Yeah I definitely prefer it to FCE or silmans book - thanks guys!

high-five!

Yes very fun book, and I even got my copy autographed by Yasser himself!

I have a question: who's better here?



I wanna say black cause the night appears more useful than the bishop but that doesn't seem right...

<Advice on in-progress game removed and saved to Notepad, for restoration after game is completed - BobJoeJim>

It's unethical to ask for or give advice on games in progress (like the one in question), so I have to keep silence until it's finished. (What a great excuse for me to not analyse the position, isn't it? )

Sorry I didn't realize the game was still in progress. If a Mod wants to remove my post, go ahead.

Yeah that's my bad - I'd never use info during a game but I do apologize. Just didn't want to forget cause I think misinterpreting spots like this is a big weakness for me.

hmm i really thought i posted in this thread a week back, but i guess i didn't.

my question was 'why do you play the scandinavian?'

i'd probably just play something more traditional

I play it cause I'm too ****ty to really learn anything else till I get better.

I've started playing the KIA as white (with reasonable success), so I'll probably transition into KID shortly. My results as black are better than as white, and it's mostly because I didn't know what the **** I was doing in the Ruy.

I don't understand it either. It scores rather poorly for Black. Are there any benefits or opening traps for Black there? I'm aware only of quite popular one for White (can show it at someone's rating point expense ).

1... g6!! is the move. (1... c6!? is also cute, but met by 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2! For those who do well against anti-Sicilians, 1... c5! is also playable.)

Grando,

I'm not sure if you've ever played the main line of the Center-Counter Defense (with c7-c6), but the pawn structures that arise are similar to those of the Caro-Kann, particularly in the lines of the latter where White doesn't play an early h2-h4-h5.



<sub>After 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6 6.Bc4 Bf5 7.Bd2 e6 8.Qe2 Bb4



After 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Nf3 Ngf6 6. Ng3 e6</sub>

pff, the scandinavian is an excellent opening

You're only saying that because you're Scandinavian

Finns aren't (and don't regard themselves as) Scandinavians, shame on you

Yeah Finland isn't officially a part of Scandinavia, tho even many Finns wouldn't know that. It's still a very good opening tho

It would be patriotic of to play 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2(c3) dxe4 4.Nxe4 h6 - the Finnish Variation of the Caro-Kann Defence.

That said, there's a dubious line in the Scandinavian that was called the Finnish Variation in an article by IM Silman: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 5.Bd2 Qc7.

Another update: I've convinced one of my friends to play in a Swiss-style live tournament in a city by me 2 weekends from now. We're gonna get demoed but hopefully it inspires me to work harder on my game.

I'm having a tough time with getting a routine going. Every sport you have some sort of routine or visulization technique you do before doing certain tasks (e.g. before swinging a golf club) - but with chess I don't have one. I need to develop something where I look at the board and go through a quick list of stuff like:

1. any immediate threats of mate?
2. any hanging pieces for either of us?
3. etc...

What do you guys do before playing a move?

My next big focus is going to be on pawn structures and how they actually work. I'm very ignorant about them, and it's definitely costing me in almost every stage of the game.

Oh, and missing simple tactics like this when crunched for time



FU chess

And for Rei - I'm looking into the scandi right now (especially why Nc6 is so bad - pin Bb4) and I've never played c6. I'm always playing Bg4 and getting pushed back by pawns. It also appears white is up anywhere from 0.66 to 0.7 on stockfish/houdini already. The c6 line looks to be a tenth better.

Here's an article on the subject.

A 0.1 pawn difference is practically nothing -- don't read too much into that.

The Bg4 line leads to Caro structures as well.



It seems like Black has plenty more opportunities than White to err in this line. I certainly wouldn't enjoy playing the Black pieces in this position. The most common continuations are:

a) 10.-Be4 11. Bxe4 Nxe4 12. Qf3 Nd6 13. Bf4

b) 10.-Nbd7 11. Nxd7 Kxd7

The second one looks hilarious but Black isn't in bad shape.

Anyway, I doubt your opening choices are costing you many games that you shouldn't lose, so play what you feel comfortable with. Do you enjoy the Bg4 line? If so, play it. You can consult an opening database for your correspondence games, so you might as well experiment with various openings too.

Yeah it's one of those things where I have a finite time to do everything and I've got a lot of stuff to learn. I figure I'll learn a few openings (scandi, barcza) decently, work on tactics, improve endgames, and then I can increase opening and ending repertoire and develop a more attacking middlegame.

Can I at least get partial credit if it tricks some Finns?

You've probably seen this chess.com article series already, but I'd like to advocate for it once more just in case.

you can also experiment with 3.-Qd6 in the scandi, it's even currently enjoying a better theoretical status than 3.-Qa5 afaik

Just found out the live tourney is 30/0 - so I'm pretty much drawing dead. It's a Swiss tourney with 7 matches - I'll be playing scandi/KID/KIA exclusively.

Anyone have any hints for me? Range of players, from my research, is probably a 2200 to elementary school kids ~1200.

I'll be playing a few games with a friend writing down moves with a clock just to get used to it.

Well time to update the thread - I did end up playing in that tourney:

- demoed some kid to start within 5 minutes
- threw away a draw by blundering my bishop in loltastic fashion
- beat another kid by him making me finish off a K+R vs K endgame with minimal time
- had a great game against someone similar to me that I decided to throw away with like 1 min left each on the clock
- didn't care whatsoever and resigned after like 5 moves

It was a lot of fun, and the practice leading up to it with my friend really showed me how much different online and OTB play was. He also scored 2, but got crushed in his other 3 games. I plan on playing OTB about once a month - it's a bit of a hike to get to where the magic happens.

As for improvement - I recently read one of Dan Heisman's articles regarding improvement that got to me. It mentioned 3 things that he felt you require before you can get to the next level. I didn't feel the other 2 applied to me, but the third - basic tactics - totally made sense. I've done chesstempo tactics averaging probably 15 min a day for the last few months, and I'm seeing little improvement. So I've recently purchased (and subsequently downloaded) Chess Tactics for Students and cut out each exercise, wrote out the answer on the back, and am gonna hammer them out like cue cards until I've memorized all the basic stuff. Then I can hopefully go from there. Luckily I've got a couple weeks off work coming up so I can get through the grind.

A couple things I'm looking to improve afterwards: my pawn structure understanding and how to develop an overall plan. Pawn-wise, I've always had the mindset of "OMG his pawn can take my pawn so I better take his first" without understanding why I should or shouldn't take it as it relates to the overall structure. Plan-wise, I've been terrible at formulating a thought process that lasts more than a couple of moves. I'm just starting to look at imbalances, and after this tactics push I'll be looking into Silman's books a little more closely.