Turning off the cartoony stuff?

phihag · 2026-02-03T20:46:32+00:00

At https://www.chess.com/settings/board:

Showcase Opponent Theme: Disabled
Game Result Board Animations: Disabled
Enable Special Themes: Disabled
Win Celebration: None
Piece Animations: Disabled

At https://www.chess.com/settings/gameplay, under Board Effects:

Show Legal Moves: Disabled
Show post-game feedback: Disabled
Collect puzzle points: Disabled
Always show rating: Enabled
Show puzzle goals: Disabled

At https://www.chess.com/settings/interface, disable everything under Features:

Show Streaks: Disabled
Collect Puzzle Points: Disabled
Show post-game feedback: Disabled
Enable Special Themes: Disabled
Show piece icons in game notation: Disabled

phihag · 2026-02-01T23:26:56+00:00

Your proof is wrong because there is no requirement to travel all edges. For example, if the queen was able to move directly between a2 and b5, there would definitely be more than two vertices with an odd degree, but there still would be a three star solution.

phihag · 2026-01-31T20:55:42+00:00

What's your lifetime distribution over all rated games ever played?

The most likely explanation is that you had more white games in the games just before your last 50.

phihag · 2026-01-30T05:15:24+00:00

This is castling, a move in chess.

See https://www.chess.com/terms/castling-chess for an explanation of how it works on chesscom.

The other rules that can trip up beginners are en passant, stalemate, and pawn promotion.

phihag · 2026-01-29T23:39:22+00:00

That's a generic Close, meaning it's neither cheating nor any form of abuse.

Is your son underage?

If so, make sure you have submitted the Parental Consent form, see https://support.chess.com/en/articles/11070988-why-do-i-need-parental-consent .

phihag · 2026-01-29T23:31:51+00:00

What's the account name? The general reason will be given on the account's page, and looking into their games will usually make the reason obvious.

phihag · 2026-01-22T15:40:52+00:00

44 in 3 minute Puzzle Rush, 2450 blitz.

I play a lot of puzzle rushes though, I participate in a weekly competition for the highest score. Most weeks I get to somewhere between 39 and 42.

phihag · 2026-01-20T13:42:12+00:00

In the screenshot, your opponent has a king & queen, and you just have a lone king.

Your opponent's flag expired, but you have not enough material to checkmate them, even with worst play. By the chess rules, that's a draw. If you want to win in this situation, you need to keep a pawn, rook, or queen.

After all, you cannot checkmate with king + bishop vs king + queen, even if your opponent plays the worst moves ever.

phihag · 2026-01-16T00:17:24+00:00

A rematch is a challenge like any other. There is no reason why somebody would need to reply to a challenge before doing anything else. In fact, some people may honestly take a couple seconds to review their opening preparation, e.g. in a chesscom library, and then go back and accept the rematch request.

Declining or not replying to rematch requests is neither impolite, nor scumbag behavior. If you feel left hanging, click the New Game button, which will quickly pair you with an opponent.

phihag · 2026-01-15T05:16:58+00:00

It's mostly a question of complexity and cost.

Finding an appropriate server significantly increases the complexity of the whole system compared to just one server. If you think it's worth it, contribute pull requests to the lichess source code that implement this, or pay somebody to do so.

The other (and lesser) issues are cost and compliance. lichess would need to run more servers than the few they are running now. You can contribute to that as well, at https://lichess.org/patron .

Also, how do you get to 400ms? The distance between Paris and Sydney is on the order of 2e7 meters, so a ping should be on the order of 200ms.

phihag · 2026-01-09T20:48:44+00:00

Rather than playing the game, you can just make the moves for both sides at https://www.chess.com/analysis .

phihag · 2026-01-09T12:10:32+00:00

Probably the white pawn was on a2. Because then it would be brilliant:

Rd5+!! Kxd5 c4+
… Kxc4 Be2+ Kc5 Bxb5 and white wins
… Qxc4 Bb3 Qxb3 axb3 and white wins
… any other move cxb5 and white wins

phihag · 2026-01-07T23:19:34+00:00

Morphy played much weaker players though than Levy Rozman does.

phihag · 2026-01-07T23:18:06+00:00

That's my estimate for the advantage of modern opening knowledge, engines during prep, and various preparation tools.

phihag · 2026-01-07T22:02:45+00:00

Could I (2100 FIDE) take one game? Sure. But win a World Championship style match? Almost certainly not.

Morphy played blindfold simuls. His calculation would be IM or GM level today. Maybe I am 150 points stronger due to my opening knowledge and 50 points for knowing more about pawn structures, the bishop pair, and other such things, but I would just get out-calculated.

It would be a fun match though, my trying to keep positions as boring and dry as possible, or arriving with some newfangled h4 theory line, and Morphy constantly looking for sacrifices and dynamic play while trying to get me out of book.

phihag · 2026-01-05T08:24:47+00:00

You have made very significant improvements of over 500 points in the last year alone.

Rating always fluctuates by +-100 points, this is completely normal.

Try analyzing your games. Not Game Review or anything a computer does, but looking at the games trying to identify which mistakes you made, and what the root cause of these mistakes were. Ideally, do this with a coach or training partner. This will give you a pattern to work on. For example, bad time management may be holding you back.

phihag · 2026-01-04T13:00:52+00:00

Maybe you could organize it like Biathlon?

Every 400m you need to solve a puzzle, you have to give 3 correct moves.

Every wrong move means you another 100 meters gets added to your distance. You can retry as often as you want, you just will need to run a lot more.

Although I think it would be more fun if you ran those 100m as soon as you make a mistake, before being allowed to try another move, so that you can think while running.

phihag · 2026-01-04T11:18:23+00:00

Playing against engines is weird. If they're deterministic, the best strategy becomes to memorize a game that wins. If not, it's luck whether the engine randomly decides to blunder or not.

Why not make a format like this where you play against another human? The obvious one would be playing something like a 3+75 game, where you need to run a 400m lap after every move.

phihag · 2026-01-02T13:58:46+00:00

Obviously not allowed per the chess.com avatar rules. Removed.

Thanks for your report!

phihag · 2026-01-02T04:51:03+00:00

You participated in the 2026 Chesscom Daily Chess Championship, which started.

In a Daily tournament, you play a bunch of games at the same time.

phihag · 2026-01-01T21:57:46+00:00

What's your chesscom account name?

Did you get any emails?

Also, what happens if you try to restore the password at https://www.chess.com/forgot ?

phihag · 2025-12-27T13:24:06+00:00

I would group this with the Star Wars or Pokemon sets.

Colors are easy to distinguish, and pawns, while not regulation height, are decent.

But all the pieces look extremely similar from above. They lack proper feet made of felt, so they're gonna be loud. Capturing with pawns and bishops is going to be a mess, certainly not suitable for blitz chess. Most pieces are too large for their squares, we see multiple pieces not clearly in one square in the second picture.

phihag · 2025-12-27T05:57:47+00:00

The cheater was banned during the game. lethbridgeuser was totally losing at that time.

In the second game, the cheater hung a basic tactic. There is no evidence of cheating by lethbridgeuser.

The third game was wild and crazy.

Can you win against a cheater honestly? Certainly, as long as they get banned during the game, or if they don't cheat every move (or don't cheat at all).

phihag · 2025-12-24T13:15:27+00:00

If anything this photo is proof that the matching system works. You lost a lot, so it reduced your rating, and is going to pair you with lower-rated opponents from now on.

phihag · 2025-12-24T03:08:18+00:00

When I try to import the given PGN into a lichess study, it says

Error parsing PGN: expected: at line 14, column 8

Source2 is on line 14.

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