it sounds like a good idea on toilet paper, but i'd never work with chess.com! once when i took a nap on their premises, i woke up covered in stickers advertising their premium membership.

I know the answer is largely game specific, but is there a general philosophy as to which is better: Acquiring a larger absolute value in material gain after a big trade off (say, 6 points), or a smaller value (say, 5 points) but more pieces are off the board? So your gain (when comparing material left on board) is actually relatively larger. In other words, how much is simplifying worth?

I am in a game right now where I can choose to capture in either of 2 paths (both are kind of crushing), but I'm racking my brain trying to figure out which option might be best. I'm not looking for specific help since it's an ongoing tourney game (and please, don't look at the game before advising me) but just wondering if there is enough of a philosophy out there that I may be comfortable applying it to my game.

Also how do I account for the value of things like retaining the ability to castle... or keeping my Queen on board while his is gone? It seems like retaining your queen while his is gone is worth more than both players retaining their queen but the other guy has 3 fewer minor pieces. Not sure, though. Maybe that's wrong. The queen is obviously the strongest piece but maybe it's negated by the utility of having 2 extra pieces (more mobility?)

I think in the extremely general sense, I would tend towards the path with the larger material gain, UNLESS the other option leads to a definitively clearer endgame where I can see an obvious winning path (and the first option doesn't).

Then that answer will be tossed out the window in favor of specifics related to the individual position almost immediately

chessexplained against Dmitry Andreikin. Andreikin is currently 2723. I wonder how much stronger he could get with a trainer. It seems like he's a top-10 player itw as far as raw talent goes.

Being up 5 or 6 should both be completely winning. Therefore, I'd go for the position that's simpler and easier to win without giving my opponent any play. There are some endgame positions where I'll throw away a whole piece to simplify from a completely winning position to an easier completely winning position.

I highly recommend reading:
https://home.comcast.net/~danheisman..._imbalance.htm

Made a chess set recently, pieces are made from modeling clay and acrylic paint.

Board is made from cardboard painted with acrylic, grid was laid out using a ruler and metallic sharpie.

Took about 25-35 hours of work, the knights gave me a lot of trouble and I may redo them in the future.

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Not quite Andy Dufresne quality but he had more time on his hands.

Not bad. Not bad at all Hank!

I think the Knights look fine fwiw.

I looked at it a bit just now. I will have to delve into this - it's interesting.

Which scenario is better:

A) You are up 30-23 in remaining material. You own 56.6% of remaining (non-King) material on the board. Your king is somewhat exposed and you have lost the ability to castle. You still retain your Queen, while your opponent does not. Your pawn structure is considerably worse off than that of your opponent.

B) You are up 25-20 in remaining material. You own 55.6% of remaining (non-King) material on the board. Your king is castled and pretty much safe. Both queens are off the board. Your pawn structure is considerably worse off than that of your opponent.

This is basically what I'm dealing with lol. Both are kind of crushing so I'm experiencing paralysis of analysis trying to pick the best option and make sure I don't **** this huge edge up (I'm in 1st in this tourney and opponent is in 3rd of 6 remaining and I beat him the first game already where he hung his queen).

I think I'm going to go with Option B. I really want to do Option A I think that's more ego though, since he hung his Queen in our first match I think it would be sweet to capture his again and retain mine. But I think Option B is more clear-cut for me and I really, really like the idea of tucking my King away.

EDIT: I've gone ahead with Option B. It simplifies the game more and I'm still up about the same %age, and my King is safer. So anyone can feel free to pick their answer and it won't affect my current game.

Chess is all about the King baby.

You lose the King, you lose the GAME!

I was playing a Blitz game a couple weeks ago and I often talk smack. Some guy hung his queen and I go "You must hate your Queen, you left her hanging." He went on to win and said "You must hate your King, you left him hanging." I lol'd. So true.

Anyway, scratch all the calcs I just did in my game. Chess is so weird. Dude took a very ancillary line that I only explored minimally. I really didn't think he'd take that line as it leaves my Queen on board. Whatever. No idea how good/bad this is for me but I'm pretty sure it's still crushing. Though I did all that to be able to castle but he put me in check with Knight so I had to move my King LOL. The last thing I said: "I really, really like the idea of tucking my King away." Chess is very unpredictable, even against similarly-rated opponents.

Trash talk is mandatory in online chess.

You shouldn't compare the % of non-king material you have. It isn't useful and could be very misleading.

When you're up so much material, traditional pawn structure considerations become pretty much meaningless. King safety doesn't work the same way, either.



This king is badly placed with equal material, but hilariously safe as is.

That isn't to say king safety is irrelevant, but that it doesn't really exist as an abstract positional concept anymore. If you're allowing too much counterplay, you should be able to spot specific moves that give you grief.

Comparisons should look more like this:

A) We're up a piece and a pawn for nothing. Our opponent has no counterplay.

B) We're up a queen for a piece. Our opponent has a move that forces us to do a non-trivial amount of calculation.

I'm generally choosing A even w/o the counterplay in B. Odd imbalances require more thought to convert.

Can you elaborate on this? Isn't being up King+8pawns vs. King+2pawns (owning 80% of non-king material) way better than being up a knight, bishop, and pawn early in the game, where all other pieces remain in play (owning 55% of non-king material)?

In absolute terms, 7 points is more than 6, but without knowing anything else about the position, I'd much rather play that endgame scenario where I am "only" up 6. (Though I guess this is misleading since I'm going to Queen).

I have never thought of a game in this sense until now. I just was trying to figure out every aspect of the 2 continuations since I couldn't make up my mind, and so I calculated ownership of remaining material (while of course considering how much total material was left on board).

I guess I see what you are saying, though. Being up more in absolute terms earlier in the game could be worth more since your edge should mean that the differential grows as the game goes on. And even if it doesn't grow, it's still super simple to just look for forced trades.

Qs on ldo.

Depends on the amount of material on the board, how easily material can be liquidated, how easily the queen can be used to win extra material, etc. etc.

This is why thinking about it in general terms, w/o example positions, is pretty useless. I'm sure I'd make the best practical decision in a group of specific positions, but it'd be based entirely on "what looks right" and not on any rigid set of principles.

Yeah, the position with more material might be much easier to liquidate; and with a big material edge, you can force trades anyway, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to worry about whatever the immediate %s are. It's mostly a distraction from more relevant things, like your opponent's counterplay, the specific type of material imbalance, how easy it is to liquidate further, etc.

Like, for example, here:

The former scenario is better simply because you're a lot closer to a simple forced win. You can totally ignore the %s and instead think about how close you are to a forced ("book") win. K+Q vs. K, with or without excess irrelevant material, is a book win. The primary goal of the sort of liquidation we're talking about is pretty much always an easy fundamental mate, like K+(Q/R) vs. K or (Q/R)+(Q/R) vs. K. Keeping that in mind will be very helpful.

The % itself is a distracting indirect correlator at best (the distance from a forced win is what's direct), and harmful at worst. You don't want to let it talk you into choosing a position that for any number of reasons is trickier to convert, despite the added reduction in material.

Also it doesn't distinguish between pieces and pawns. Trading pawns indiscriminately can lead to many book draws. But comparing the %s of non-king-or-pawn material wouldn't be useful either -- even if you always kept enough pawns on the board.

Just to make it clear, I'm not necessarily advocating memorizing this whole article and using in your games this more complicated system of assigning pieces values that are fractions of pawns and change based on the number of pawns and pieces on the board. I think it's worth reading because it gives you a good idea of what sorts of things to think about when assessing the relative value of pieces. It can also serve as a reference for when you think a more complicated evaluation is called for (like in your current game, you may have checked with this to see if one plan deviated significantly from the typical counting method).

OK here is the game that my last few posts itt were about. It's over now and he just resigned. I'm sure I rustled his jimmies by seizing his Queen in both games.

The move in question was move 12 for black. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which way to capture. I can just recapture his knight (and seeing how he followed it up, maybe I should have), and his Queen is still lost for a knight, but I didn't love how he might end up in that line (with some center control and my king unable to castle).

I expected it to play out thusly (based on how poorly thought out some of his moves had been up until that point in both our games):
12...bxc4
13.Nxd8...Nxe2+
14.Kh1...Rxd8

...with immediate ability (if I want it) to exchange minor pieces on c3 or castle short. So trading my Queen (and pawn if you count his 12th move) for his Queen and 2 minor pieces. Or my Queen+knight+pawn for Queen+bishop pair+knight

Which would you have played here and why? Kxf7 or bxc4? Or something else?

This was my first time playing Sicilian...so if it looks ****ed up that's why. I'm pulling ahead of the pack in that tourney. I'm not sure how people move on to the final round. I know it's 2 players but I don't know if it's the top 2 overall points total, or top player in this round from each of the 2 groups (ignoring overall score?)

I absolutely despise these games where I'm trying to stave off a cheap mate early. I can't stand when my opponent brings their Queen out early and usually do poorly against this. I spent a lot of time on moves 4 and 5.

I fist-pumped when he played the careless 11.Qc4 instead of Qd1.

I'd play 12.-Kxf7.

Your king is way safer after 13. cxd4 bxc4 14. Nxc4 Bb5 than it is after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. 0-0 Nf6 5. d3 0-0. You'd have to intentionally try to lose for White to have a serious shot at mating you. Being down a queen without any development is pretty terrible for attacking chances.

I also play 12...Kxf7 without hesitation. He just threw away that knight for no reason and still can't save the queen. I don't see anything to fear in the resulting position; it's just easily winning.

Groan. I hate that I spent so much time on this "good" dilemma and still got it wrong. I feel like it's super important toward improving that you can keep the pressure on in crushing positions. I fruited out. I have this issue where I get way too aggressive (sacs, hell yeahhhh!) in early/even positions and get overly conservative in crushing positions.

Is there any reason he should have played 13.Nxd6+ instead of taking my Queen? Seems pretty bad. I think he should cut his losses and get my Queen off the board.

My 9th, 10th, and 11th moves were pretty sweet though, right?

Meh, it happens. I believe that thinking too much is better than thinking too little.

I don't see a good reason not to take your queen.

Yes, they were very nice.

John Bartholomew is crushing it in the bullet pool lately.

You must have missed his sesh last night. He flew too close to the sun! After Saturday night he got to 2701 though. Pretty sick.

Found out yesterday that my aunt-in-law knows Wesley So's foster mom and lives in their condo community or w/e.

Pretty sure that's a huge brag since now I can imagine meeting him in a non-creepy way (i.e. stalking). Probably still won't. But the dream is still alive.