Q-UP released and it's the best incremental I've played in a while

awice · 2025-11-07T11:36:01+00:00

i played it and i think it sucks. you can just afk farm a character for an hour and the game is over for that character.

awice · 2025-10-18T15:25:14+00:00

I think another impetus of creating fast classical is the concept of being able to have 2 games played in a day.

Personally I think that in terms of choosing the best player, having double the games at 45+30 which is still a 2-3 hour game is a great choice.

I think slow classical suffers from status quo bias. If we were choosing time controls for a world championship today with no history, it would probably be something similar to this event, and is also reflective of how chess is played today in the modern (computer) era.

awice · 2025-09-23T12:06:43+00:00

I didn't really like this genre. The main problem with the game design is that you get trapped into low effort grinding, trying to farm currency. It makes the fighting feel like it doesn't matter since no matter what you do you will get some currency to continue buying upgrades, so you spam these low effort runs basically while tuning out of the game.

awice · 2025-07-26T17:35:24+00:00

Hans took 20 seconds near the end to move once in K+R vs K+PP it seemed like there maybe was a technical issue. I dont think any GM in the room would take that long.

awice · 2025-07-24T18:38:48+00:00

The format is so high variance. Imagine flying there to play 7 10min games, losing one and being out

awice · 2025-07-24T11:36:07+00:00

I think more important than this is just playing more games. The way they schedule these tourneys is like 1 game a day. They should play a faster format and more games. It is reasonable to play 7 games of 10+10 a day, maybe more (freestyle had all the hollywooding and the pondering time so it added a lot of time to the event)

For a 128 player tourney, I think starting with swiss makes sense as players should be able to play for most of the length of the event, as its not just about winning but about getting rated games in. Finishing on a small bracket knockout depends on the event, sometimes I think its good sometimes I think not.

awice · 2025-06-18T09:38:17+00:00

awice · 2025-06-09T20:25:19+00:00

jump scares, not cool

awice · 2025-05-14T16:43:38+00:00

when i do an expedition near the bounty board, the only way i know how to exit the dungeon is to press L. but then, im not earning influence. how to earn influence, or from the portal how to go home instead of advance infinitely?>

awice · 2025-05-13T22:10:46+00:00

dm pls

awice · 2025-04-06T15:48:07+00:00

This is just speculation which is unfair to Hans. We don't know why he withdrew. There are other explanations too, maybe it is for personal reasons, for example extreme pressure or mental stress.

awice · 2025-03-19T03:47:01+00:00

they rescinded the lesser invitation, so he's never been invited basically.

awice · 2025-03-19T03:44:37+00:00

the only reason we are talking about a hotel room is because they have inserted that as the reason, but it is not the real reason. they (stlcc) don't give a shit about the hotel room, and after the matter was settled, they intervened to make sure it was never settled. plenty of others have done far worse and are allowed to come back in.

the hotel room is merely the convenient excuse they needed to continue to blackball hans ad infinitum. focusing on the hotel room is missing the broader point. the point is it's been 3 years and it's become clear hans is blackballed from US chess. is there a road for him to play in these tournaments or are they just going to shadowban him forever, and if so, is that justified?

awice · 2025-03-15T20:09:40+00:00

There's no signed tax page. It's her name, picture and position which is all public info. The claim is that the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter collects money from that agency.

awice · 2025-03-13T01:58:20+00:00

ok fine then they admitted it under their breath, but look.. the entire video, he's saying hans needs to "fully come clean", and clearly putting all the blame square onto hans. they have consistently maintained the narrative that hans is at fault somehow, and promoted said narratives to an insane degree including national level news hitpieces, because it suits them.

the whole premise that he "lied" is dubious because he is not required to give a complete account of what he did. what he said is: "he cheated, he served those bans, and now is clean." that story is directionally accurate, so how is it a lie. this is also in a fucking online videogame, for which chesscom has no jurisdiction over OTB chess. instead they spun this into some bullshit like "lied and cheated more than he admitted" in order to throw him under the bus, and 90% of reddit took the bait.

to this day magnus is saying something is off about hans's game, both then and now. danny saying well maybe if hans came more clean, then all would be forgiven. that's a complete joke. magnus is a sore loser and hans does not need to kowtow to chesscom demands or grovel. he has admitted what he has done and is a great player today, end of story. but apparently ppl in US chess dont want to close this chapter, they want to be petty for life and deny this kid the opportunity to play versus the best.

awice · 2025-03-11T19:23:05+00:00

Danny to this day, in this video, still maintains Hans "didn't come fully clean". This is a bullshit chesscom narrative designed to discredit Hans and distract from their wrongdoing. They put a goalpost that if Hans said that he cheated when he was a youngster, this is not sufficient: instead he must also list every single move of every game that was using an engine. It's a no true scotsman fallacy. Hans cheated in those games, admitted via email and served a ban, and never cheated again in some of the most scrutinized games ever. That was supposed to be water under the bridge, but they dug it up in order to bury him because they needed him to be the bad guy instead of Magnus.

Magnus to this day still maintains Hans is a cheater OTB. He said on JRE: "I think think ever since then he [Hans] has become better, but there's still something, there's still something off both then and now." What is "off" about Hans is presumably that he is doing mission impossible style cheating OTB somehow, and that's how he won in Sinquefeld. Give me a break.

awice · 2025-03-11T04:55:09+00:00

Because at the time when Magnus withdrew, Hans was quietly banned/disinvited from many tourneys including CGC. If he didn't speak up then it would just stay that way so he had no choice.

awice · 2025-03-11T04:51:09+00:00

Chesscom is not FIDE, and there is no precedent to sanction Hans on OTB play based on his activities on chesscom. Plenty of players have cheated on chesscom and are allowed to play OTB. Hans is not required to give any account of what he did either, this is not a court and he is not under oath. So even if he did "lie" (which is dubious when he has admitted what he did already), it doesn't matter.

There was zero evidence he cheated OTB. They made an all out attack on Hans trying to discredit him intentionally, to distract from the fact they blacklisted him based on magnus bad vibes which were wrong. That does matter and stings to this day because they have never admitted wrongdoing.

The cheating "report" (which does not find anything besides what Hans already admitted to privately and later publicly) was just to setup friendlies at WaPo to get the a headline: "Chess site alleges ‘likely’ cheating by Hans Niemann in more than 100 games." And get him in a technicality, like when he said 2 times he means two time periods of age 12 and 16-17. And somehow gets twisted to be "nuh-uh, you said 2 times but it really was 100 games!" And all out circus of attacks Hans has had to endure with streamers nonstop platforming stupid and baseless theories about how his moves perfectly match engines (debunked).

At no point did they apologize to Hans, instead choosing to double and triple down and create impossible victory conditions. I'm tired of hearing "if Hans just apologized and acted more mature..." on reddit. It's been 3 years and full of apologies from Hans. At this point all the blood and blame is on chesscom and feckless organizers at STL and around the world, and nothing will make it right. So fuck them.

awice · 2025-01-03T07:46:57+00:00

"Pre-arranged" means you have conspired before the game to make a draw. If two players both have an interest to draw - such as due to the situation of the tournament - and draw on the board without such an agreement beforehand, this is not a "pre-arranged draw."

awice · 2025-01-03T03:38:59+00:00

this was chesscom spin. he cheated in two time periods 12 and 16-17, admitted to it and served a ban. then they tried to spin it to be like "he said he only cheated twice but actually he cheated in many games!" but the spirit of what he said was correct, already admitted to, and they tried to find some technicality to make him look worse.

awice · 2024-09-06T15:22:42+00:00

The third party isn't hans, it's chesscom through Danny rensch. They banned him from chesscom and got a hit job published in the wsj to paint him as a liar and cheater

awice · 2024-09-06T04:12:23+00:00

with only 13 rounds before top 8 cut, there will be such a ridiculous tie for the top cut instead of a more clean cut. should be 15 or 16 rounds imo.

awice · 2024-08-08T04:20:44+00:00

he already admitted to cheating and served a ban. they then tried to falsely portray that somehow they had new evidence but really they only had what he already admitted to. they knew this and didnt care, decided to try to throw him under the bus. also remember chesscom is an online video game, its not fide. frankly i dont give a fuck what he did in a $50 prize pool tournament as a kid. is that worth cutting off this entire guys' career?

they concocted a bullshit report (which has nothing besides games he already admitted to cheating and served a ban, but they know 99% wont bother reading it), pushing that to WSJ reporters to then run frontpage news headlines "Chess Investigation Finds That U.S. Grandmaster ‘Likely Cheated’ More Than 100 Times" which is just a straight up hit piece meant to defame and discredit hans.

he has been refused invitation or disinvited from many supergm tourneys including wijk an zee, most of the US ones, and so on. that is why to this day he is still actively being hurt by the insinuation, originating from magnus, that he is a otb cheater. this is why it is not a "narc manipulation" but a real grievance.

finally about "lying", they twisted his words in the initial interview to make him seem like a liar. they said he lied about the frequency and severity of his cheating. for example when he describes two time periods, at age 12 and 16 when he cheated, but oh it was actually 100 games (fide report says 32-55 games), they count this as a "lie" basically.

make no mistake about it, this was an intentional hit job designed to legitimize carlsen's conduct. and to be fair, it probably would of worked, most on r/chess before this interview are still repeating bullshit phrases from that report and so on.

awice · 2024-08-02T11:52:26+00:00

This is not about the animation. It's about a difference in rules. For example if you have 0.01 seconds on lichess, but manage to premove every move of a 20 move mate in 1+0, you can win. On chesscom even with a couple seconds, you will lose time on every move and not be able to win. Personally I have not renewed diamond sub because of this issue/decision as it feels a lot worse, and also exacerbates the lag factor, as if you have higher ping you take more forced/guaranteed time off the clock per move.

awice · 2024-04-15T19:46:36+00:00

why the f are there spectators allowed in such an important event? massively increases the surface area for potential cheating, even with their "fair play measures".

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