S.handrax is back. Some of his old arguments with guys like Dire and Discipline (where did they ever go, btw?) and some of our current regulars make me lol.

Man I was looking at Naka's bullet games the other day. He was rated 3104 I think. But he had a stretch of like 8 consecutive wins versus ~2200 players and he didn't gain a single point. Wow.

Bartholomew has the highest quality chess videos on youtube, I think.

I also enjoy MatoJelic's videos. They are not long, and he seems to present them the same consistent fashion every time. He's got a soothing voice, too. And throws in humor now and again. After one of his "pause the veejeo and try to spot the move", he goes "pawn takes on h6" showing the pawn moving backwards. lol. Then he's like "no, pawn cannot move backwards.."

His 5-minute blitz videos with long postgame reviews are the best chess offerings on YouTube, imo. They are a lot more time-effective than his standard videos.

This one is great. I either learned or reinforced like ten useful ideas and patterns in 15 minutes.



The best blitz videos (John Bartholomew, chessexplained) are a valid serious learning tool, imo. They are full of useful patterns.

That was amazing. I need to watch more now.

hoooly ****ing ****. John vs. multicast in a 15-minute game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FF0qq6oYWQ

Can't wait to watch this later.

Is there pretty strong evidence that multicast is Carlsen? I haven't heard of it before now.

Cool video. Not that I really know wtf is going on but

It seems like the strongest evidence is that this player uses many different openings and plays non-book moves, which I believe is quite a Magnusian trait. John makes it sound like at the very least it's a super GM which I assume he means 2700+, because he said he's played "regular GMs" and they aren't this tough. This player is also dominant across like all time controls, I think. Whoever it is, it's fun to watch and you can clearly get a sense of the reverence John has for him.

His video with at-the-time 16-year-old Vladislav Artemiev (2659 FIDE) was the tops for "reverence" until then, afaik. I like videos like that. They are more fun when you know that an IM is thinking, "Holy ****, this guy is good".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...artphones.html





TOP grandmaster.

Good read though.

I think that last pic is an amalgamation of every current 2p2 poster.

And his emotional stability that of every current POGger.

There aren't any hot 19 year old Aussie girls that are in to chess players. Trust me, I've been over the whole country in search.

Chess.com has a video of Carlson analyzing one of his games. I am really surprised that Chess.com can afford his services. Perhaps they are in a videos in exchange for promotion of his Play Magnus app.

Maybe it just depends on the chess player?

What are you suggesting sir?

Really interesting game here. Would have liked to see this at a longer time control.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDRY...nMrF_mpFMUqTTa

2 things: I have a boxing game for XBOX where I'd created like 4 different careers. I hadn't played it in a while and turned it on the other day and totally forgot that I had created a boxer (before I started paying attention to chess) named Magnus Karlsen (K not C). At the time I just thought it sounded like a badass name and knew it sounded Viking and there were guys like Magnus Samuelson the strongman, etc. Pretty funny coincidence. Another boxer I called Quann Steel, who was a black man. I think Quann sounds badass.

The other thing is I think I just came up with a badass multi-move tactic in my corr game that features a bishop sac but wins me a Queen (b/c otherwise it earns me a checkmate). Pretty stoked to see if I can make it happen. It requires 2 more moves just to set up, though, so I'll have to see if I have the tempo to burn. And if the position doesn't change substantially. Basically it involves me moving a Knight to a square that attacks 2 Rooks and a Queen, but is hung for his Bishop. If he takes (which I'm sure he will, since the plan isn't all that obvious), it draws his bishop off an important diagonal for my other knight to land on and basically **** him in the ***.

Man, what a sick game by Magnus back when he was ~15. Dat knight sac. Did he really calculate that far ahead? Or did he just know it would lead to "good stuff"?

Latter. It's not a forcing line. White has numerous ways to win and Black has numerous ways to lose. 17. Nxf7 *xf7 18. f5 is all that needs to be spotted, but you'd look at more to be sure.

1-minute game with a weakened engine. I have white. http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=100695. Look how long it takes me to play the simple mate at the end, LOL ("deflect for Qxh6, deflect for Qxh6, oh wait, I can just take on f6!"). Format's too fast for me.

Wow that's a 1 minute game? Damn. Your moves 10 and 13 (Knight captures 2 central pawns) are cool, and something I need to get better at. This is where I would say "but he can just capture my knight" and move on, instead of realizing you can check him with bishop and win his Queen, or sac the knight and then pin his Queen with a rook. Cool stuff.

On move 24, does Qh5 win the f7 pawn? It would have 2 attackers but he can only get 1 safe defender there in time (his Rook).

A good bishop chase while you're looking for how to mate somewhere other than h6 seems better to me than just sitting there looking for the most efficient mate in any form of blitz where time could be an issue. I.e. That's probably a *good* habit to have for bullet/blitz rather than try to "work harder" to spot a mate in 4.

Yeah, game quality went downhill somewhere around there, since I was trying not to flag.

Looks like your quads opponent is timing out of all of his games. lol. Your next round might start soon after all.