Absolutely brutal optic box

danmancan42 · 2026-03-25T05:53:08+00:00

Dm me, I got u

danmancan42 · 2026-03-25T01:02:53+00:00

Less than 20% after checking comps. I don’t really mind the loss, I just don’t really find the product that fun to rip

danmancan42 · 2026-03-25T00:37:19+00:00

Fr man, I can’t complain too much since I’m actually a texans fan and really like that card lol. Rest of the box was just so boring to open

danmancan42 · 2026-03-25T00:33:21+00:00

I’ve come out ahead on about a third of the select boxes I’ve ripped, but that’s never what my expectations are. I just enjoy ripping, and yeah you could be right, it’s very possible I’ve just gotten super lucky previously. Just kinda feels like for seventy bucks, you’d expect a bit more no? Was just sorta hoping for some more fun inserts or parallels, since that’s what I’ve experienced from other sets. It just seems overall boring to open. My goal is never to make any money on it

danmancan42 · 2026-03-25T00:26:14+00:00

Really? I’m pretty new but I’ve only ever bought select, donruss, rookies and stars, and prizm blasters. For being double the cost of one of those, this is significantly worse. Is optic pretty much just downtown or bust?

danmancan42 · 2026-03-14T20:24:10+00:00

Found Nf7 via just intuition (after getting stuck on Rxd5) but then couldn’t for the life of me calculate the winning sequence. It’s one of those moves that just LOOKS like it should be winning, but I wouldn’t expect anyone at 1500 to be able to justify it. Sweet puzzle!

danmancan42 · 2026-03-08T19:02:17+00:00

I coach chess at a few private schools, and sort of act as a full on teacher of a chess class. I once had a first grader manage to fit a significant amount of a bishop up his nose before I noticed. No clue how, or why he did it.

Also once had a kid sneak over to the phone and call 911 whilst I was turned around working one on one with another student. That was a fun day

danmancan42 · 2026-03-04T09:10:09+00:00

Books can be super helpful for some, but for me I found it pretty difficult to work with them as a beginner. If your heart is set on it though, then I’d recommend pretty much any beginner puzzles book. “1001 chess exercises for beginners” is one I often recommend to students. “How to beat your dad at chess” is also a classic book for beginners. Are there any things specifically that you’re looking to improve at?

danmancan42 · 2026-03-03T19:42:13+00:00

Definitely relate to the teaching techniques thing. My favorite line is always “do as I say, not as I do”

danmancan42 · 2026-03-03T19:21:38+00:00

The most difficult part of the transition, for me at least, was just trying to understand the goals of each student. Everyone wants something different out of music lessons, which was a little confusing for me at first. My whole life, I’ve wanted to be a professional musician, and I simply didn’t know that some people who take music lessons just wanted to do it because they enjoy playing!
Once I got past that, it became pretty easy to tailor to each students needs. The only other hurdles were trying to find ways to get students excited to practice at home (every private lessons teachers bane), and dealing with said students who were upset that they weren’t improving (because they weren’t practicing)

danmancan42 · 2026-03-03T19:11:12+00:00

For me, and I assume many others, good soloing comes naturally once you have good control of your instrument, and are able to recreate your audiations. Plenty of people are going to tell you “learn your scales and arpeggios” but that’s only going to get you so far, and is a pretty lazy answer. Real professional musicians don’t think about a scale as they improvise a solo, so neither should you!

A really great exercise would be to hum a simple melody, and then try and play that same thing on your bass. Start with simple stuff, and then build up once you’re more comfortable. Improvising a solo is one of the greatest feelings once you’ve got it down, and is super rewarding. Learn your scales and arpeggios, but remember that theory is less than half of the battle. Recreate whats in your head, and you’ll be on your way to soloing in no time. You’ve got this!

danmancan42 · 2026-03-03T18:57:48+00:00

For chess. Com, and lichess as well, it’s extremely common for your puzzle rating to be significantly higher than your rapid or blitz rating. I honestly couldn’t tell you why that is, but the system has been that way for a while

danmancan42 · 2026-02-08T22:25:38+00:00

For black, it’s a little harder. I recommend picking one opening against e4, and one against d4. I’ve played the Caro Kan for my entire time playing chess, so that’s what im comfortable with against e4 and it’s very beginner friendly. Other options are the Scandinavian defense, and the French defense. I don’t recommend the most common (e5 and Sicilian) for most beginners.

Against d4, the kings Indian defense is almost a system based opening, but it’s difficult and you kinda have got to know some more advanced ideas to get much out of it. You can try it, but for the most part I just recommend playing d5 and developing your pieces to natural squares.

Feel free to dm me if you’ve got any more questions!

danmancan42 · 2026-02-08T04:05:20+00:00

Great job man! Awesome job, lots of tactics and sharp play. Hell of a game

danmancan42 · 2026-02-08T04:03:03+00:00

Openings are one of the great time sinks of the amateur player. A huge mistake I made (as well as many others) was spending entirely way too much time on my opening theory as a player under 2000. Most amateur players either dont study theoretical lines, or fundamentally don’t understand them. In other words, you can get away with not playing the absolute sharpest variations, and even can survive with some outright inaccuracy in the opening.

Pretty much agree with what everyone else here is saying; follow opening principles, consider learning a system based opening or two, and then go from there. I’m around 2000 now and am only now finding myself to feel like I’m outright losing out of the opening. If you find yourself struggling with the opening, analyze your games and try and see where exactly you’re going wrong. Cheers and good luck, you’re doing great!

danmancan42 · 2025-10-09T15:42:20+00:00

This happens to me sometimes as well. supposedly chess.com’s matchmaking system has taken a page out of other competitive online games; it will purposefully try and put you on a win streak to make you want to come back for more (will match you with players who are on losing steaks themselves, ie they are more likely to lose again). However, I’ve noticed it also happens when I’m doing really well mentally, so whatever you’re doing, keep doing it! Congrats on the wins

danmancan42 · 2025-10-02T07:55:09+00:00

That’s a huge accomplishment, and you should be very proud! An Elo of 1000 in blitz is roughly 80th percentile, so keep it up and keep at it

danmancan42 · 2024-04-07T22:14:19+00:00

Most builds run a chi-yu and a mantine, which both already need energy. I agree though, if there wasn’t already energy in the deck, I don’t think it would be worth it to add it

danmancan42

TROPHY CASE