I'll remember this position the next time I'm considering whether to play h3 in the opening.

For the longest time I tried to figure out how on earth is white winning in that position with the pawn on h2 after Kg4. Then I realized it's white to move

Such a crazy chess month. Aronian was #2 and is now 6th (which sounds crazy in itself), over 50 points behind Caruana.

Cray cray.

Fabian...

hm...........................

Hello Mr. Caruana, nice to have you here!!

Rating questions to follow:

– Will Alexander Grischuk, consistently among the least talked about of the elite, finally surpass 2800?
– How quickly will Ding Liren (2729.5 | -24.5) recover?
– And how much higher rated would China's elite be if they weren't obligated (or incentivized -- or whatever) to play sub-2500s so often.
– Has Ivanchuk permanently been evicted from 2750-land?
– Will Morozevich ever regain his past glory?
– Anish Giri: the next Caruana or the next Karjakin?
– Hou Yifan: 2700+ or 2750+? the next Levon Aronian (in terms of adulthood rating trajectory)?
– 1. Fabiano Caruana?
– Is Kramnik on the way out?
– Whither Kamsky and Shirov?
– How does Topalov so consistently surprise his critics?
– Richard Rapport: the next Anish Giri?

Needs more: Naka - still top ten? For how much longer?

If nothing changes Toppy is back to 2800 for the next list!!

Too much variance in chess. You never know what's going to happen

I found this exchange awesome. The question was "Why isn't the French Defesece played by current GMs?"

lolz

LittlePeasant probably means Pawn.

He's a pawn yo.

Oh dear, I've started obsessively watching his original immortal commentary on Youtube

So far his funniest and deepest rant I've listened to is the one about Carlsen's sponsors in round 4 (where he also advised everyone but Magnus to switch over to poker ), which is closely related to a recent chess.com article about a cab driver playing chess well (GM Nicolas Rossolimo). It turns out that, in Soviet Russia, rather not cab drivers, but tram conductors were great chess players.

For some reason, I also can't stop laughing at his awkward sentence 'Now suddenly queen became under some x-ray ideas!' I wonder why it's not in the plugin (the best soundbits to me in the plugin is 'can't believable', 'special chocolate', 'special weather', 'suddenly he [Naka] will take piece', 'benzene to fire' [petrol was meant, the Russian for which is 'benzin']).

Hey all. I haven't posted for a while so too scared to make new thread. My question is about getting out of the opening in blitz.

I commonly have this problem in 5 and 10 minute blitz. For skill level context, I'm currently 1150 on chess.com blitz. I was 1420 two years ago...I suspect reverse rating creep (I hope lol?). I tend to play to the level of my opponent, which is also my bane in poker.

This is an odd opening but an example of the issue, and I can post more later if more are interested in the topic. But basically, I develop and run into problems finding a game plan.

Example, I'm black to move (img embed tag didn't work):

http://imgur.com/5odSEWb

I usually look for moves in this order: threatening moves, constricting moves, and then "dream position moves" (Silman-taught thinking. I'm a Reassess Your Chess guy).

Any tips on this particular position? Spoiler alert, I castled (as I had no better idea) and opponent pushed 9. g4. I'm still stuck. Game continued ..h6(?), 10. qe2 ...e4 11. f3 ...ne5(I'm treading water, and way behind on time already)

Any insight into what my check-downs (to use quarterbacking terms) should be in these situations when blitzing? I have a million examples, and some in the most common positions usually 8ish moves in, like 4 knights or Italian game.

Thanks!

Best advice you can get: play long time control games. In blitz you don't have enough time to come up with creative new plans, you just go back to what you know. If you want to get better at chess you have to play longer games to be able to understand what it means to combine ideas, coming up with correct move orders to execute your own plans and prevent your opponents'.
Regarding Blitz: if you don't know what to do develop your pieces. This means that 0-0 is probably ok, but h6 is a blunder. I'd rather play 9. - Ne8 to play for f5. If you don't think thats a good idea or just don't know what to do, you could play a developing move as Re8 or Qd7.
Finally, read this: http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman127.pdf

After 8...O-O 9.g4 Re8 10.g5 leaves no safe place for the knight that doesn't hang the d5 pawn. But 9...Qd7 and 9...Ne8 both look ok.

Missed that, thanks.

Nice article on the 2014 Sinquefield Cup.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports..._happened.html

And curtainzzzz'zzz reply: http://www.gregshahade.com/home/amaz...no-one-noticed. (Probably interesting if you found the article interesting)

Grand Prix underway, two decisive games on day one. Guess who won one of them? Yeah, Fabiano is now within 8.8 points of Kasparov for the title of "second highest live rating ever", and 15.1 points back of Carlsen for the title of "highest current live rating in the world".

Might have been a bit pessimistic, held Fressinet with Black in the first round

Great result my man, well played!

What on earth was Fressinet thinking though, allowing this line? :O

Caruana beat Svidler, and is now +3=3 for sole possession of first place, six rounds into the Baku grand prix event. Now within 11.7 points of Carlsen for highest live rating.

Would like to add another guy to BJJs prospect watch - Nihal Sarin from India.

This guy is either 9 or 10 years old at the moment, (don't know the exact birthdate, but he was born in 2004), just became a World Champion under 10 and is currently playing in the U-20 World Championship. His current rating is 2076, but Indians are known to be severely underrated and he is proving that already - through 3 rounds he is +66 ELO, after beating 2420 IM, drawing 2428 IM and drawing 2409 FM. Three great results in a row, so probably not a fluke. I am excited

Oh and your darling Wei Yi is leading the U-20 world championship so far with 3/3

Cool, I'll add him to the watch! And Wei Yi needs to pick up some points in that event, he finally just on this most recent October rating list, dropped back behind Magnus for the "highest rating at the age of X" record. He was "only" 2641 at the age of 15 3/12, while at that same age Magnus was 2646 (on the April 2006 rating list). We Yi only needs 6 points gained to take back the title for the ages of 15 4/12 and 15 5/12, but he also needs to be all the way up to 2675 by the time the January list is published, if he wants to hold that lead for the age of 15 6/12.

PS - Yes, I do know how to reduce fractions, but I prefer to express all Prodigy Watch ages in twelfths to make it clear that it's all rounded to the nearest month as of the time rating lists are published.

Edit: Any idea what his birthday is? Wikipedia has a page for him, which is unusual for prodigies so young, but it's a stub and it claims he was born on "December 0, 2004"...

As per the participant list of the 2013 National Under-11 Championship (where he was seeded as #22), Nihal's birthday is July 13th.