That's lichess! I just started playing on there like an hour ago lol. I played a 35/5 and won. That's an absolutely fantastic little website. I think they're going to be hugely successful.

I still don't understand why people pay $14/mo for chess.com with FICS and now lichess out there.

http://en.lichess.org/xC9wQ7jfr2EG

That's the game I just played on lichess and here is another game, a draw, that I played last night on FICS:

http://ficsgames.org/cgi-bin/show.cgi?ID=371282373

That one was a 15/10.

Chess.com is totally free to play on (unlike ICC). Premium membership gives access to more training materials and a few advanced but not very necessary features like the abilities to create an own group or tourney and to play in more than one private tourney at a time. But I don't like playing in tourneys there because I run into opponents of too various ratings. The opponents whom I get in team matches are generally closer to my strength because the entrant lists of both teams in a match are sorted by ratings. (I mean, I have more control over game selection than in tourneys. If I see that the opponent in a TM is likely to be way stronger or way weaker, I just don't join, but that's seldom the case because the teams themselves use their marketing tools to make the lineups more balanced.)

You're right. I should have been clearer in that of course you can use chess.com for free. I won't snub the access that gives you, either. 10,000+ people in live chess of various time controls isn't too bad.

That said, yeah ...there are so many 1150-1700 accounts that have fewer than five games played and there's absolutely no way to really establish what a rating means on that site. I guess what I was trying to say is that: Typically I think you get what you pay for but in this case I'm extremely impressed with what lichess and FICS have to offer for free


Up at 5-6am here drinking coffee and playing games. Just wrapped this 35/15 up:

http://en.lichess.org/5SRKJKKi/black#68

Once I got enough games under my belt here (it seemed to be after a few hundred blitz + standard games total) I've started getting a ton out of book study. So much more makes sense and it's really interesting to read the annotations and author's thoughts on games. I'm learning a lot about when to exchange, what to do with a material and/or space advantage, recentralization, blockading, clearance...I mean, the list does go on. I like battery a lot though It's fun to line up two rooks and a Queen and unleash hell down a file.

So, the last few days I have been playing OTB and online quite a bit, as well as just pumping out a ton of tactics on ChessTempo. I'm starting to reach the point where even a 30/30 game is obviously a rushed game of chess to me and I'm starting to take a deeper, longer look at positions and games in general. I have been playing 20/20's, 35/15's, 30/30's, and 45/45's and I, by far, enjoy 45/45's the most. I'm going to start playing a 90/30 or two a week online and trying to find someone offline who is interested in playing a 90/30 OTB once a week for practice.

My estimated FIDE on ChessTempo is now over 1500 and there are sites where I just don't lose much anymore. Without realizing it at first, I woke up before and it dawned on me that I haven't lost a game in a while. I did the math then and calculated that in my last 12 games I am 9 wins, 0 losses, and 3 draws. This is both online and OTB. The usual progression of drawing games I used to lose, and winning games I used to draw, has begun. I never get beat quickly, either. I tend to win the game in 20-30 moves by resignation or checkmate or if I do draw or lose - it goes 50+ moves.

I would have to say that things are going better than expected and I'm really starting to feel extremely comfortable OTB. The process of simply playing chess has become very routine and natural to me.

What did you use for this analysis? I'm just wading back into chess and this utility looks useful.

To the OP, you said you were going to avoid blitz for a while, but less than two months in you are playing it. Did you change your mind, or have you already moved beyond the point where you thought you should be avoiding it?

It's the built-in analysis tool of lichess.org, powered by Stockfish. It's usually used for analysis of games played at Lichess itself, but PGNs of other games can also be uploaded (via the menu 'Games' -> 'Import Game').

Awesome. Thanks. I export PGNs of games I think had interesting positions for later review, but I was importing into Droidfish for review, which is inconvenient.

It was the latter: I wound up moving beyond the point where I thought it was pertinent to avoid it. Once I wasn't hanging pieces anymore and basic foundations of play became somewhat subconscious, I identified that there would in fact be benefits to playing blitz chess in moderation. That said, I haven't played any blitz in a couple of weeks other than a handful of games OTB before longer games. As I wrote the other day, I have been playing longer games and am starting to focus on the 45/45's and 90/30's...both online and OTB. Blitz is extremely fun and addictive but I have nowhere near the interest in it that I do in classical time controls.

Good question

http://en.lichess.org/XZRSVuQST4I8

Most recent game. Just completed about ten minutes ago. 56 move checkmate against a 1710 in a 40+5 rated. Turned into a fun little RvN endgame. After 3 classical games on the site I am 3-0-0 with a rating of 1801.

As for lichess: This is easily the best web based chess site online. Anybody interested in playing or watching chess at all should definitely check it out.

Haven't seen you around lately. How are things?

Great. I just don't use FICS anymore. Super tired of its stagnation and apathy towards improving. I play only OTB or on lichess now. Maybe from time to time on chess.com.

Here's my chess.com blog, which I've started putting some effort into, if you want to see what I've been up to.


http://www.chess.com/blog/pawpatrol

Gorgonian — I was checking out your blog and really liked the "Learning openings thoroughly with Lucas Chess" post. Do you know of any way to do something similar with chessbase or do you think one has to purchase separate Lucas Chess software to set up the type of opening training you demonstrate?

WarCrazy — It looks like you spend a lot of time on chesstempo and have a premium membership. Are you creating a lot of custom problem sets to go through? If so, what kinda are you trying? The last couple of weeks I've tried to set up a "bain" set per Dan Heisman's recommendation. Non-mate problems rated 900-1250 that I try to solve within 15 seconds. But I'm not sure where to go after that. Also right now I'm utilizing spaced repetition but I'm not sure if it's the smartest way to train. Do you have any thoughts?

I do. I have made my most progress after spending time on ChessTempo setting the difficulty to hard and doing standard rated problems. The key is taking as absolutely much time as is necessary to visualize the pattern and the solution. If it takes 25 minutes - I'll take 25 minutes...the whole time trying not to take my eyes or mind off of the board. Now, sure, sometimes I'll just have to give up and take a guesstimate at the solution when it's become apparent that I'm just never going to see it but for the most part, I'll eventually see the pattern or at least part of it and due to how much time I spent looking at it and trying to visualize it, it really sticks in my mind's eye after that.

As for custom problem sets and the endgame trainer: I have by no means utilized CT fully yet. It takes a while. It's so broad in scope and has so many features. Today is actually the day I need to reup my CT sub so between that and you bringing it up, I'll get that all on track asap.

In a nutshell though: Spending long periods of time deeply analyzing positions on CT and playing long games like 45/10's and longer, against players better than you, will absolutely help one improve tremendously at the amateur level. Simply doing those two things and nothing else could bring one to 1500+ easily. Easily.

I did this at first with standard problems but hit a bit of a "wall" (fwiw ~1900 rating) where it was simply taking quite a long time to solve some problems and I was getting impatient or felt I was spending too much of my finite studying/playing time on these types of problems.

I believe I should keep doing standard problems (but haven't lol @ me) but wanted to implement a more basic tactics training method I could do in 15 minute daily sessions that would expose me to a much higher volume of simple tactics. That has been going well but the last blitz session I played I missed quite a few very basic tactics. I was feeling very fuzzy though and perhaps I simply wasn't mentally prepared to play chess that session, .

Anyway, this is a good reminder to keep doing standard problems too so I get regular practice at more complex problems and calculation training.

I completely agree with this too. I started longer games at 15/10 since it's a standard time control on chess.com but then switched to 30/5. 45/10 seems even better but, man, that is a huge block of time to set aside, I'm not sure I could do that more than once a week but should be able to do 30/5 multiple times (and 15/10 is even easier to set aside).

If you care for some company in your quest, feel free to check out my log thread as I'm actively trying to get better. My goal is 2000+ USCF and my rating is currently 1778, so many might say that is too "easy" of a goal. But I didn't look at a chess board for ~5 years and 2000+ has always been a lifetime goal I've wanted to achieve, .

also to Gorgonian - you also strongly recommended Chess Position Trainer which seems to fill a similar niche. I purchased CPT and use it almost every day, and am very happy with it. Can you compare the two?

One thing is that it looks like Lucas Chess is free. So that might be the biggest benefit of using it. I was kind of hoping there was a way to do what he's using it for in ChessBase but from some quick research it seems that won't really work.

I know nothing about CPT but a complete guess as to the difference in using them is Lucas Chess lets you create the opening repertoire positions more easily to then base the position training off of? But that requires possibly more work than just using CPT?

I don't use ChessBase so I can't comment on that. I really dislike the product overall.

As for Lucas Chess, it's free, so jump in there and go for it. It's highly under-rated.

Yes, I recommend Chess Position Trainer highly, as well. I like both programs. Some things I like better about Lucas Chess:

1) You can make the board look awesome
2) You can draw on the board any way you want
3) One button copies an image of the board to your clipboard for pasting in other software
4) You can keep more detailed stats about your training (number of attempts, errors, time taken, all at each depth level and for each opening)

Things I like better about CPT:

1) Handles transpositions better
2) Can structure your repertoire however you want it (folders for each opening with a separate file for each variation--just better organized)
3) More flexible training and schedules the positions to be reviewed automatically
4) Can export files to pgn

One major factor is I really hate CPT's board and piece graphics and you can't really change them. It's just unpleasant to use for me because of that. Lucas Chess is such a pleasure in comparison, I often find myself using it for that reason alone.

What rating are you floating around now, Gregorian? Playing OTB much lately?

As for me, I got busy/sidetracked for a good six weeks there. Hardly any chess except some blitz/rapid OTB with friends now and then. It's good though because I knew eventually I would miss a week or two and I was worried that this would really sap my progress. Turns out, I'm actually playing better now than I was right before the break. Just a little. I've played ~10 games in the psat few days and I've only lost two and they were both on time. I haven't been checkmated at all and I don't remember even being put in check yet. My kingside safety has gotten really good.

I'm contemplating going to the NY Open up in Lake George next month. They have sections bracketed by rating and my girlfriend has been dying to get upstate since last year so maybe I'll take the trip. Until then, I need to be more disciplined about showing up to those Wednesday night club matches and finding something on Saturday and Sunday, too. My mind's much clearer now than it was in the winter as I had a lot of my plate mentally at the time and I think this will positively effect my chess at this point.

My rating on Chess.com has gone from 1362 to 1398 in the last few days and my FICS rating is now up to 1412. Playing more, and playing more OTB, I think I could easily shoot up a good 200-300 points before the end of 2015. If I stay on this and don't get off of it, I think that's entirely realistic...although challenging and time consuming.

USCF 1600-ish

Maybe I can play a game or two with you guys somewhat soon. I'm obviously 200-400 points below you but I'm only going up and it would be great for me. I love playing against people who are better.

Most recent game from yesterday evening: http://ficsgames.org/cgi-bin/show.cgi?ID=374588694

75 move checkmate in a 45/10.

I was able to liberate a copy of 13 but I am not impressed either, :/.



I may PM you if I run into any issues trying to replicate your set-up. I really think it's the missing step for me to reinforce openings I study. I'd like to be able to just brush up on them from time to time quickly and basically not ever have to worry about that system again. But if I don't play for a few years I basically get all of the ideas mixed up and I have no idea about move orders and such...

From seeing your site and the custom graphics you created this does not surprise me. Honestly I'm not sure I even notice the piece graphics, although maybe I just haven't seen CPT's yet, .

He's certainly quite visually selective lol. For me, that is definitely part of the appeal of chess though. I like the different piece and board combos online and off and have already begun my own collection.

I like digital clocks, too. Contemplating being a total chess bum and dropping $110 on this: http://www.uscfsales.com/chess-clock...ess-clock.html.

Hey, Gorgonian - What kind of software would you recommend for me at this point? Any?