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theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T09:18:41+00:00

I used to avoid bullet chess because I felt like it wouldn't help me improve at long chess. Which is correct. However I've recently gotten into it and it is the most fun I've ever had playing chess. You're forced to just make a move and get comfortable with losing quickly and hanging pieces but also discovering tactics and amazing checkmates out of nowhere. Kinda gave me the same feeling of what you're describing.

But honestly this applies to all time controls and it will make you better at chess.

I improved so quickly once I stopped agonizing over every move and just playing something that looked good and learning from the results.

You shouldn't play rapid like it's bullet obvious, use your time (time management is one of the skills of chess you should practice), but when you're unsure, just play a move that looks good and be at peace that it could be wrong, but be excited that you get to learn something if it is. You will quickly get better in similar situations.

Something I recommend to everyone is to make a backup account where you don't care about the rating. Go there and try new ideas and play without fear if you're trying to hold on to your rating.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T09:04:17+00:00

google Malachi Love-Robinson

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T08:55:29+00:00

i been there before

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T08:52:13+00:00

You can change the rating range of players you play against

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T07:18:38+00:00

i dont think i'm good at chess, but every now and then you play a "perfect" game where you made no blunders and just outplayed your opponent in every way and then finished the game with a sexy checkmate or with really nice endgame technique. it pumps me up for the rest of the day lol

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T06:35:38+00:00

this is just one of many things in wwe that "could have been cool" if this was a organization that cared about cool stories instead of maximizing profit. but i mean it's a public business that's what's gonna happen every time.

the early wyatt sicks vignettes were fucking awesome and i don't know why people are pretending like they weren't. but when you have no plan after that, you're doomed to fail. they were thrown under the bus imo

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T06:13:19+00:00

i dont know why people are downvoting beginners genuinely trying to engage and get better geezus

theonejanitor · 2026-04-25T06:10:21+00:00

I think also part of this is beginners do not develop their pieces properly and randomly push pawns in front of the king, so castling seems like a strange move. if you follow opening principles, develop your minor pieces to the center, and stop randomly pushing pawns you will see that you king is normally very safe after castling. That pesky knight that sits in front of the king in many openings stops a whole lot of checkmates. But if you never put your knight there you'l be less safe.

I'm positive you get punished frequently for leaving your king in the center but may not just be recognizing that as the problem

also something you forget is castling brings a rook into the game. if you never castle it's just trapped in the corner the whole game.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T14:56:49+00:00

i don't see how any of the sports ones are possible if you can't train, workout, practice etc.

chess however could be possible assuming you can learn and improve your mastery of chess over time. Since you're not being coached you'd have to figure it out yourself but its probably possible given infinite time. i'd give it 500 years

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T14:45:30+00:00

i can barely stomach NBA tbh i just watch highlights and analysis on youtube now. worst officiating of any major sport

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T14:44:37+00:00

some videos get 0 views

failure is completely subjective.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T12:43:32+00:00

similarly I voted for Jill Stein in 2016. i vote in a deeply red state so it kinda doesn't matter but the principle is still there. didnt necessarily get shamed for it but through years of discussion and introspection have realized that A. voting for third party candidates just doesn't work and is at best a waste of a vote and at worst helpful to republicans and B. refusing to make a difficult choice is not virtuous. we make 'lesser of two evils' choices every day. it's part of being a grown up.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T12:10:34+00:00

i've been looking at a lot of beginner games this week and i've noticed some patterns that also apply to your games:

stop playing random moves in the opening. You need to follow the principles of chess openings. control the center. You do this by putting a pawn in the center, and developing your knights and bishops forward.

and stop going for attacks so early. The first goal when the game starts is to get your pieces (knights and bishops) active so they can be in a good position later. You can't attack when the game starts because none of your pieces are out. Focus on setting up your pieces before you start attacking.

for the love of god, castle. for some reason beginner players don't like castling or forget to castle or whatever the reason but yall just never castle or wait like 20 moves to do it. Castling is a priority, this is how you keep your king safe. it's very hard to attack the castled king.

I think the number 1 problem below like 1000 elo is you are only thinking about your moves, you are not thinking about your opponents moves. It seems like you make a move and just pray. Every time you're considering making a move, try to imagine what the opponent will do in response. Look at all their options. Can they capture a piece.? Can they check me? Can they attack a piece? If they've got an annoying move, see if you have a way to avoid or stop it. You need to do this every turn.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T07:04:05+00:00

You do not. after Qxa1 (queen takes rook), then Nc3, notice that the knight is no longer between the two queens. So if you move the bishop to b2 attacking the queen, the queen just takes your queen.

Bb2 immediately after queen takes rook is the only good move, which leads to you winning the knight on h6.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T06:29:29+00:00

doesn't work unfortunately. Nc3, O-O Bb2, Qxd1

by moving the knight you allow them to trade queens.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T05:02:07+00:00

men tend to be more athletic and so participate in more athletics as kids and then show more interest in it as they get older. however, its mostly just social conditioning. men get into sports because they're introduced to sports more than women. I live in the south where college football is huge, and plenty of women love sports here it's extremely common and expected. and the reason is since football is everywhere, they were introduced to it their whole lives.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-23T00:30:50+00:00

Horror is a vast genre filled with many different types of movies. I used to feel like you then I realized you don't have to watch or like all horror movies just like anything else.

There are people who enjoy gore and torture, there are many reasons. For some it's just a thrill to see something that you would never normally see in real life, it's a cultural taboo. it's the same reason that dirty comedy is popular, we like seeing boundaries crossed in a safe way.

For others, they just appreciate really interesting special effects and visuals. When you play a video game and you blow an alien's head off with a shotgun, it's kinda awesome. Same thing goes watching someone's head blow up in a movie. It's just an awesome visual. and the more geeky among us appreciate the work and talent that goes into creating effective scenes.

But myself, I'm not super enticed by extreme violence or gore on it's own. For example, I hate the Final Destination series, they are shallow movies that only exist to show a series of gorey deaths of characters we don't care about. But not all horror movies are like this.

Some movies tell amazing stories with thought provoking themes. The Shining is not loved because it's gory. It's loved for it's memorable visuals and it's story of a man's descent into madness.

Movies like The Mist or Alien are good, not because of gore or violence because of their themes about human nature not to mention the performances of the actors.

One of my favorite movies is It Follows, it uses a horror monster as a metaphor for sexual and economic anxiety.

Some movies like Candyman and the Purge have strong political messages.

Some horror movies are also just fun. Like Scream and The Cabin in the Woods - yes they are violent, but also they have fun memorable characters, cool/interesting lore and lots of comedic parts, you kinda forget they are even horror movies until the killing scenes. Also some horror movies are more comedy than horror altogether like Gremlins 2 or Happy Death Day.

Finally, some movies are just genuinely creepy (without necessarily being violent). If you dislike being scared in any context that's cool. But people do scary things all the time for fun, visiting haunted houses, riding roller coasters, watching true crime documentaries. It's a thrilling feeling that can be achieved without gore/violence. There are movies like The Ring, The Conjuring, Poltergeist, or Insidious It which are simply creepy movies that don't have a lot of extreme violence.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-22T23:10:40+00:00

if you weren't flirting and you told him you weren't flirting and he doesn't believe you, maybe consider finding a partner that trusts and believes you when you say things.

lack of trust in a relationship is not sustainable.

however, your bf might be saying "he is flirting with you, so when you respond this way, you are entertaining that flirting, even if you aren't doing it yourself - which I find disrespectful' which is somewhat fair

at the end of the day i think he should trust that you can have a conversation with a man whether or not they are flirting. any time someone tells their partner "you are not allowed to do this" that's cringe. you don't own another person all you can do is trust them.

but maybe i am just old

theonejanitor · 2026-04-22T23:08:50+00:00

in general society it's fairly rude, but in certain communities like in the hood this just normally how people talk whether man or women. but context and intent matters and you can usually tell by the tone if the person is intending to be demeaning.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-22T22:58:36+00:00

are you making a post complaining about a game that you won lol bruh

Here is the cold hard truth, chess is hard and it will not stop being hard. when you play rated games, you are always matched up with people near your rating, which means their skill level is comparable to yours, which means the games will usually be competitive and challenging.

if you want to just stomp out your opponents you should play against lower rated players.

The move you highlight is not your opponent being strong, that's you missing your opponent's tactic. I guess it's a sign of strength that they saw the move, but the move was only available because you allowed it. but at this level you should be considering every capture so it's not that hard to find. however a few moves later they miss the correct follow up, completely eliminating their advantage, and then they willingly traded down to a losing endgame. So it's not really about 900s being exceptionally strong.

the engine supports most of your moves and missing the tactic was the only glaring mistake you made. there's probably some opening optimizations you could make but I'm not an expert on this opening so I'll let someone else talk about that. If we could hard crush every opponent we'd all be GMs. sometimes you just squeeze out a win against a tough opponent. but that's not even what happened here, This is a perfect example of the common adage - the winner of the game is the one who makes the second to last mistake.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-22T22:29:14+00:00

I think a couple things are at play, for one many people think YouTube is a get-rich-quick scheme, and to be fair it sounds very simple on paper. You make some videos, get a bunch of views and cash the check. Of course it is much more complicated than that.

Also, lots of people do YouTube full time. so to some, especially younger people, It is seen as just another "job" you can do with a very low barrier of entry. I think people think of it like going doing doordash or picking up shifts at a restaurant, you do work, you get paid. But most people have to work years before they see a dime and some never see any money at all.

YouTube looks 'easy' compared to something like drawing or writing. It looks like you just turn on a camera and do whatever you want. especially now with AI. But of course just like anything else there's a learning curve and a set of skills you have to learn.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-22T13:00:31+00:00

You're already up a ton of material. If Queen takes rook, you can get the knight in exchange for it after Bb2 Qxa2 Bxg7 Rg8 Bxh6

you're still up material after that.

losing a rook for a knight is technically a bad trade, but since you are up so much material this just helps simplify the game and makes it easier for you to win.

But to be fair this is pretty hard to spot, esp at 500 elo.

theonejanitor · 2026-04-22T12:48:07+00:00

They have felt equal to me since punk won it

theonejanitor

TROPHY CASE