any chess blogs worth reading?

Lately when I lose to players I perceive as weaker based on their play (even if they are IMs!) I've been getting angry, like real angry. I'm not sure who at either. I guess it's good for my improvement in the game, but it kind of sucks especially for my girlfriend. Chess tilts me harder than poker ever could. In poker I can just close down my tables and say **** it, I'm running bad. In chess there's only one person to blaim (well and the ****ing clock!).

This happen to anybody else? I don't mind being an ******* online, but I'm a pretty chill guy in real life. It'd suck if I got real life tilty after a game.

As a better brag: Today I got a crushing position against a decent player after a wild gruenfeld. The only problem is after I was up two pieces and a passed pawn - I had 12 seconds left, and he had about 2 minutes. I played my next 27 moves in 3 seconds total.

how is that possible, i never premove even in 1 minue because it just leads to me getting confused 2 moves later not realizing whose turn it is and clickign all over without moving and losing more time zomg

I just had a really simple plan. Overprotect all the squares on my way to the queening square, and then advance/promote my pawn. There wasn't much he could do but wander around with his pieces, or just randomly sacrifice them.

That's something that I see a lot in speed chess that the (apparently) master-strength players are able to do that the experts and below just don't do very effectively: come up with a winning plan extremely quickly and premove it all out without hanging anything. I think that this shows very quick thinking, tactical sharpness, great board vision, and nerves of steel. Good job Dire.

A lot of that depends on the position. Like if he's got a pawn on h5 and you have one on g7, and all the rest of the action is on the queenside, and he realizes you are premoving he will play h6. So now you are premoving gxh6 every move and you have to make the real moves manually.

I strongly agree with this, because fighting in worse positions is most of what got me from being an 1800 who thought he could play like an expert to actually being an expert. In a recent tournament, I was worse at some point in every game, and was often way down on the clock as well, but went 5-1 to finish tied for first, including a game in which my opponent (actually, my highest-rated opponent of the tournament) missed a pin on his queen when I had about 35 seconds to his 35 minutes.

I also had a game at the end of last year where I dropped a pawn against a 2177 almost right out of the opening, but he traded into an endgame with queens and bishops of opposite color where I had the winning chances despite still being down a pawn. Of course, I aimed at this endgame once I saw the possibility. I didn't play it as well as I could have and he had some drawing chances, but in the end he lost on time in a lost position with less than 30 seconds (plus the all-important 5-second delay) on my own clock.

That's where the extra material comes in. Put a piece on h6, or put a bishop on the h8 diagonal, rook on the back rank, etc. Of course if you're not up on material then you'll lose on time, but in that case - what did you waste all your time doing?

Play better I guess? At least you are better than IM's! And also you can't blame the clock, that's your fault.

random thought:

in poker people from certain countries often play similar (canadians nitty, scandys overly loose etc)... are there similar generalities for people from the same country? I wanna say spanish people often play crazy

yes almost certainly this is true (that players from different nations have different general tendencies.)

can you give some examples?

edit: i guess a lot of russians have a meticulous style

I just played against a Russian Penguin269 (i think) and he was super aggressive

I said perceive!

Russians tend to play well, right? I think you'd see stylistic similarities from countries with strong national level chess programs. In the US I see similarities in style and especially opening choices in different areas but it's not exactly a huge correlation. Seems like with ICC and easy access to information this will just get less and less true.

There's also some guys who are or were obviously decent, but seem to try their hardest to play ******ed online. Like FM Kant. His style just annoys me.

Or IM rabbitosky, who thinks he's the **** enough to insta-move in games.

After crushing him, then letting him get away with a draw thanks to the clock he had the audacity to bitch at me for forcing him to prove his knowledge of opposition since it's 'disrespectful'.

Lmao, Dire stop disrespectin IM's

It's beneath you

ya i love ******s that premove in the openings and you find a bishop placed for your pawn to take.

Bleh I played so badly in yesterday's Dos Hermanas qualifier. Lost pretty badly to two 3k+ dudes but was still doing ok with 5/7, then played 2 really bad games and dropped material and points to lower rated players my 3 0 play and openings are rustyyyy

I really think this is also just not right.

The nonincrement clock accomplishes nothing but help to take a significant chunk of chess skill out of the game, and instead replace it with mouse skills.

Dude your mouse skills are fine, you bragged about making 27 moves in like 3 seconds. It's not mouse skills, it's that your opponents are actually moving and thinking faster than you when you end up having much less time than them. Just move fast early in the game and you don't have to worry about it so much. If you don't want to, then play with increment or play standard time control.

hahaha rabittosky talks so much ****

I would say Canadians tend to lean more towards hypermodern/unusual openings as a result of the influence of Suttles and the top players who followed him (Hergott, Day, Spraggett to some extent). Try to come to Canada and play 5 games with white without facing the Pirc.

Here in Costa Rica, I would say they tend towards side variations of mainline openings that give more open positions and tactics.