Hobbies The Chess Thread


I am actually surprised that there has never been a thread dedicated to chess. We have had forum chess tournaments in Circus, a chess room on Pokemon Showdown, and a wide variety of different chess/pokemon fusions, but have never actually had a thread dedicated to chess fans. I think it's about time we started forming a bit of a chess based sub-community similar to what exists in the sports, anime, or workout threads.

I really want this thread to be an all inclusive discussion regarding chess. Telling personal chess stories, giving accounts of tournaments or clubs you are a part of, talking about professional chess tournaments and celebrities would be a cool way to start discussion. A little bit down the road, I think it would even be neat to put together a series of smogon chess tournaments
Just as kind of an ice breaker, I figured I could jump discussion by talking about myself. I played four years of high school chess and was a captain of my team for three of those years. My club did a whole lot of really wonderful things during my time there, from playing in an olympiad style chess league with other schools in my area to arranging transportation to a bunch of major high school tournaments all around the state of Ohio.

I am more or less a high-end reserve player with a USCF peak rating of 1675 and a peak Chess.com rating of 1772. I've won numerous reserve level individual tournaments and open level team tournaments as a result of being with my high school team, and also playing irregularly now.

Besides playing chess, my passion regarding it comes from running/organizing teams and tournaments. I also am a big fan of professional chess and follow a lot of the highest level tournaments and events really closely. (I am really looking forward to the FIDE World Cup coming up next week! Check out size of this bracket!) My favorite player is Magnus Carlsen, but I also am a really huge fan of the American Trio of Nakamura, Caurana, and So (as well as other guys like Kamsky and Robinson who are lesser known.) I really am encouraged and excited about the rebirth of US Chess that seems to have begun in recent years. Not since Fischer has the United States had any sort of impact whatsoever in professional chess or in producing any kind of serious chess player and as of right now, we have the #2, #6, and #12 players in the world. In comparison, and almost unthinkably, Russia holds the #5, #9, #10, #11, and #14 spots in the Top 20. There can be an argument that the best chess nation right now, for the first time in 40 years, is the United States! Check it out! There is a good chance we might have an American challenger for the World Chess Championship! Additionally, St. Louis has hosted a number of very notorious chess tournaments over the last handful of years and has become one of the top chess cities in the world right now!
 
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Bughouse

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Hi I'm too tired to make any sort of long post rn, but I'm putting this thread on watch.

~2000 USCF here
I see you mentioned being a fan of a few current players. I recommend checking out Baadur Jobava. He's one of my favorites for how bold he is and how successful he's been with that style (over 2700 FIDE until pretty recently). Also Nepomniachtchi for the same reason.

Historically, it'd be Nezhmedtinov, who did this to poor old Tal (himself a famous tactician) once: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102235

Surprisingly though I don't really play like those guys over the board. Much more conservative. But I love playing like this in blitz :]
 
Hi I'm too tired to make any sort of long post rn, but I'm putting this thread on watch.

~2000 USCF here
I see you mentioned being a fan of a few current players. I recommend checking out Baadur Jobava. He's one of my favorites for how bold he is and how successful he's been with that style (over 2700 FIDE until pretty recently). Also Nepomniachtchi for the same reason.

Historically, it'd be Nezhmedtinov, who did this to poor old Tal (himself a famous tactician) once: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102235

Surprisingly though I don't really play like those guys over the board. Much more conservative. But I love playing like this in blitz :]
I'm actually really familiar with Jabova from the Tata Steel Masters tournament around January-ish, and from watching his blitz games on his frequent Titled Tuesday appearances on Chess.com. His blitz is phenomenal and I've spent a lot of time going back through his 2 minute games and just in fascination of his creativeness of strategy on the fly. Just encountering him more this year (I may have seen him in other tournaments but didn't remember him) is really unfortunate because he really seems like an interesting player. I think that Carelson said something along the lines that sometimes Jobova gets into problems when he starts thinking of unique lines that don't work, and that instead of looking for something else he just decides to try the bad line anyways. Jobava definitely is someone I'm keeping my eyes on that I think has a lot of potential to do some great things, but right now I just don't feel that he is too revolutionary for his own good. Though, that is coming from Carelson who has a far more reserved approach.

Never have heard of Nepomniachtchi, but he is playing in the FIDE World Cup as the #70 seed and I'll definitely check him out.
 
There was a time in high school where I enjoyed chess and took it seriously. I was never really particularly good at it but at the time I enjoyed it and I was improving for a bit. Eventually I got a bit sick of it, my play became highly erratic and with other sports occupying most of my time, decided it was no longer worth competing in. I also felt like I was seeing the same stuff over and over again, although just mucking about now it doesn't seem that way, despite the fact that I rigidly adhere to a set of openings.

I've started mucking about with chess lately, simply as a time waster on my phone, playing against AI. I like the strategic element of chess, but loathe the tactics. Like I'll make plays based on whether I think they're good in principle, but I don't put a lot of effort into considering the immediate outcomes of those moves, like if I'm about to get forced into a fork or something idk. Also anyone here would be able to wipe the floor with me I think. I never got a fide rating, only one for my state's junior chess league, where I peaked somewhere in the 600s (it used a different scale- a rating in the vicinity of 1000 meant you were an elite player, expecting to do well at junior state champs).

A cool little fact is that I actually played on the same team (because same school) as a guy who is currently attempting to become a GM (Max Illingworth).
 

Isa

I've never felt better in my life
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im a member of the board in the biggest chess club in sweden (SK Rockaden, home of quite a few Swedish GMs and we have Ivanchuk on our lists!)

no FIDE ELO rating because i dont play a lot but my LASK rating is 1817 atm which is roughly equivalent to the same in FIDE ELO

learned the game at 3½, joined the club at 8, dont actively play these days but i get a few games in every year

fite me.
 

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
I won the city chess championship in 4th grade. Elementary school had a chess club I was a part of, good times. Once I hit middle school for 6th grade, where we didn't have a chess club, I just kinda mostly stopped playing regularly and as an adult I've played maybe a handful of times the past ten years or so. :[ im bade now yo
 
Recently I saw a post somewhere saying: "Want to play an actual competitive game? Play chess. Zero luck involved."

That made me curious. I have never ever played chess before, but I'm going to try it out right now. Somewhere online, if possible. Any tips?
 

I saw a trailer for this movie a few days ago because it was a "sponser" of the Sinquefield Cup that just wrapped up in St. Louis earlier in the week. Along with a whole bunch of really cool casual chess activities including GM Bughouse (a team variant of chess with unique rules for those unfamiliar) and Giant Tandem Speed Chess (which can only be explained by watching the video and seriously looks like the best thing in the world), the Sinquefield cup also had a viewing of some clips for the new chess movie Pawn Sacrifice, which depicts the life of Bobby Fischer.

In a lot of ways, I am really excited for this movie. I feel that this movie has the chance to bring a lot of attention and interest to chess by using outlining the last great American chess player that was in a lot of ways an enigma to the public. This movie follows the same kind of line as movies like A Beautiful Mind, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything... Tragically flawed and hollywooded up pop-culture genius gets shed a new light and his story gets a new breath of life into popculture. Any way to put Americans mind on the subject of chess as an activity or as an event is a good thing in my eyes. And

However, in a lot of ways, this movie scares me. For one, Bobby Fischer was not in any respects a good human being nor should he be the head of chess. Yes, a lot of his problems was based on mental disorders, but besides the genius of his game play, there is nothing to like about him in my book. How they deal with the post World Champion Bobby Fischer, if at all, scares me because that story shouldn't be lost. Secondly, as a lot of commenters made note of during the presentation of the movie during the closing ceremonies... there are a lot of inaccurate dates, events, and occurrences. Yeah, you're going to get some added fiction in movies, but how far they push this might make it like... J. Edgar bad.

Regardless, I would highly advise people to go see this movie in theaters if you can. Supporting anyone who tries to do anything with the promotion of chess is something I feel is important... and I feel that if this movie does decently in the box office and gets a mention or two in awards season, it might contribute to more media coverage of USA Chess and it's accomplishments.

----

Recently I saw a post somewhere saying: "Want to play an actual competitive game? Play chess. Zero luck involved."

That made me curious. I have never ever played chess before, but I'm going to try it out right now. Somewhere online, if possible. Any tips?
I think that description is completely accurate. The only luck in chess really comes from the randomness of who gets the advantage of moving first. Besides that, there are no dice roll or probabilities. No environmental effects. Nothing but the players abilities matter and they are one hundred percent responsible for everything that happens in the game.

The only real issue with chess is that it is a complex game to learn to play, and there are steep learning curves. Be prepared to spend a lot of time (as in months, not hours) learning the basics of the game such as piece movement, board orientation, win conditions, draw conditions, how clocks work and other things. After these things become second nature, then you'll slowly build up nuances of the game and get into more what should you do instead of what can you do.

Two good resources are www.chess.com and www.chesskids.com, but there are literally tons of very good websites dedicated to chess. A quick youtube search can pull up really great lessons/demonstrations on rules and piece movements. Chess.com is a really good site for chess, as it has pretty much anything anyone from a beginner to a grand master would want. The problem with this site is that for beginners, it often is not very user friendly to locate information or resources in addition to the userbase being pretty advanced players. That's why I recommend ChessKids.com, because even though it is geared towards kids (and don't get me wrong, it's cheesy), it is still a great resource for adults to learn the basics of the game through the great resources of chess.com without having to be harassed about upgrading to a paid membership or having to search through a bunch of confusing, high end topics you don't need to know. It also gives you a beginners based player pool to play live games against, so you can practice things you learn in games with players relatively your ability level out of the gate.

Like I said though, there are hundreds of really good chess resources for beginners all around the web that are free. I would just start with some of those, and work your way into just playing around with it for awhile. If you have any questions or anything, feel free to PM me on smogon.
 
I suck at chess and couldn't stand any thought of watching it. But major props to those extremely talented people who are the grandmasters and stuff. And oddballs like Bobby Fisher are fun to read about.
 
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Saddened to see GM Nakamura get knocked out in the FIDE World Cup this morning, ruining the dreams of me and countless others who wanted a USA v. Russia face off. I'll be rooting for the dutchman Giri the rest of the way most likely and will be having my eye on Eljanov as he is having an insane tourney.

Still interested in trying to get a tournament up at some point in October if there is interest for it. Please PM me or post here if you would be interested... I'll look into completing some kind of format when I'm free the week of October 5th.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Necrobump.

My boyfriend hosts various Hong Kong tournaments. His international score is around 1900.
He's a d4 user.

For interest, how many of you use e4 opening, d4 opening or other openings?
 

Bughouse

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I'm a d4 player, with my preferred variations being
In the declined qg, exchange variation
In the nimzo, qc2 or nf3
In the greunfeld, something with be3, bc4, f3, ne2, and 0-0 idk what it's called
In the Indian, samisch
In the Benko, f3 lines
In the Benoni, penrose
In the Dutch, usually a double fianchetto setup, but in blitz I play the club line h4 h5 and Bg5 and open things up early ;)
In Slavs, semi Slavs, and QGAs I kinda mix it up and don't have a set opening variation preference.
 
It has been almost a year since I did anything with chess and I finally worked out a schedule between my two jobs to give me weekend time to get back into the game soon. I'm pretty ecstatic and even though the next USCF tournament in my area is not until February 11th, I've made plans with a few old chess friends to sit down and prepare for it. When I did that last year, I took my rating from a 1386 to a 1671 in two tournaments and I'm hoping that I can get back to playing the near 1800-ish level chess that I was playing before my hiatus.

I'm a pretty religious d4 player as white and I've found a lot of success with some sharper lines of the French Defense whenever I can play it as black. I'm not too big of an opening junkie, and there are not as many popular ways that people respond to d4 at my level of play compared to e4 and after 10 years of playing d4 it is just a super comfortable way for me to start the game and to get me to my strengths of mid-game and endgame play. Additionally, I've never wanted to try to get into studying the seemingly endless Ruy Lopez or Sicilian games that I'd have to come across as an e4 player.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
I haven't been playing chess for about a year too.
I play c4 the most.
I used to play d4 London system, but that didn't work out too great for me.

I'm a d4 player, with my preferred variations being
In the declined qg, exchange variation
In the nimzo, qc2 or nf3
In the greunfeld, something with be3, bc4, f3, ne2, and 0-0 idk what it's called
In the Indian, samisch
In the Benko, f3 lines
In the Benoni, penrose
In the Dutch, usually a double fianchetto setup, but in blitz I play the club line h4 h5 and Bg5 and open things up early ;)
In Slavs, semi Slavs, and QGAs I kinda mix it up and don't have a set opening variation preference.
I think my boyfriend has a lot of e-books on Nimzo and French.
He once tried Benoni in one tournament but failed miserably, and like all his chess friends laughed at him, and had been teasing him about that from ever since.
 

Bughouse

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Yeah if you don't know what you're doing in a Benoni as black you will lose pretty miserably. It's a difficult opening to play.
 
I was13 when I played my first chess tournament. I leaned to play chess, watching two Germans during a holiday and when one of the two left the hotel, I took his place. Old German always won (despite he played without his Queen) but the last day I won. So he put his Queen and we played another game. But he lost in same way. Sometime I play some games on lichess.org and my "chess idols" were Tal, Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen's coach Agdestein. And I had the pleasure to play against Vasily Smyslov (who was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958) playing "his" King's Indian Defense variation (lol, but I only knew that!).

Chess = (Maths) + (Creativity and Ideas) => Great

PS: I'm a e4 player, against it I played Caro Kann very well
 
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Martin

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Does anyone have any tips for not being atrocious at this game? I play every so often but I almost invariably get stomped pretty awfully, and even when I went through a period of playing two games weekly for a few years I never saw any signs of improvement, which is just immensely discouraging tbh.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Does anyone have any tips for not being atrocious at this game? I play every so often but I almost invariably get stomped pretty awfully, and even when I went through a period of playing two games weekly for a few years I never saw any signs of improvement, which is just immensely discouraging tbh.
You have to memorize some combinations, or common openings.
If you didn't read books about it, you won't be good unless you are very talented.

Most people improve by practising how to mate daily, and reading books of common lines.

You can hardly improve without reading chess books.

Also, choosing an opening that suits your personality is important.
 

pulsar512b

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This is dead as fuck, so i guess i'll rejuvenate it.

So what's y'all's favorite openings?

Mine are the London System (from white) , King's Indian Attack (from white), and the Slav and Carokann (from black)
 

CaffeineBoost

6th Best Circus Poster of 2023
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London System (from white)
booooooo

I've said this before I think in the circus discord but my very basic repertoire is as follows:
An opening to play as white: e4 preferably into a spanish but I think I can somewhat improvise an English Attack on a sicilian
A reply to e4 as black: spanish again, Morphy defence if possible
A reply to d4 as black: King's Indian Defence

Also the bongcloud, but only against a serious opponent.
 
I don't know much about chess, but does anyone else here love chess variants? I used to play zhouse a good amount, and now I'm trying to learn shogi. Also enjoy stuff like s-chess and want to try shako. I mean, I suck, but they're fun!
 

Martin

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Hey, does anyone know any good resources for learning about openings in chess? I figured I cba to do hundreds of puzzles when im still at a point where my W:L is in the ball park of 1:5/1:10, so I might as well learn good ways to play the beginning of the game at least. I've played occasionally on and off since I was like 5, but I've never really taken the time to do any study or prolonged period of regular play lol.
 

pulsar512b

ss ou fangirl
is a Pre-Contributor
I would also recommend to just learn the basic principles of openings, there's a million videos on it. Basically any introductory chess book has a section on basic opening principles. You can bullshit through the opening well enough for a while with just those. Opening theory comes later. rubysapphiremerald's correct on the rest.
 

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