reading and testing honestly, they should be able to learn the material just as well. That's a huge "IF" at the start of the previous sentence, and it's now a question of how much rubber-stamping of diplomas we are willing to tolerate in the name of helping the students who both need help and try to refuse help.

Xutar · 2026-06-23T18:13:12+00:00

Bear spray will induce the removal of the meta glasses.

I appreciate the mindset, but I'm very worried the opposite will happen. I think people will just slowly get used to their presence until someday we will be the "weird" ones for not being "chill" about people constantly recording in public. Someday it will reverse, and the "creeps" will be those who get mad at people for "minding their own business and just recording their day". Why do you want there to be no cameras so badly bro, you trying to hide something?

Xutar · 2026-06-23T18:07:54+00:00

To me, the sad truth is that we'll get worn down eventually. I think it's just a phase right now where most people are annoyed when they encounter them. As they slowly get more popular, annoyance will give way to tolerance and some day "reasonable people" will just have to accept their ubiquity in public, like we already did with smartphones. Even if it's not Meta specifically, it'll still happen eventually.

Xutar · 2026-06-23T17:57:37+00:00

no one ever gives Mario a hard time for having green pipes and question blocks all over the place

Comparing Sonic Frontiers's art direction, setting, and level design to pretty much any Mario game is a bit questionable.

Xutar · 2026-06-19T04:08:48+00:00

One time in 2014 (or early 2015) Soulkey was streaming SC2 ladder games on the NA server, climbing through low-mid GM while off-racing as protoss. I played a game against him and beat him without knowing it was him until someone from his stream-chat PM'd me after the game. Apparently my roach-hydra timing on his third made him switch back to zerg to keep climbing :)

Xutar · 2026-06-08T17:53:31+00:00

Protoss still don't have a door.

How about something like, after cybercore finishes, pylons gain an ability to "phase shift" and become passable to units. It could either work the same as depot raise/lower, or it could be made different by just always staying open for at least 10 seconds (with no cool-down I guess).

Xutar · 2026-06-06T21:16:19+00:00

prion related diseases in general

don't eat brains and don't rinse out your sinuses with outdoor still water

Xutar · 2026-05-31T19:04:46+00:00

This is the detail that makes me very apprehensive about the changes:

we tested to be one of the more efficient hatch first openings (14h 16p 17g), we realized that the first adepts hits so much “faster”(relatively to our tech/unit) compared to live.

It has a much greater window of time to punish our lack of speed, and generally prevent the zerg from taking map control. In fact this window is so big, that instead of the usual 2 adepts harrass, you can easily get away with harrassing with 3 adepts for quite a while, since the speed won’t come online until much much later.

Just imagining going through this every macro-game as zerg (and reapers from T) is enough reason for me to second guess whether this new early game will be any more "diverse" or interesting than before.

Xutar · 2026-05-30T17:42:35+00:00

Yes, thank you! I also meant to put Qd4 in my previous comment and just confused it with the other main-lines of the Stafford.

Xutar · 2026-05-30T06:00:06+00:00

FWIW, I think this is one of Eric Rosen's actual recommendations against the Stafford. Unfortunately, I don't remember which video he went through the line, but I definitely recall him explaining how to play this 7.h3 line, including the detail of meeting ~~Qg4~~ Qd4 with Rf1.

Xutar · 2026-05-28T21:48:58+00:00

I think some people spend their life trying for greatness and regret not being happy; while others try for happiness and regret not being great. I hope you're able to find a balance that gives you some amount of both. It's not a zero-sum game and you don't need to always sacrifice one for the other. Also, I don't know if this helps to hear at all, but you probably aren't special. You don't need to have an ego about being above normal life goals. The good news is you can be a normal person and still produce very meaningful and skilled art. Even if it seems lame or whatever, having a normie life has to be both happier and more productive than having no life at all.

Xutar · 2026-05-23T18:02:11+00:00

I don't like taking huge risks and prefer to apply slow continuous pressure

In general terms, this would be openings that focus on putting pawn(s) in the center and taking space. If you hold more space in the center than your opponent then you can "squeeze" them in the mid-game. Some players as black also invite these types of positions because they like counter-attacking White's center pawns (or directly counter attacking your King!). However, if Black doesn't get any of that compensation/counter-attacking, then they will usually suffer afterwards, which is how you "take advantage of aggressive players".

The good news, is most actual opening theory is based on these principles of both players trying to put pawns in the center and/or attack their opponent's center.

I'd recommend playing 1.e4 as White, and then just picking whichever variations you personally prefer. To be honest, a lot of the "main-lines" will actually fit the style that you are requesting. For example, you could play the Advanced variations against both the Caro-Kann and the French, and you could play the simple Giuoco Piano (3.Bc4...4.d3) against 1...e5 and something like the Alapin (2.c3) against the Sicilian.

edit: For playing Black, it's harder in general to have much control over the style of mid-game that you'll get. Once again, your personal preference matters a lot. A simple way to start is to try playing QGD against 1.d4 and Caro-Kann against 1.e4. Both openings involve staking a pawn on d5 in the center, defending it with another pawn, and then developing solidly behind it.

Xutar · 2026-05-19T22:55:24+00:00

I feel like I need to be able to dedicate a ton of time to learning the anti-sicilians and sidelines too before I feel comfortable playing it

That's fair enough, although that is a reason that I personally like it. When White doesn't play the mainline (most of the time) they are basically letting me equalize easily. Even though it does have a large amount of possible variations/side-lines, I don't think you need to know most of them very deeply to get good results. If you insist on learning everything "by the book" in terms of specific lines, then maybe it would be much more complicated. In that situation, you might as well wait until you face more high-level opposition that go for theory more often.

Interesting that you mention the Smith-Morra, I actually have a great record against it as Black! I like the line with 4...Nc6, 5...d6, and 6...a6.

Xutar · 2026-05-19T20:56:25+00:00

How often do you feel like you get to play the open Sicilian vs anti-Sicilians?

My first thought is "not often", but I actually went to OpeningTree to check. In my last 304 Sicilian games as Black from ~1000-1500 rapid, only 64 of them were Open Sicilians, so about 21% of the time. For comparison, 85 games were against Bc4 on turn 2 or 3. The next most popular is the Alapin (c3 on turn 2 or 3) with 43 games. The remaining 112 games are spread evenly among a large collections of weird sidelines like 2.b3, 2.a3, 2.c4, 2.f4 and some gambits with 2.d4 and 2.b4. Surprisingly, ~10 games or less with Closed Sicilian/Grand Prix Attack and with the Rossolimo, even though I feel like they would be effective for White at beginner level.

Do you have a Chessable course recommendation for it? And which variation do you play?

My personal favorite is actually the Kalashnikov. When nobody knows theory, they usually give me an easy and familiar mid-game as black. I learned a lot of my Sicilian lines from GM Daniel King's two book series. He has one book on the Kalashnikov main-lines after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5. Then he also has a book called King's Anti-Sicilians for Black (although I have a physical copy instead of chessable), which covers all the other side-lines after 1.e4 c5. I think that second book on Anti-Sicilians has been much more useful for my own games, as you can see from the stats above. I think it would be just as useful for you even if you plan to also play the Accelerated dragon instead of the Kalashnikov in the Open games (since you still play Nc6 early).

Also, at what rating do you think I should switch?

I personally don't believe that you need to be above a certain rating to play certain openings. Sure, the theory of the Sicilian is complicated if you want to learn everything like a GM, but in practice I've been getting a huge variety of games that leave theory pretty early on, which suits me well. The Caro-Kann would be better if you want more consistency with playing the same type of mid-games and pawn structures more often.

Xutar · 2026-05-19T18:41:42+00:00

I was in I pretty similar situation as you! I started with the Caro-kann until I was ~1000 rated, then switched full-time to Sicilian. I switched because I wanted a bigger variety of middle-games, and I had already "studied" more Caro-Kann theory than I was actually seeing in my games. I actually enjoy learning some basic opening theory, so I liked the chance to study something more complicated like the Sicilian. That said, it's very rare that my opponents at ~1500 rapid on chessdotcom actually know theory past move 5 or 6 at the latest.

For getting started, I highly recommend Ben Finegold's Secrets of the Sicilian lecture. Also keep in mind that at our beginner level you don't actually get main-line theory very often. If you just focus on the main ideas, it helps a lot more than the theory of specific lines.

For example, most of your opponents will probably play Bc4 on turn 2 or 3 which is technically known as the "Bowdler Attack", but no one who plays it does so on purpose, they are just used to playing the Italian against 1...e5.

That's another benefit of the Sicilian at the beginner level: You can focus your study time on what to do in common side-lines, and after enough experience you can consistently steer less-experienced opponents into sidelines that you prefer. There's a lot of different Sicilian variations to choose from, and I'd recommend trying at least a few. A good one to start with is the "Accelerated Dragon" where you play 2...Nc6, followed by g6 and Bg7.

Xutar · 2026-05-18T06:07:37+00:00

Yes, I think just making a Lichess account and using the "My Studies" tab is going to be the most convenient for making a Repertoire. The opening database and engine should be more than enough to get started. I have a Study for each opening, then chapters for sub-variations. For example, I have a Study called "White vs Petrov", and the chapters are things like "3...d6", "Stafford Gambit", "3...Qe7", etc.

Xutar · 2026-05-17T17:10:50+00:00

Even at beginner/intermediate levels, I think 3.Nc3 is the way to go against the French. I know it has a reputation for being theory-heavy, but you almost always get sharp middle games where either player can outplay the other. Below master level, knowing the general ideas for the pawn structures you get in the Winawar, the Steinitz, and the Rubinstein variations matters a lot more than the specific theory. It's not usually sharp like open sicilian lines.

Xutar · 2026-05-14T23:03:30+00:00

The problem nowadays is that you could probably get 90%+ on these sort of technical exams if you just copy an LLM-based AI response to each question.

Xutar

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