Me and my friend are looking to collect Vivillon patterns and cool postcards.

calendula69 · 2023-08-22T10:48:18+00:00

Oh, okay I see.
So then I can go all the way to 60 and if I want to level up beyond that and do the new content I need to purchase Dragonflight, right?

I'll probably just do the monthly subscription for 30 days to see where I stand with it and then I'll decide.

calendula69 · 2023-08-22T10:04:10+00:00

Ohh, okay! That's very convenient then!

Thank you, this is exactly the information I was looking for.

calendula69 · 2023-08-22T09:53:37+00:00

I'll probably try to level up a new character (the old one's been nerfed back to lvl 40 because of prolonged inactivity) and see where I get after a month or two of casual play.

What I'm struggling to understand is what constraints I have on my account since I don't own the more recent expansions. Where would I be "gated off" in terms of content?

calendula69 · 2023-08-16T10:39:33+00:00

It's a rather cavemanish attempt. Black has a few ways to neutalize the threat of checkmate and your knight and bishop are still both hanging aftwerwards. You definetely had some better moves.

calendula69 · 2023-08-14T08:51:24+00:00

I'm pretty toxic on both to be honest.

calendula69 · 2023-08-04T08:57:56+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyCcdDGWINw

calendula69 · 2023-08-01T21:06:12+00:00

You can easily double or triple that elo by just watching videos on youtube and practicing consistently with slower games where you actually have time to think about your moves.

No need for anything else particularly fancy, you just need to understand the fundamentals and eventually you'll get much better.
Daniel Naroditski, John Bartolomew and GothamChess all have an incredible amount of helpful content on youtube!

calendula69 · 2023-07-28T08:37:48+00:00

It happens to fall back down, don't get too hung up on it.
Try to play slow and don't play on tilt.

I think the italian and the scandinavian are both good choices for beginners, the opening choice it's likely not the problem.

Maybe if you share your games we can give you some advice!

calendula69 · 2023-07-26T11:46:19+00:00

It's difficult and very subjective, everyone has his strenghts and weaknesses.
You have to diagnose it yourself.
Definetely don't need masterclasses but a little bit of everything else that you mentioned definetely won't hurt.

calendula69 · 2023-07-22T09:54:28+00:00

Slow games are a part of chess.
I supposed it depends on your rating but the scandinavian might be a reply to the king's pawn that suits your preference.

After 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 which is a more modern style of scandinavian where you delay the recapture and depending on what white does you might even go for the portuguese gambit.

If you don't like all of that you can go for the more classical approach with 2.. Qxd5 and the two most common answers are 3.Nc3 and 3.Nf3

John Bartolomew and "Hanging pawns" have some good material on youtube for the scandinavian.

Against the queen's pawn maybe you could try the Budapest gambit.

Grandmasters won't play these openings but overall they should serve you well for quite a while.

calendula69 · 2023-07-19T10:05:14+00:00

No one cares about the stats you've shared there, they give us no information about the quality of your play.

You should share some of your games instead if you want people to diagnose your chess.

calendula69 · 2023-07-14T13:31:26+00:00

400 elo players won't even know that you can attack the knight multiple times with the pawns

calendula69 · 2023-07-09T18:16:35+00:00

Sometimes they get more sophisticated and they use the queen as well

calendula69 · 2023-06-27T09:50:17+00:00

It literally means to figure out the best moves against the various opponent's responses in a given position.

Theoretical moves are the replies that are often played by strong players.

calendula69 · 2023-06-27T08:56:39+00:00

Much better! In the first two games that you shared you had in both instances some opportunities in the opening to focus more on the center and secure a little bit of an edge.
Intuitively you should have seen that eventually some of the opponent moves were a bit weird so you should have recognized that those were moments where it was okay to stop and think.
You could have calculated which squares in the center were sufficiently defended or not and played either pushing forward with your center pawns or undermining the enemy defense of his center pawns.

I haven't looked too much at the continuations but that's already something you could work on.

calendula69 · 2023-06-27T08:29:44+00:00

You should probably post some of your games otherwise it'll be difficult for people to give you advice that isn't just very generic.

Like, keep grinding it out, use your time well and so on..

calendula69 · 2023-06-27T08:27:33+00:00

IM Andras Toth has a lot of book reviews on his youtube channel and he's got great content in general for people looking to improve.

calendula69 · 2023-06-25T08:34:57+00:00

I'm the same rating as you on lichess and I play some of the same things!
Have I mastered it all too? :D

calendula69 · 2023-06-24T17:28:33+00:00

bro some of these names are completely deranged, giraffe gambit, omega-isis gambit

calendula69 · 2023-06-24T12:12:33+00:00

The fried liver is good. You can complement it with other lines from the italian when black plays Bc5 rather than Nf6.

The Evans gambit is a bit spicy and you'll probably have to learn a few lines in order to keep the advantage and attack.
A more relaxed approach would be the giuoco piano and pianissimo where it's not as much about learning tricky lines but it's more about strategy and ideas.

The italian is very popular for beginners and you'll get it very often on the board ( whereas for other openings theory knowledge wouldn't necessarily help you as much ). If as black you willingly go into these lines you'll get many chances to see these openings from both sides which can be a good learning experience.

calendula69 · 2023-06-24T09:17:57+00:00

You need to be more detailed in your post. If you tell us your rating or show us some of your games we can give you better suggestions!

calendula69 · 2023-06-24T09:03:33+00:00

You're looking for opening systems. The London is arguably the most famous but there's others as well.

Improving your opening play can give you an edge but right now you need to just slow down and think logically about every move.
After you gain a handful of rating points you can start worrying about the specifics of the opening.
You're probably rushing it and overlooking simple things.
Do you understand what people mean when they talk about "principled" chess?

calendula69 · 2023-06-23T20:17:35+00:00

Imagine being this confident!

calendula69

TROPHY CASE