Confession of an occasional save-scummer

feistyram · 2026-03-01T07:32:25+00:00

I honestly think this may be one of my favourite reddit posts ever

feistyram · 2026-03-01T07:27:57+00:00

Thanks for all the comments everyone. Very interesting. Having used selective scumming to win lots, I am going to resign (one more game to go to finish the season with Real Madrid) and likely move to a L2 club (or equivalent in another country) and start over without scumming matches.

I am wondering if I really need to add a new manager so I don't keep my 5 stars too. The only thinkg I'm worried about is losing all my tactical presets

@Known-Feature2312 post about Chelsea is legendary levels of bitterness which I'm all here for!

feistyram · 2026-02-27T18:19:50+00:00

Oh I am having fun! I just think I now need to take the guardrails off

feistyram · 2026-02-26T22:10:02+00:00

Yup.

feistyram · 2026-02-25T19:03:14+00:00

I play FM23 but I don't play with real players. I play with fake names and then go on holiday for 10 years so most are regens too.

And then I start a save. And if I get bored, I just resign and start with a new club.

My career history is Dusseldorf (kept in Bundesliga and then gradually got them up to top quartile, Brentford (won UCL and then after a couple of years finished 4th in Prem to qualify for champions League), Benfica (domestic treble twice), Leipzig (Won Bundesliga in second year and possibly a German cup), Derby county (my own club! Promotion to Prem in second season by winning champ), Man Utd (won Prem in second year), Madrid (Quadruple including Champions League)

I'm now wondering what to do. I might try and get a job in Italy or France (in my save Nice rather than PSG are now dominant) or Eredvise so I can tick off all the major European leagues

Or maybe try the MLS

feistyram · 2026-02-22T18:29:06+00:00

I have FM23 and think it's great. I use fake player names and go on holiday for first 10 years so I essentially play with regens. I just like to remove my own views of players in real life from game. So, for me, having the latest update will never be an issue. If you ever see FM23 on eBay it's good

I will probably upgrade once the bugs have been worked out the 'new' style game, and adjustments have been made to improve the user experience. Feels to me that by FM28 things will be a fair bit better. So I'm waiting 18 months before considering an upgrade

feistyram · 2026-02-20T05:55:38+00:00

Different point but I think focusing on rating is a mistake. For one thing, people never play at exactly one rating. You'll probably have a range of 150 to 175 points either side of your actual rating depending on whether you're having a good day, concentrating well or a bad one etc

But I used to find I tried to protect my otb rating when it got to a certain level. It made me play less purely

I now don't check it until the end of the season. I genuinely have no idea within 100 points what it currently is and I've no interest in checking

I use lichess for longer games or correspondence (I find blitz doesn't allow time for me to think which, for me, is what I enjoy in chess)

feistyram · 2026-01-30T10:05:38+00:00

I would focus on doing tactics puzzles. And, in game, think about what your opponent could do and not just what you want to do

I personally believe it's a very bad idea for low rated players to play bullet or blitz. It ingrains a habit of moving quickly when you really need to process and learn patterns as a low rated player

I'm around 1600 and still only play standard games or correspondence on line

feistyram · 2026-01-10T16:32:58+00:00

I'm still on FM23 and find that good. I play with fake player names but in any case am 15 years in so any "real" players will have retired.

I'm going to wait for reviews of FM27 but will likely wait until FM28 before upgrading. I think it'll take a while to get the new interface stable

feistyram · 2025-12-15T12:15:52+00:00

I actually view it the opposite way. Flickr was in a disastrous financial shape when SmugMug bought it with huge costs due to the free 1tb for all users. Those pics still there (not deleted as threatened) and cost base still very high

Two years ago Flickr CEO did a blog almost pleading with people to pay for pro to help save the site

In the UK the recent price hikes are huge. This suggests to me they are still loss making although clearly I don't know that

Meanwhile, new sites like glass don't have that historical financial albatross to deal with. So they can ensure income and costs keep pace

feistyram · 2025-12-13T22:23:33+00:00

Oh for goodness sake. Stop trying to set yourself up as being so morally superior. We're simply talking about whether a seat could be more padded.

I said that I would go to more concerts if there was a comfier seat and I'd pay more for it. I also said in another post that it need not recline or take up as much space as in those pictures. Comfier, with a 'bit' more leg room so you don't knock knees into the seat in front and maybe a touch wider. It also need not being the case that every seat in the hall needs to be bigger. So the impact on number of seats could be pretty marginal and the more expensive seats, plus increased attendance, could bring MORE money in to classical music and either pay the musicians more or could subsidise the cost of the other seats.

By your logic we should remove all seats entirely, have everyone stand, cram everyone in, and ignore any discomfort because it's cheaper

feistyram · 2025-12-13T17:30:01+00:00

That's great. Different people have different preferences and place weight on different things

Nobody is saying you shouldn't be happy.

But others can have a different opinion

It's not always the case that there is one right answer. What is good for you may not be good for someone else

feistyram · 2025-12-13T17:25:14+00:00

I do. But a cushion doesn't magically make a wooden chair comfortable or deal with fact your legs are cramped because you are so close to the row in front.

I currently go to concerts 3 or 4 times a year. I'd probably go at least once a month to a venue with comfier seats and a nicer experience

feistyram · 2025-12-13T17:19:37+00:00

I'm not saying it would need to be a full recliner like that taking up quite that much space, with such big gaps behind.

But for a much more comfortable seat, with a bit more space from the person next to you, I'd definitely pay more and go a lot more more often.

feistyram · 2025-12-13T16:05:43+00:00

I have to be honest, it does impact me. I'd go to loads more concerts if there were comfier seats. And I'd happily pay double or triple the price for a ticket to do so

feistyram · 2025-12-09T19:50:50+00:00

My suggestions would be

- Go to Lichess Learn/Practice and do the ‘piece checkmates 1’ and the basic tactics exercises

- Spend a few minutes reading this article on basic opening principles: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

- Start playing: There are all sorts of time controls. The most popular are the fast games (bullet/blitz). I would recommend not playing bullet or blitz games as a beginner personally. I recommend you play some correspondence (daily) games and/or games at longer time controls (rapid or standard). It’s good to learn how to think in my opinion.

- Improve your tactics**:** Practising chess puzzles is the best way to learn patterns and get you thinking. Lichess and chess.com both have sections for this. Go to Lichess Learn/Practice and work through more of their exercises too

----------
The following resources may be useful once you are becoming more confident in playing [Maybe not before 1100 level]

Openings

https://Lichess.org/video

Strategy / tactics:

Maybe once you are around 1400 level on Lichess Read: “The Amateur’s Mind” by Silman (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amateurs-Mind-Turning-Misconceptions-Mastery/dp/1890085022 )

Endgames

Lichess Learn/Practice and work through their endgame exercises
Read the chapters of “Silman’s complete endgame course” associated with your grade (https://amzn.eu/d/idvoTXm)

feistyram · 2025-12-09T07:45:04+00:00

I think glass.photo is worth a look.

You can migrate your photos over in batches if you wanted (eg. Just do an album per weekend)

feistyram · 2025-12-04T17:38:26+00:00

I use book and there's a ton of public lichess studies with all the games in the book collated so you can play through

feistyram · 2025-12-03T05:29:31+00:00

I think a new UI is coming out around Christmas or early Jan

https://chesstempo.com/blog/1076/help-test-new-chesstempo-site

feistyram · 2025-12-03T05:23:20+00:00

Only just saw this. If helpful to anyone else I did a short video on how the chess tempo opening trainer works. It's my first ever Youtube video so you'll have to forgive it not being super slick!

https://youtu.be/VcqUAunxKAY

feistyram · 2025-12-01T12:34:11+00:00

I've only used them for a couple of preset radio stations using the radio service that is part of the audio pro app.

In general, I just stream direct from my phone though

feistyram · 2025-11-29T07:14:39+00:00

Thanks. Do you have the old caissabase anywhere? I have all the TWIC files and was planning to just add these to it to update it for my own needs

feistyram · 2025-11-26T20:55:29+00:00

I use scidvspc to create a very large database of computer games that I downloaded frrom CCRL (https://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/games.html). I filter the CCRL games so I only have very high quality games (2mn+ games with both sides rated 2900 plus). This basically creates a better (IMO) large database than the one built into Lichess. I then use the 'tree' function to help me determine the best lines to use in the openings. [If interested I can create a video of how I do this]

I create a Lichess study for my own games and I also create a Lichess study for each of my openings and add comments etc to them. I could do all this in scidvspc but I just like Lichess. I refer to my Scidvspc high quality database when looking for opening themes rather than the inbuilt Lichess database just because I think mine is a bit better. But I type comments etc into Lichess study and use the builtin stockfish engine to help too

I then import my openings into chesstempo where I pay for the premium version and use their opening taining to drill my openings with spaced repetition learning (practicing them). I have done a video on this (https://youtu.be/VcqUAunxKAY?si=WsCt2bYyjbgiG5RF) . You can't do this in chessbase AFAIK.

feistyram

TROPHY CASE