A good puzzle would be to reconstruct the game up to that point (without using a database). It arises from a fairly logical sequence in a well known opening.

Hey All,

I've played blitz for about 5 years, but have no experience in long games. I'm playing in my first tourney tomorrow at a 30/90 G/30 control.

Any last second tips? I'm figuring out my opening tree, going over pawn endgames, and re-reading "Reassess Your Chess".

It's to late to get better, but my thinking is I don't want to be surprised as a symmetrical opener (e4/e5, d4/d5), and want to be more solid on pawn breakthroughs that happen less often in blitz at my level.

I'm 1200 on chess.com blitz (i went down from 1400, another issue), and my opponents will be USCF 900-2200.

Thanks!

http://imgur.com/jTkopzI

It's whites turn, any thoughts how white could win from that position?

Black committing a series of egregious blunders.

One promising line is 1. Rxf4 Bd4+ 2. Bxd4 Rc4 3. Bxc4 g4, and White is winning.

The indecipherability of the pieces might be a point in your favor. Maybe Black might mistake a pawn for a bishop, or the entire game for Arabic writing.

Sit on your hands? You need to fight the urge to make a move as fast as you would in blitz, and sitting on your hands will make sure you think before moving (plus, keeps then warm!). Good luck!

one of the few times I've ever heard "sit on your hands" given as advice and it was meant literally

Black to play and win. Fairly famous position/motif imo.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=98900

Screaming at the top of my lungs "YOU SHALL NOT PASS""

Where's the 'like' button when I need it most? This game reminds me of Rei Ayanami's compositions, except that this one was played out in reality

Major Prodigy Watch Update:

I have greatly expanded my spreadsheet. I am now tracking 40 different players, including all 23 people who have achieved the GM title prior to their 15th birthday (per Wikipedia). Furthermore, I have added a new output. I can now, for any age between 10 and 19 (to the nearest month) tell you exactly where each player ranks within the dataset. For instance: at the age of 13.5, Magnus Carlsen's highest rating to that point was 2552 (actually reached at 13.33). This is the SECOND best rating ever achieved at or before the age of 13.5. I'm not sure if I'm tracking everyone I should be, there may be players (particularly in the 10-12 age range) who spiked ridiculously high, but didn't reach GM level, who I should add to round out the record holders.

There are currently a few holes in the data. I have six youngsters who I just added to the list that I don't have a birthday for. Additionally, all my data comes off the FIDE website, which only goes back to 2000, so several players born before 1990 are missing data from early in their lives. If anyone can point me in the direction of FIDE rating lists from the 1990s, that would be wonderful! Also, if anyone wants to Google-stalk a few pre-teens, and find me birthdays of Javokhir Sindarov, R Praggnanandhaa, Boris Bogatyrev, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja, or Parviz Gasimov, I would appreciate it!

Before I unveil the data in all its glory, though, I want to see if I can stump you all.

For ALL ages between 10.0 and 19.0, the status of "highest rating ever achieved at or before that age" is held by one of only four players within my data set. NAME ALL FOUR!

Contenders, listed in alphabetical order, by first name, aka everyone in my dataset:
Abdumalik Zhansaya
Akshat Chandra
Alireza Firouzja
Andrey Esipenko
Anish Giri
Anton Smirnov
Aravindh Chithambaram
Awonder Liang
Boris Bogatyrev
Bu Xiangzhi
Daniil Dubov
Dariusz Swiercz
Etienne Bacrot
Fabiano Caruana
Hikaru Nakamura
Hou Yifan
Illya Nyzhnyk
Javokhir Sindarov
Jeffrey Xiong
Jorge Cori
Magnus Carlsen
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son
Nihal Sarin
Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Parimarjan Negi
Parviz Gasimov
Peter Leko
R Praggnanandhaa
Ray Robson
Richard Rapport
Ruslan Ponomariov
Samuel Sevian
Sergey Karjakin
Teimour Radjabov
Vladislav Artemiev
Wang Hao
Wei Yi
Wesley So
Yuriy Kuzubov

http://en.lichess.org/training/opening

Interesting concept. Could be improved though.

Wow I would love to have this customized to my repertoire

OK I tried the lichess opening trainer and it wasn't really what I thought at first. Most of the positions are "find 5 developing moves that don't lose material".

What I had in mind was positions with one or very few right answers. More like a flashcard system, see the position and try to recall the prepared move. Does anything like this exist?

Mini-quiz time. These positions are from my blitz games with weakened engines. After zooming through a batch of super-GM games in Arena 3.5, it's often difficult for me to resist a short duel against the comp, so as days pass, the games accrue.

Find the best move. If one side is completely winning regardless of what he does, find the quickest win.

None of these should be too hard for anyone >1400, so time yourself. Check the solutions and collect your points afterwards.

1)



2)



3)



4)




5)

Share times and scores.

This is not a tactic (that I'm aware of). It's a position from a game I just finished.



White to move.

Is there anything in this position? I couldn't find a plan, we agreed to a draw. I couldn't run this through a computer because it was a 960 game. Sorry for the picture size - don't know how to make others.

Oh, this wasn't the position we agreed to a draw. I went 25. Rd3 and my opponent replied with Qc5 (this was the same position as 23rd move).

maybe play instead of 25.Rd3, play 25.d4 followed by Re5(fixing the weak e pawn in place) with the idea of infiltration on the F file with a rook or a queen

d4/Re5 and then one needs to create a second weakness...maybe by pushing some queenside pawns.

Q@d8 is sort of wasted here, as is the R@d7...this is one of those positions where it makes sense to think about where pieces would be placed ideally and then just put them there to see where things settle. For example, d4/Re5/../Qb4 and then a5-a4 at least requires White to do something.

White is significantly better. He has every important file -- d, e, and f -- a target on e6, and Black's queen is hilariously placed. He has all the winning chances, so agreeing to a draw was a big mistake.

Plans are overrated. You can just gradually improve your position (d2-d4 and other pawn advances). I'd start by looking for concrete lines (plan-first approaches are meh): 1. Rd3 Qc5 2. Re5 Qb6 3. Rde3 Kd7 (if 3.-c5, that pawn comes under fire after 4. R3e4 and 5. Qe3, with Rc4 and b4/d4 in some variations if Black moves the queen and plays b6) 4. d4 Qc7 (otherwise 5. c4 and 6. d5 probably picks up the pawn) 5. h4, with the idea of creating a second weakness with h4-h5, is the first idea that comes to mind*.


ETA: *This sentence was a lot simpler at first, but I noticed other Black resources and had to address them, and I'm still spotting annoyances here and there. Sholar's 1. d4 2. Re5 is a "gradual improvement" that should be sufficient.

Thanks. Playing d4 didn't really cross my mind. I strongly considered b4, but I didn't see a follow up idea. Also, for whatever reason, I thought having all of my heavy pieces on the same file was good (primarily because I couldn't figure where else, but also since I knew his Queen had to play defense).

Edit: @Rei I didn't mean plan* in any way other than "Soooo, where the hell should I put my pieces now?"

* I'm guessing plan has a very technical meaning the way you are using it.

Hold off on d4 for the moment. It's a committal move and you can always play it later.

I like 25.Re5, intending R2e3 and Rd3, or R2e4 and Rd4. Basically just move your rooks up the e-file, to tie him down completely, and see what he does. He has to do something weakening, because the threat of moving the back rook to the d-file instead of the front rook leaves his queen trapped.

He might have to choose between something very passive like ...Qd7 and ...Qc8, or weakening with ...c5. In the latter case you can attack with some combination of Qf2, b4, R2e4, and/or d4.

Is 110k a lot?