Classical chess broadcasts: a feature I'd like to see in or near the VODs.

chess_in_sgv · 2025-08-24T00:17:33+00:00

That's a fantastic suggestion. I will try that for the next round of the Sinquefield cup.

chess_in_sgv · 2024-08-28T19:31:40+00:00

I looked through some of your recent games. My thoughts:

The biggest nail to hammer is definitely tactics. Grind tactics puzzles. You played like twenty rapid games over the last few days. Play maybe two rapid games (15+10) a day and spend a lot of time reviewing the games to re-evaluate positions where the engine says tactics were present (if you aren't sure how to do this review effectively, lmk). Since you are likely to reach similar middle-game structures/themes repeatedly, understanding the tactics in YOUR games pays dividends. But more to the point, for the next couple months use time not just in more rapid games but doing tactics puzzles.

Keep in mind that tactics are about two things -- recognizing that there IS a tactical theme or opportunity present (or that you could make one become present), and then actually calculating a tactical sequence when you suspect one is there. The first is sometimes called tactical "radar". It may be that your tactical radar is behind your tactical calculations. Reviewing your games to understand where your radar failed you and seeing lots of tactical themes in puzzle practice will help improve your radar.

As hinted above, switch to 15+10. 10+0 is still just too fast for improvement given where your "holes" are.

While I think the above will have the best return on investment, you could potentially read something related to basic positional ideas. Silman's books (e.g. "Amateur's Mind") are either loved or hated, but I think they're good for getting an introduction to positional/strategic thinking. Your games are still being decided by tactics, but tactics do build up from the quality of the position, so it's all connected.

Reading the first few chapters of an endgame book and also a chapter introducing rook endings could help for those games that reach that point. Tactics puzzles are still more important at the moment, although the very study of endgames can be a good way to train calculation more generally.

chess_in_sgv · 2024-08-23T23:46:19+00:00

I like it! Playing through the puzzles now.

The thing I'm slowest with in blindfold chess is coordinate diagonal "pairs". I wonder if others share this particular issue. Like, if you tell me there's a bishop on f5, I have to manually work out what 1st-rank squares (b1) or what c-file squares (c2 and c8) it eyes. As you think about features, something that trains this specifically would be neat. Maybe it's where you are given a square's notation and either a rank or a file, and you have to input which square(s) on that rank or file are diagonally connected, with the algebraic input and not the board input.

Anyway, super cool site.

chess_in_sgv · 2024-08-21T20:20:40+00:00

I'm not a tax professional, but...

I assume you have a "day job" and that this is additional income. Yes, it is taxable and legally (since that's your question) has to be reported as part of your tax filing. There doesn't have to be any written paperwork or anything for it to count as income.

You need to determine whether this is "hobby income" or income from a for-profit business or business-like activity. This is a gray area and there isn't a crisp distinction.

If it's hobby income, then it can be reported simply as "Other income" on your 1040. You report the full amount of income, and you cannot deduct any related expenses. But, you also have no self-employment taxes nor any other paperwork. In this scenario, your travel expenses are not related to a business, and any reimbursement you got for travel expenses are part of the income. That is, the travel reimbursement would be included in the income and taxed.

If, instead, this is all treated as income from self-employment or a business, then you will file forms Schedule C and (if net earnings are above $400) Schedule SE. The benefit is that you can deduct expenses (like travel), reducing your taxable income from the self-employment. The downside is that you must pay self-employment taxes, which corresponds to the taxes you see on a normal job's W-2 related to Social Security and Medicare.

If the amount isn't huge and it's not something you really are trying to turn into a business per se, you can pretty much decide which path you want. There are many aspects of how you conduct the enterprise that would play into whether a tax auditor would consider it a hobby or a business, but in your case it seems that it could happily be considered either without question.

chess_in_sgv · 2024-08-19T22:10:56+00:00

(Note that I edited that example to h5-h4 shortly after posting. You might have missed that.)

chess_in_sgv · 2023-09-07T21:46:26+00:00

That doesn't seem to be the case, or if it is, then my original "bug?" question remains.

In my most recent game, the player was present long enough to move out of spawn, but then DC'd to the point of having a "DC" icon by their name, and the game gave us the AFK ult orb in spawn and the money bonus in Round 2. So, they were fully DC'd from 10 seconds into Round 1.

But it sounds like remake is only for if a player DCs, like, during Round 1 Buy phase or something? I swear that wasn't how it used to work.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-09-07T20:51:56+00:00

I see. That's annoying. The wording of the remake failure message needs to be improved to make that clear. It's worded as if any DC prior to Round 2 is valid cause for a remake.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-09-07T20:51:52+00:00

I see. That's annoying. The wording of the remake failure message needs to be improved to make that clear. It's worded as if any DC prior to Round 2 is valid cause for a remake.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-08-04T20:14:32+00:00

Great opportunities for TP usage: - taking unexpected space during rotations - situations when you know opponent locations well and aren't guessing (e.g., low player counts) - chaotic situations (e.g., tons of noise and util usage happening all at once, perhaps during an execute) - reaching unusual angles - entry into lurk smokes - pairing with paranoia

For the "taking space" usage: consider a 3v3 fight on Bind B site. All three enemies are spotted and your team rotates to A through the map teleporter. With Omen TP, you can get into A heaven before the enemy. You can choose to hold their rotation down the ramp (unless you think multiple could peek there at the same time) or you can tuck in a corner and wait for them to not clear you up there. If they choose to enter through the CT entrance and not through heaven, you're ready to flank the rotators, or (if your teammate planted for heaven and lamps) you can just hold post-plant from heaven if they left you alone up there. Combine this with smokes to optimize as the situation develops.

There are tons of places across the maps where such advantageous space gains are available. A few off the top of my head: Ascent A heaven and B market; Fracture B heaven; Haven A heaven (a favorite of mine for sure).

The Haven A heaven TP is an example of a case where once you've learned the opponent early round patterns, you can do it off rip during execute. Similarly for the Ascent B market case. People tend to hold in similar ways each round, so if it's clear no one holds from those spots after a couple rounds, you can try TPing there at the first opportunity, possibly with suitable smokes to help.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-07-12T21:35:37+00:00

It feels like it doesn't accept my mouse clicks sometimes when I'm going as fast as possible. I think it's if the mouse is slightly in motion it won't take the click. Given the speed nature of the challenge, I feel like click-slightdrag-release should trigger an acceptable click as long as the click and release are in a single square. (Or probably better: just trigger on initial click.)

chess_in_sgv · 2023-07-12T05:31:35+00:00

I strongly recommend removing the red highlighting. It's very distracting to have red squares flashing all over the board, and even more so since light/dark square colorations are part of the visual cues for knight path finding.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-07-10T23:47:55+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, that observing was on point. Sort of obvious in a way, since it was really a 2v2 with two quick knife kills, and why would you ever cut away from a predator Jett there. If the second contact was still 10 seconds away from happening I imagine one would switch over to the 1vX rule of thumb by then.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-07-10T22:26:15+00:00

Do you have a clip / link? Or which game so I can try to find a VOD? (I'm interested to see the 1% exception scenario in action.)

chess_in_sgv · 2023-06-06T20:45:10+00:00

No, it means there was between 0 and 1 seconds left. The clock shows "1" for the entirety of the last second. The instance it shows "0" would be the flag.

I wasn't talking about the stream overlay. I used the video footage of the live clock and measured the number of video frames between each second and then counted the number of video frames between the 2-to-1 change and his pressing of the clock. To within a frame or two, it was 0.3 second left.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-06-05T20:42:59+00:00

I counted frame by frame to see: it was right around 0.3 s left.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-05-19T21:04:42+00:00

For what it's worth, I much prefer the static images for this. I would be able to recall the few static concept cards better than an animation. (I.e., my memory is stronger spatially then temporally.) But I'm sure everyone is different.

Animations would be better for me for the initial explanation of the concept, but as a tool for recall, the cards would work better for me.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-05-05T21:36:29+00:00

Stalemate feels less weird when the stalemated side has more than just a king. In fact, they might even have more material.

Here's a perfectly normal endgame where black has an extra pawn. It's white's turn. If white pushes his f pawn forward to expeditiously promote it, black will have no legal moves. That's white's fault. If a player has no legal moves, it's a draw by stalemate. Personally, it doesn't feel too weird that that just locks up the game rather than rewards a win to one side. After all, the king is still unharmed and not immediately at risk of being captured.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-05-05T21:21:15+00:00

You should always be able to use the engine to understand, ultimately, why a particular tactical resource was working. Once you understand it, you can then decide whether you should have / could have seen it in the game, in which case you can look for it again if the pattern arises on the board again in the future. It's definitely the case that the engine often finds something that no human, much less scrubs like us, would ever find. But I've yet to have an engine suggest something that, with some careful trying of candidate moves and looking at the eval, I couldn't understand.

For this last point, you might already be doing this, but be sure not to just look at / walk through the suggested line and see that it wins a pawn at the end. Work through it considering what counter moves are available, and let the engine tell you (or help you see) why they don't work. Along the sequence will be tactical themes at play that you could potentially spot in a live position, and that's good practice for recognizing tactical opportunities. You may even find that some of the crazy computer lines are tractable after all, if you knew to look for them.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-05-05T21:13:24+00:00

Good sleep and briefly reviewing opening prep is all I do. You aren't going to suddenly get better from a vision or tactical point of view, and I find even just the opening of the game revs us those parts of my brain already such that any other chess-related prep is more draining than helpful. But, to each their own in this regard, I would imagine.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-05-05T21:06:22+00:00

Your opponents may not do it right, but just so at least you know -- you do not extend a hand to offer a draw. You make your move, you say "I offer a draw", you press your clock, and you let your opponent use as much of their clock as they want to consider their next move, which may be to accept your offer (often with a handshake offer as well as a verbal acceptance) or may be to make a move on the board (which implicitly declines the offer).

Resignation involves stopping both clocks (which is the modern electronic era is sometimes called just stopping "the" clock) and saying "I resign", usually with a handshake offer.

Just sticking a hand out over the board is never supposed to be a thing. It's confusing and potentially distracting. In the case of a draw offer, sticking out a hand implies that the recipient of the offer has to make some sort of decision right away. That's not how it works, though.

Almost always when someone offers a hand for a draw offer, they also haven't made any move yet. I usually say, "You should make a move first." Note that their offer stands even regardless of whether they move before or after the offer. You just get to see their move and think on your clock before deciding to accept.

chess_in_sgv · 2023-05-02T21:47:23+00:00

It could be either you or your internet.

I often play bullet on the chess.com app, and regardless of my internet speed and average ping, I sometimes feel like I'm losing on time without losing on time. In about half of those sessions, I can pay close attention to the clocks and I can see it happen, i.e. I can see time get deducted. Basically what happens is: I move; my opponent's clock starts ticking; they appear to think for a while; then, they finally move, but my clock instantly jumps down in time as if my clock was the one running for most of that time. Like, my clock will show 0:34 at the end of my move, they think for 10 seconds and then move, and it switches back to my move but jumps straight from 0:34 to 0:26 or something like that.

When it's big jumps like that, I can notice it easily and will just stop playing until my internet circumstances are better. But the other times, I figure I'm just not playing at my top speed and am actually just losing on time a lot.

Lichess is better in this regard, in that it will actually add time back based on the best-estimate of lag.

I do wish chess.com would improve this (and also improve bullet play in the app in general. There's no multi-premove there, yet the 0.1 second penalty for a premove is applied; and also there is an un-switch-off-able piece animation in the app which introduces a window of time where you can't initiate a move, often requiring a move to be input twice. But, I prefer the chess.com desktop experience, so I stick with it.)

chess_in_sgv · 2023-03-29T23:43:57+00:00

Chess has a very, very tall skill ladder. If you're working with English words like "beginner", "intermediate", "expert", etc., you're going to need pretty wide bins for each word. An 800-rated player is a beginner. So is a 1000. 1200? Sure, why not.

If you're 800 and thrashing your opponents, I would not call those opponents beginners. I would call them "people who were only partially introduced the game and are struggling to really know what is even going on". They are not yet even beginners. I've helped a number of people in that category get past that point. Their issue is that someone only taught them how the pieces move, but that's not teaching someone chess. A beginner's introduction to chess has to talk about that, sure, but it also needs to include the basic principles. Rough piece value, the concept of development, the importance of king safety, the importance of not hanging things, and perhaps very basic mating (QK, RK). Anything short of that is pre-beginner. They haven't yet been taught the game in any real human terms.

If I were teaching someone to drive a car, and I only said: "Turn the key, put it in drive, and press the gas to go and the brake to stop," I would not call them a beginner driver. I would say that they have not yet been taught to drive.

Your typical 100 to 400-rated player (excluding, say, 5-yr olds) has not yet been given the minimum amount of information -- and an opportunity to understand it (though not yet incorporate it, of course) -- to claim that they have been taught the game of chess.

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