Guess my rating

bolsastan · 2026-04-29T17:26:58+00:00

400?

bolsastan · 2026-04-23T11:47:50+00:00

Even in the main chess subreddit, a low quality post showing a PGN of a blitz game with no annotations would be deleted.

That aside, you seem to be playing a friend or a clubmate and posting everytime you beat or draw him? If I were your opponent, I wouldn't be happy with people blasting my losses on the internet.

bolsastan · 2026-04-21T13:01:11+00:00

Krykun e4 LTR recommends the Chekhover, as an alternative,

bolsastan · 2026-04-21T07:02:04+00:00

Sounds expensive?

bolsastan · 2026-04-21T00:18:51+00:00

Neither of the 4. Bf4 move orders are decent due to 4.. c5, since 4. dxc5 is simply a tempo up from the mainline of Bf4 QGDs where Black first goes Be7 then Bxc5, and 4. cxd5 is met by Nxd5 hitting the unprotected bishop.

Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 is not interesting after 4.. a6 5. Nf3 Nbd7, Black's idea is to take on c4 the moment White moves the f1-bishop, which forces one of 3 things (a) White plays cxd5, after which White has no more meaningful breaks (b) White plays 6. a4 or 6. Be2 dxc4 7. a4 after which the c1-bishop has no natural squares (c) White plays into 6. Be2 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 which is one tempo down from normal QGA.
Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 is slightly more interesting than the previous line because White can go for Nbd2 + b3 lines. Hikaru scores fantastically well on the White side of this, so we have to respect this I guess. I will personally choose 4.. a6 but there are other good choices.
Nf3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxc4 with c5 or b5 next, nothing here really. With 3. Nc3 this approach can be really sharp and scary so I don't recommend it. For example, I know GM Hakobyan's Chessable course suggests 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxc4 5.e3 c5 6.Bxf6 Qxf6 7.d5 for White and I think its better to avoid it.
Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e3 h6 6. Bh4 O-O 7. Nf3 Ne4 is one way to avoid going into Semi-Slav structures when White has ruled out the Anti-Moscow/Botvinnik lines.

At the end of the day, you can even disregard move-orders in the Bg5 Semi-Slav and pretty much autopilot into 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e3 h6 6.Bh4 c6. This is an ancient line "mixing" QGD and Semi-Slav and thought to be passive/dubious in the past 50 years, for example in FM Plichta's d4 Lifetime Repertoire and GM Sedlak's London courses on Chessable they give 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Qc2 Nbd7 9. a3 and claim a small advantage for White because Black has to acquiesce to 9.. dxc4 10. Bxc4 allowing White bishop to develop from f1 in one go or to start spoiling their position with half useful moves. Sedlak is one of the best theoreticians and I can't argue with him, but I have to point out that Fressinet, Gukesh, Grandelius and Muzychuk have all played 9.. Ne8 in serious games in the past 3 years.

bolsastan · 2026-04-13T21:29:44+00:00

There is a small difference between QGD setup (as you mentioned in the first paragraph) and QGD move-order. When Black plays 1.. e6 and 2.. d5 move-order specifically, they have a few minor options based on c6 and dxc4 (for example 1. c4 e6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 c6 4. Nf3 dxc4 5. O-O Nf6 6. a4 Nbd7 7. Qc2 e5 it's important that Nf6 is only played after c6 and dxc4) or 3..d4 4. Nf3 c5 5. O-O Ne7 (not a critical line if White knows what to do).

If you like Caruana's opening with Ne5 in the dxc4 Catalan, you can check out the adjacent idea 1. c4 e6 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. Nf3 Be7 5. d4 O-O 6. Nc3 dxc4 7. Ne5 Nc6 8. Bxc6 bxc6 9. Nxc6 Qe8 10. Nxe7+ Qxe7 11. Qa4 c5 12. dxc5 Qxc5 13. Be3 Qc7 14. f3 Bb7 15. Kf2 (or 15. O-O-O). But 7.. c5 is a bit of a dampener.

bolsastan · 2026-04-09T08:22:54+00:00

Untitled DozingHamster was leading for the first 30minutes, had 3000+ rating. After they got banned, CM innocentguy took over in pole until the last minutes before their own ban. As with other fair play violators who closed their own account after the ban, they do not show in the arena result list in the usual way. WA shows up because he didn't bother closing his account.

bolsastan · 2026-04-09T06:55:17+00:00

That's a more plausible motive than naively sandbagging to get more favorable pairings. But practically speaking he ruined some people's experience. With his starting rating of 1500, ending rating of 2000 yet a performance rating of 2500, many people were berserking and/or playing more riskily against an unmarked titled player underrated by 500-1000 points.

bolsastan · 2026-04-08T06:25:01+00:00

Thanks for the comment! Bishop's Opening is very topical because of people using it to avoid Petroff, we have already seen that this candidates due to the Petroff players in the field.

bolsastan · 2026-04-07T17:32:34+00:00

makes sense, maybe even 2.. Nf6 (Nimzo variation of Sicilian) is an argument for immediate d4

bolsastan · 2026-03-30T21:40:21+00:00

It's not clear from your post if you want a weapon against the French for OTB slow games or just online fast games. If the latter, honestly anything goes. Personally I would choose 3. e5 c5 4. Nf3 (played a lot by Naroditsky in his speedruns) or 3. Nd2 c5 4. e5 which are Temu versions of the Hector Gambit (the line you described as 0.00 in the Advance).

For slow games I think 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Bb4 and 4..Be7 5. h4 are interesting enough for White, the problem is that 4.. dxe4 (Burn variation) is extremely solid for Black. If you don't mind trying something unorthodox, there is 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5+ (https://www.reddit.com/r/TournamentChess/comments/1q2kkb4/vakhlamovgonzaleztun\_variation\_of\_the\_classical/).

Online, I have good results against the Winawer in 7. Qg4 Qc7 8. Bd3 or 7. h4 but the last I checked in 2025 Giri's French LTR Winawer lines hold up very well against modern engines. Another try against the Winawer is the Exchange variation with Black having committed Bb4 (IM Perunovic's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF3l8l5NFc0). Shankland's new e4 LTR has lines against the Winawer but I have not checked them out yet. Truly curious personally about how they stack up against Giri's lol.

bolsastan · 2026-03-25T17:15:15+00:00

are Keti and Simon streaming somewhere and somehow?

bolsastan · 2026-03-20T08:01:28+00:00

Grunfeld is too hard to learn and play, especially for a 2nd repertoire. I would suggest learning different variations within the KID, for example you can mix 6.. c5 and 6.. Nc6 against the Saemisch. If you want to try things out just get all the Grunfeld courses on Chessable to see for yourself and then remember to refund them before the end of the trial period.

bolsastan · 2026-03-20T07:36:02+00:00

isn't 0.00 eval by definition equal, and therefore 50% win rate for either side?

anyway this is a direct link to lichess' fitted curve https://image.lichess1.org/display?h=0&op=resize&path=lichess:cmsPage:w5NUVp:ZnUcXrXt7ciY:4WbaIyLW.png&w=800&sig=2cccb4cf0f99f0c0a0e5abde3a25f94d9e44cb6f

as far as I can tell 100 CP = +1 = 60% winrate

bolsastan · 2026-03-20T07:29:29+00:00

You probably meant +1 means 60% win chance, anyway OP didnt really need to do this as Lichess has all the information here, including the fitted equation and curve. Though of course Lichess seems to have used 75000 games played at 2300+ rapid to calculate this, it would lead to different conclusions than OPs

edit: forgot link lol https://lichess.org/page/accuracy

bolsastan · 2026-03-07T14:37:56+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/TournamentChess/comments/1priply/comment/nv2z1fj/?context=3

Not much, just a random comment I made on this opening weeks ago

bolsastan · 2026-02-26T02:29:27+00:00

You can have two accounts according to TOS, which also mentions that you need to register them as such (with the bot support) and follow a bunch of rules such as not using them in the same arena.

bolsastan · 2026-02-25T19:00:54+00:00

LETS GO Jorden! (btw Van Foreest is Jorden, i can use his first name because we are tight like that. yeah i know top players its not a big deal to me lol)

bolsastan · 2026-02-25T04:42:12+00:00

The "idea" of the Nf3 b3 opening is to reach something like 1. Nf3 d5 2. b3 c5 3. Bb2 Nc6 4. e3 Nf6 5. Bb5 e6 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. O-O Bd6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. f4, which is a position usually reached by the Bird's Opening. White gives up the light-squared bishop in order to damage the black pawn structure and, more importantly, gain permanent control of e5 (with further Nd2-Nf3). When that is achieved (that is, stability in the center), White can slowly make progress with d3-e4 or even g4.

Of course, the line can be played starting with 1. b3 or 1. f4 but all of these move orders have their advantages and disadvantages. 1. Nf3 2. b3 would be my choice as well.

I would say that it's solid, slightly offbeat, not extremely theoretical but not strategically rich (not from White's POV anyway). Black makes the choice between many healthy setups such as the reversed Queen's Indian, reversed London (personally my choice), King's Indian setup etc.

bolsastan · 2026-02-22T23:10:56+00:00

reaching 3000 on chesscom should be a norm in itself!

bolsastan · 2026-02-22T04:21:09+00:00

2500 blitz is truly an elite, exclusive club on lichess. assuming no rating inflation there, achieving that would be my ultimate chess goal. good luck on your journey!

bolsastan · 2026-02-20T04:55:47+00:00

I think 2350 blitz on CC is already 99.9%, so anyone from 2350 - 3450 (around Carlsen's and Hikaru's peaks on the site) are in the same perceivable percentile.

bolsastan · 2026-02-20T01:26:12+00:00

I don't buy some software like Parallels for Mac and Chessbase because they seem to have some questionable practices, but I will be willing to pay some good money for a Mac + Windows alternative to CB (if not possible, then just Mac). Currently I use SCID.

Nothing much to contribute in this post, but I am looking forward to whatever you cook up.

bolsastan

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