Alisa Melekhina is hot enough that I'm willing to overlook that.

lol, yes I always attend tournaments for all the hot chicks??? BTW I've seen both around I actually think Zenyuk is cuter tbh.

considered dropping chess and start playing tennis?

lmao wow

WIM is not a real title imo -- hard to be considered a real title when the equivalent is what 2100 uscf ?

fwiw it looks like a strong tourn

and holla @ swingdoc, if i was in the area i'd def drop by.. too many miles away though :-x

It's pretty obvious 3 0 and 5-minute are far different games. However that's not what I was asking for him to clarify.

I find in the 5-min pool you'll run into a ton of guys are on some serious auto-pilot. They're just going through the motions and playing 'solid' without really thinking. And they select opening 'systems' to support that style of play. Such a huge chunk of the 5-min pool is Benko as black, London/KIA or some other 'system' as white.

In my limited recent experience in blitz matches people just seem to be putting more effort into trying to play good chess in the games.

so someoen who has seen it explain to me what "msot technologically advanced" club means

They have a Roomba that runs amok? No, they have 10-15 DGT boards inlaid in wooden chess tables that automatically transmit moves. A couple dozen large LCD/plasma TV's are hung around the club that can display the ongoing games, display round pairings, show chess videos when tournaments aren't going, etc. I think there's some sort of projector in the classroom in the basement.

White to move




Find White's best line of play

gj

Nice.

vn holla,

please use spoilers next time.

I saw the answer on my screen as I began to analyze :-x

Note to self-- Don't play chess drunk. Ha apparently I lost 100 rating points late last night.

100 points? That is nothing. You might feel very good and still drop over 100 points.
And I will mclovin.

Anyone have a reasonably confident translation of FICS ratings to USCF or FIDE? When I came back to the game in a casual way 6 months ago, I googled and read that FICS overrates by about 300 points.

Well I've played a couple hundred games in the 3min to 15min range (I never played fast regularly previously in my life) and have worked my way up to maybe 1150. I've played maybe half as many games at 15min to 45min and am pushing 1600. The only rating I have from younger days was a provisional from a four game tourney of a little under 1800. In those days I felt comfortable against a 1700 player--positionally comfortable but still prone to a total blunder.

While I'm prepared to accept that I may be a 800/1300 level player right now, I have to say that the 1100 FICS blitz players seem definitely better to me than 1700 slow players did 10 years ago. (And I feel like I'm better now than I was then...)

Help??

I think Shelby Lyman had a boo-boo in his beginners problem last week.



He gives 1. Rh6+ Kg8 2. Qe6+ Qf7 3. Rh8+ Kxh8 4. Qxf7

Trivial win of course, but I can see how a beginner could easily blunder after 4. ...Ra8, tho 5. Qb7 would be hard to miss.

Certainly a much cleaner way.

Huh?

First, finger surveybot on FICS to get some information on comparing a standard FICS rating to USCF/BCF/FIDE. If you're 1600 in standard FICS, then your estimated USCF rating would be 1400-1500. Secondly, playing 4 total rated games once is a pretty horrible way to evaluate your strength. Variance, etc, etc.

I have no idea what this means or where the "boo-boo" is.

4... Ra8? 5. Qh5+ Kg8 6. Qd5+ Kxx 7. Qxa8.
Doesn't matter much with a queen up though.

Wait, huh, do you mean that the position with QvR and pawns on both sides isn't a trivial win for white? Or what? I don't get it.

Now that I look at the position again, 3. Qxc8+ seems much better.

Qxc8+ Qf8
Rh8+!!!!!! resigns

not sure this deserves its own thread, but I had an interesting decision in a game today. Opponent was a little over 1400.

The last most was black bxe4. Do I grab a pawn on c7, or sac a pawn, take with the rook on e4 and try to get a rook on the seventh rank?