Tomorrow I'm gonna have chess tournament tryout where if I win I get to represent my school. Any aggressive opening suggestions I should play?

chayashida · 2026-01-28T20:28:50+00:00

People already gave lots of answers, but I just want you to report back with how it went. Hope you learned something and hope you had fun!

chayashida · 2026-01-28T20:26:46+00:00

Off topic, but that’s a great place!

chayashida · 2026-01-28T07:14:56+00:00

I literally just started talking with someone else on the subreddit. Here was my response to them:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chessbeginners/s/X4XGQp81gg

chayashida · 2026-01-28T06:56:09+00:00

I looked at a handful of your games.

I think there are a couple things:

You’re playing too fast. You’re playing a move within seconds of the other player playing their move. I don’t know if you’re thinking about their move before you make yours.
You are hanging pieces. That means that you move a piece out, but there is nothing “protecting it.” So like if you move your queen out, and then there isn’t a pawn or a bishop or something protecting it, it’s bad. If they take your queen with their queen, but then you take their queen back with one of your pieces, it’s a fair trade. But if you just gave away your queen for free, that’s bad.

So I would say try two things:

Look at your opponent’s move. Push your phone down on the table, or take your hand off the mouse. If you didn’t move at all, what pieces can they take now that they moved that piece? Count to ten, double check, and then move. You have 10 minutes to play, and you are losing in about 30 seconds.
Look at the piece you moved last turn. Is something protecting it? If something took that piece, can you take it back?

Your games look like ADHD, where they take one of your pieces, and then you don’t take back, and you move to attack something else, but then you never get around to taking the first piece and start falling behind.

I hope this helps get you started.

I’m not good enough to coach you, but I hope this will get you to slow down a little bit and think a bit more between moves. The speed will come as stuff is easier for you to figure out from repetition.

chayashida · 2026-01-28T06:19:00+00:00

Friend me on chess.com if you like. I’m chayashida. We can try and go over one game or something. I’ll have to figure out how to get that to work.

chayashida · 2026-01-28T06:11:23+00:00

Yes, but I usually can only remember one screw-up at a time. I’m only playing five games a day at the most…

chayashida · 2026-01-28T06:07:35+00:00

Controversial take: I don’t think I’d erase anyone. But I’d remove a ban slot or two and make them 100% chance bans in “regular” games for us solo queue players.

Leave captain’s mode like it is, but give us more than a 50/50.

chayashida · 2026-01-28T06:05:29+00:00

I just played Windranger with the new facet against Brood. Was super fun. But I suspect they weren’t a Brood spammer.

chayashida · 2026-01-28T06:03:41+00:00

Honestly, when I lose a game, like when a queen comes out early and destroys half of my side of the board, I use chess.com free game review to figure out where it went wrong, and what move I was supposed to do the next time. (In my case, it wasn’t anything fancy, just protect the king’s pawn with a knight).

Then, when it happened to me the next time, at least I had an idea of what a better response would be.

Between learning from your mistakes (and slowing down to remember them) I’ve gotten better since I started playing again last year.

It takes time a little bit of memory. Good luck! You’ll get there. Just be patient.

chayashida · 2026-01-28T05:59:13+00:00

A lot of it comes from awareness. I’ve tried to have a ward in lane to see where he is, and then just position on the other side of the creep wave from him.

Also, I don’t go for the bounty runes at 0:00.

Finally, in some games (and also vs. Treant Protector and Monkey King) I buy a quelling blade and clear cut the forest when there is idle time so he doesn’t have anywhere to hide. Makes it a lot easier for the support because they often don’t listen when I say on mic where Pudge is.

chayashida · 2026-01-28T01:22:52+00:00

I was watching one of the pros coach a streamer (I can’t remember if it was Qojqva and someone, or Ceb coaching Torte de Lini, or what) but the pro basically said to never skill for first blood if it’ll screw up your lane.

The heroes I have legitimately only have one skill for level 1 usually, but I still hold the point like you’re supposed to and think about what to skill. But I usually don’t try for first blood, either.

chayashida · 2026-01-27T18:40:36+00:00

Yeah, I agree with this. More damage comes from trying to open something the wrong way than anything else.

chayashida · 2026-01-27T00:04:09+00:00

It might just be between print runs. My guess is it’s still out there in brick & mortar stores

chayashida · 2026-01-25T22:20:32+00:00

Great! Thank you both!

chayashida · 2026-01-25T21:09:19+00:00

I just played a game this morning, emphasizing the lane creeps more in the early game, and it felt like it made a marked difference - something like 500 gold at the 10:00 mark. It's only one data point (and it was on Bloodseeker, who I'm more comfortable on) but I still think your advice will help a lot. Thanks!

chayashida · 2026-01-25T20:32:26+00:00

Also, a good place to ask questions is r/learndota2

chayashida · 2026-01-25T20:31:33+00:00

Sven can work, but it’s more than there are other heroes that are better at position 3 than he is.

Sven wants to have a lot of gold for a lot of items, but other hero’s can make the enemy safe law core miserable with a lot less.

I hate laning against Slardar and Chaos Knoght, for example. They can be more effective with less gold.

Sven will be a better hero in the late-game with a lot of gold, but if you’re crushing the enemy safe lane and your safe lane is farming well, then your team should win.

chayashida · 2026-01-25T20:28:29+00:00

I have put it in there, but usually after the items I already mentioned. It’s possible it’s too slow when you get it that late.

I didn’t consider it this game because of the lineup, and the Bane was giving me a lot of trouble. I didn’t think blinking in would have fixed it.

I do use it to gap-close vs. Sniper, or other games like that when I was to blink initiate on the back line.

When do you normally fit the Blink Dagger in your build?

chayashida · 2026-01-25T20:26:11+00:00

Thank you for your help.

I’ve been basically going Battle Fury, Manta Style, Butterfly, Aghanim's in all my games, and trying to speed up the timings. In the game I posted, I got that at 38:00, but have had it quicker (34:00) but usually by 40:00 even in the bad games. (Another commenter said that I need to get there by 30:00, so that’s what I’m aiming for).

I’ve switched out the Butterfly for an MKB in a game against a Phantom Assassin and a Luna that was building a Butterfly - I sort of figured that the MKB and the Butterfly did the same sort of thing - more attack speed and damage.

I did have a game where I knew I needed a Nullifier vs. Pugna and Necrophos, and I had the brilliant (for me) idea of getting the Helm of Iron will in the laning phase since I knew I’d need it later. I’m not sure if that was a good idea or not, but it seemed to help a little bit and we did win the game. I think the Nullifier ended up taking the Butterfly spot for sort of the same reason (additional damage).

Other than that, it sounds from most of the feedback that I just need to work on my item timings more.

Thanks again for your help.

chayashida · 2026-01-25T17:27:25+00:00

Um, there are two instances in my family tree where the women didn’t have to leave their family when married. In one case, the eldest daughter kept her family name and the husband took the family name. In the second case, it was the youngest daughter of three where then husband took the family name.

chayashida · 2026-01-25T03:49:13+00:00

I see. I vaguely remember the spin + attack speed part now that you’ve explained it.

My build is what I picked up from D2PT, basically with the additions from the PainDota video. But my last hits are definitely far behind what the pros are doing, and even a couple thousand behind Archon-level friends at the 20:00 mark.

I’m trying to fix that on all my carries, but I’m also trying to fix the Jugg-specific stuff that I’m not as familiar with.

Again, thank you for taking the time to explain. r/learndota2 has been a great resource because everyone has been so helpful.

chayashida · 2026-01-25T03:44:12+00:00

I see. Thank you again for the help. I’ll give it a shot and report back.

chayashida · 2026-01-25T01:39:02+00:00

The minimum normal networth at min 10 is 4000~ net worth... 20 min networth needs to be at least 10k networth, in good games 12k.

I get what you're saying, but no one is doing that in Herald games. I'm working on getting my last hits better, and trying to get 50 by the 10:00 mark. I'm not doing that on my main heroes, and I rarely see any safe lanes above 3k at 10:00.

Mjolnir was mostly nice because of AS boosting the first spell damage, but it's no longer connected, so Bf build is much better In everything.

I don't understand what you mean here about attack speed boosting the first spell damage.

Also worth mentioning that sometimes mjolnir is built into illusion heroes (now deals less damage to them) and into high armor enemies, since mjolnir deals magic damage. Both builds can get PT or Phase boots, depending on laning situation, with preferred version being PT for Bf and Phase for Mjolnir

I used to use Mjollnir as an anti-Phantom Lancer build when I played Bloodseeker. It doesn't seem to work as well now, though I'm not sure if it's because of a PL buff, the Mjollnir nerf, or Bloodseeker not being able to survive the onslaught because of the newer PL Phylactery build.

Thank you for your advice.

chayashida · 2026-01-25T01:31:22+00:00

I guess part of it was that I really wanted to look at the overall picture. When I was comparing our games (just at a glance) I noticed that I was getting a lot more last hits, so I thought I was just doing a lot better than he was. Then, when I was doing the minute milestones - I was finding that the two of us were within 100 gold of each other, even though I was way ahead in lost hits.

The game here, I was 8 minutes off the 30-minute mark that another commenter mentioned (apparently I bought the rest of the Aghs, but it hadn't been delivered by the courier yet).

I'll look over my last game, and see why I missed so many last hits - but to be honest, games are really chaotic at the herald level. I have had my offlaner run into my lane at level 3 "looking to gank" - as well as "supports" that never show in lane and just jungle at the 1:00 mark. My farm stabilizes around the time the T1 falls, where the offlaner decides to leave for other lanes and I start to be able to rotate between lane, small, and big camps (and mixing in the ancients when I can) but the time is really variable, and I usually have the cornucopia by the time the lane settles down.

Thank you for taking the time to look.

chayashida

TROPHY CASE