*** Chess Low Content Thread ***

When I started getting serious about chess, it was because a friend of mine was big into it, playing tournaments etc. He was trying to get me into it and he challenged me to a game on itsyourturn.com (probably long gone, but was such a cool site back in the day). I used to print out our positions and take them with me to my lunch breaks at work and just sit at a table eating and drawing variation trees in the margin and on the back. I eventually beat him that way (because he was just looking for a second making a move and I was spending hours pouring over every move) and it taught me that working harder than your opponent can be enough to win.

Since that was kind of my formative experience, it's what I always try to do. Take my time and be as thorough as possible. I just don't like playing chess unless I can do that.

hey https://www.itsyourturn.com/ still works!

online poker by all of you is considered harder than live. which is true in many stakes

is chess the opposite or same?

It's not really comparable. First difference is the time control, which is typically much faster for online games. Faster play favors some players over others, and some styles of play over others.

Second, online you usually choose to play, or are automatically matched, with players of similar rating. In live chess you can sometimes find opportunities to face much weaker players. But if you want to play for bigger prizes, you will likely face stronger opposition, and not be eligible to play in sections where the players are significantly weaker. It would be as if poker had a rating system, and you only get seated at tables where all the opponents are close in rating to you.

Are there masters here?

The cases are different enough that there's not a perfect answer, but generally, I would say the opposite. Live chess tournaments and live ratings have much more credibility than online play, so that's where you will get the most serious players giving their maximum effort.

yes what’s up

thanks

remember watching queens gambit a few years ago, thought it was solid..not sure wa you guys think of it.

I am sure it was a great book, any others like that fictional or non fiction?

Queen's Gambit was really good. Highly recommended, even for people that don't care about chess. If you do, you should've already watched it. Get to it.

Hi there. I'd like to get from where I am (usfc 1700ish) to where you are (2200+). Is that a realistic goal for a 60ish old man, assuming I put in the necessary time and effort?

To me, harder because even if I don't open other tabs or apps, resisting to do so can be a constant distraction, especially when the opponent takes long to move. Also, above 5-10 minues, it's too easy to cheat, so being cheated is a constant worry. However, many younger players are more used to playing online than playing live. Oh, and when you play online, there is a "mini HUD", it counts how many "points" you are behind (pawns, knights...), while live you have to calculate manually.

Yes—absolutely. With the right time and commitment, it’s a realistic goal. Being surrounded by regular tournaments and a strong group of 2000+ players can make a big difference. That said, developing 2200-level strength and actually earning the rating are often two different challenges, as I’m sure you already appreciate.

Also a USCF NM here, and close to your age. I'd say it could be extremely difficult. I hit a peak of just over 2280 at age 51, and now at 59 I'm ~150 points down. It could be partly due to age and a health issue that causes fatigue, so maybe my tactics aren't as sharp as they were even a few years earlier. But I think a big part of it is ratings deflation. Kids are improving fast and when they do that, they can be underrated for a long time. They take more points from us established players when they score an upset, or we don't get as much as we should when we win. We can't get those points back from overrated players because there are so few.

I would say your best chance would be to get lessons from a strong IM or GM who could pick apart your games and find gaps in your positional knowledge. While tactical ability probably can't be taught, only trained, you can maximize things which can be taught. You would need to find someone who is not only a strong player but a good communicator, and can put into words what many players might only know intuitively and tacitly.

Thanks, RoadtoPro and TimM! I'm gonna give it my best and enjoy the process, however it goes. I haven't enjoyed playing chess this much since I first learned the moves. Huge credit to GM Nariditsky's youtube videos for sparking that btw.

Yeah, even back in the day when I started playing in college I can confidently say I was underrated by about 200pts after my first couple of tourneys, probably for a 3-5 year period because I only played a few big tourneys a year at most. Even scoring the occasional 400pt upset only raises you so far.

So as Road said, having the strength and having the rating are very different.

I believe it's possible but the "necessary time and effort" (and $) is likely much more than what you would consider realistic.

It's almost surely not happening. Even if you dedicate the next 10 years to it "seriously", I think you're a dog but at least I think it's possible.

I was running an alternate Kasparov-Karpov line through nextchessmove.com (Stockfish 17 iirc) and this position arose. Almost looks like a Raymond Smullyan puzzle.

In fact, it looks exactly like one:
—What was White’s last move?
—Did the black knight originate on b8 or g8?
—Is the rook on a1 original or promoted?
—Has the rook on a8 moved in the game? If it has moved, did it originate on a8 or h8? Etc…

My understanding is at low stakes there is FAR more money on the table live than online, and the screenshots I’ve seen appear to back that up, but I don’t know what the chess equivalent would be.

Live low stakes poker would seem right now to have a far higher % of casual players just flinging chips into the pot than online does.