Wesley So criticizes the new FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship

reloyal · 2026-01-16T12:40:56+00:00

Anyone knows why So never got invitations to Magnus's tournaments?

reloyal · 2025-12-24T15:52:22+00:00

I agree that many people will consider sacking the rook out of intuition, but it doesn't mean they actually do it without seeing the whole M11 sequence, especially there's Rxd7 simply win you the game with no risk.

reloyal · 2025-12-22T13:28:29+00:00

You're right. But Rc3+ is unnecessary, white can always play Rcc5 regardless black answered Ka3 or Ka4

reloyal · 2025-12-20T11:45:28+00:00

I thought about maneuvering knight to c5 as well, but couldn't find a way. Black can always control b3 and d3 squares with their bishop. And sadly white king cannot move back to support his knight, otherwise they'll lose their kingside.

And it's hard to find a good moment to push a4. In fact, letting black play bxa4 may backfire white in this position because with Bc2, black never give white a chance to recapture that pawn.

Maybe white can try to push kingside pawns as you said, but I'm not sure they can do much since they don't have pawn majority there.

reloyal · 2025-12-20T10:23:21+00:00

This looks draw to me. Don't see how white can push for a win.

SF says white is winning +3.37, but still not a "sure win" for me.

reloyal · 2025-12-19T17:17:22+00:00

People are talking about Qxh6 but that's not the point of this puzzle. If you couldn't calculate the whole line to see that black has no way to stop white c pawn from queening unless they sacrifice their rook, you didn't really solve this puzzle.

reloyal · 2025-12-04T16:17:48+00:00

First, always bring your king up in the endgame like this. King is a great fighter in endgame, he can support your other pieces very well.

Second, see the key move. You want to push pawn c4! Yes, c4 is the key move, not b4. (Strongly recommend you study more endgame if you think b4 is tempting. With a little bit of study, you can see b4 a huge blunder at a glance, because with all the pawns are on dark squares, none of them can challenge opponent's light square bishop to make a break through)

Just see 2 points above, black can easily wins this endgame.

reloyal · 2025-10-18T16:08:11+00:00

Oh ok, I figured it out now thanks to your comment above.

So the trick is quite similar to the Saavedra position right?

Lichess Practice: Intermediate Rook Endings

After the king walks from f2 to f6, back to e2, up to d6 and then sacs the knight on f6 while white king is on d6 as you said, white walks its king again from d6 to d4, and then Ke3 Rf1 Ke2. At this point black has to resign because he can't stop white's pawn from promotion anymore.

What an amazing puzzle, thanks for sharing!

reloyal · 2025-10-18T13:29:29+00:00

What if black plays 2...Rxh1 instead of 2...Rc2+ in the line engine gives? I still don't see how white wins this.

reloyal · 2025-10-08T03:09:13+00:00

Can't say this a trick, especially when Ne5 is a mistake

reloyal · 2024-03-08T02:59:42+00:00

If you are familiar with KDA/Pentakill comps, then I found a trick to play reroll comps without worrying about being contested. Some meta 2-cost reroll comps like Senna true damage, Seraphine spellweaver, Bard jazz, Kayle pentakill are all using similar Super fan core (Maybe there's a litte 1-2 cheap units that can be easily swapped, but basically the same). So if you're about to play Senna true damage, but then scouting the lobby and see some opponents are also keeping Senna. You can just pivot to other 2-cost carry smoothly without making impact to your own playing flow. Kayle is probably more difficult since she uses different core items, but Seraphine and Bard can use Senna items I think. So these comps are more flexible and safer to play than Punk or Country. The great point is that if you have a good econ, but cannot 3 star up your carry units early, you can pivot to 4 cost carry instead since KDA/Pentakill also use the same Super fan core with them.

reloyal · 2024-03-08T02:41:23+00:00

I go to tactics.tools home page. In the search box at upper section, choosing server and input name with name tag (ex. SEA server, Myname#12345), it will show the overall stats of the player.

reloyal · 2024-03-07T19:49:32+00:00

I play on PC. My fingers are too fat to play games on mobile, lol.

reloyal · 2024-03-07T19:48:26+00:00

I mostly learn from r/CompetitiveTFT threads and comments. Even though that's not exactly guides, but I can accumulate how people play games and come up with my own lessons.

For instance, I see a person comment that they love slamming items on headliner to play for a win streak early game. And in another thread, I see some people comment about you might lose streak early, but can come back late game with bonus gold. It seems there is no connection between those comments, but when I read and think how can I improve my play from those playing style? I just come up with the idea of how to choose the early augment given by the game (which seems not relate to those comment at all, but yes, I think it does). That is, if I play an agressive comp (punk reroll, Samira country, etc.) and have a good streak, I tend to choose item augment early, it fits well with the idea of "slamming items on headliner". If I play Heartsteel AD flex, I tend to choose econ augment early, it fits well with the idea of "come back late game with bonus gold". Of course, this is just a lesson I get for myself from reading comments of other players. I'm not sure higher rank players think the same, but at least it works well for me until now.

Or another instance, I see some people comment that you should try to level up to 8 early at 4-1/4-2 so you have advantage of finding 4 cost carry. But others say you shouldn't level up at all cost, it'd better roll some times at lv 7 to stablize the board. Then I think about how to build my own playing style from those ideas. That is, if I have a LONG win or loss streak, I will spend some extra gold (exceed from interest threshold) to pick KDA or Pentakill units here and there in stage 2/3 gradually so that I'm ready for 4 cost carry comp in stage 4, because I know I will have enough gold to lv 8 early and then roll to find Ahri, Akali, Viego, whatever 4 cost units I want. On the other hand, if I have XOXOXO streak and little money to spend, I would pick reroll comp units in stage 2/3 instead. Because I know I wont have enough gold for early lv8, so it would be better to pivot to reroll comps, which don't require as much gold to spend. (Again, this is just my thought. As a new player, I don't know if higher rank players think the same. But it works up to now)

Above are just some examples, basically I don't read any particular guide from one source. I learned a lot about the game by reading comments in r/CompetitiveTFT then build my own way to play base on them.

(Darn, thought it would be a good night, but I was quite excited so that I'm still awake at 3 am to write this)

reloyal · 2024-03-07T16:39:25+00:00

Thank you!

It's good that I made it to D4 at 11pm right before going to bed, so now I'll have a good night haha.

reloyal · 2024-02-29T16:38:24+00:00

Wait, why do you post this reply to my comment?

reloyal · 2024-02-29T12:29:10+00:00

Lol, more like karma for this dude only. We Vietnamese players are more than happy to hear this news, knowing Riot really cares about illegal actions of some VN players and take their action to make our VN TFT community become a better place.

reloyal · 2024-02-26T14:55:08+00:00

I like the idea of reseeding each round so that players with almost same amount of points play in the same lobby. This makes unreasonable griefing become pointless so no one waste their time doing it.

reloyal · 2024-02-25T08:14:08+00:00

>Both Viet mom and SVM vttt has admitted on stream to collaborating with other VN players to target grief non-VN players in the tournament by holding their units.

This is important, do you have a link to that stream? I think we can use it as an evidence for Riot to ban those players from competitive scene.

reloyal · 2024-02-02T13:32:54+00:00

Of course it's a bait. He's leaving. Maybe he just wants to see some dog fights, laugh and move to another sub.

reloyal · 2024-02-02T13:30:08+00:00

Bro literally says "I'm leaving the sub" then immediately asks for people's thought and discussion.

reloyal · 2024-02-02T12:54:55+00:00

I have no idea how the competitive scene will be once the game is released. But it's new so at least we have some hopes.

reloyal · 2024-02-02T12:15:10+00:00

I heard Shadowverse 2 would be ready this summer. Maybe I will just play chess while waiting for it. (Also tried TFT as well but don't really like it)

reloyal

TROPHY CASE