Was busy with uni assignments... But following the candidates have motivated me, will be back studying again...

First round of my uni club championship, I'm white, not much to say...

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=112399

New to chess but impressive from the engine's perspective. 3 mistakes, 1 inaccuracy. 30 average centipawn loss.

Welcome to the thread!

Thanks! Any tips on improvement for a relative beginner? I'm ~1470 on Lichess 15+15, ~900 on Chess.com 5+5, and ~1375 on Chesstempo. Any must read books at that level?

Do easy tactics. Online tactics trainers that are based on rating aren't really suited for that. They will give you more difficult exercises when you solve the easier ones. But you DO want to do easy tactics at your level (REALLY easy ones). and you want to do them over and over and over and over again. The same ones.

If you want a book recommendation, get "Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games" by Laszlo Polgar. But you don't really need that. You can get easy problems online as well. For example with a paid subscription for chesstempo, which is well worth it (their silver plan for 20 bucks a year is all you really need, as it contains the one feature of the site worth paying for - making custom problem sets). Then make a set only including problems 400-500 points lower than your current rating, and drill them spaced repetition style. Do this every day for however long your schedule allows you.

For in game decision making and minimizing the amount of horrible blunders, I've just written a post in the other log thread on here (MarkD's log), check that one out, too.

Oh interesting. So you think going all out on easy tactics is a better use of my time than say endgame work? I'm like 3/4 of the way through Logical Chess Move by Move, after that I was toying with the idea of diving in to 100 Endgames you Must know. Which one would you prioritize?

If you enjoy studying endgames, by all means go for it. If you enjoy playing over master games, especially from a book that's widely recognized as very good and instructional, by all means go for it. Both are very beneficial (especially endgames), and you do not have to concentrate on one study area exclusively, but you can't ever neglect tactics. I recommend easy ones, because you need to drill very basic patterns and hardwire them into your brain. Those will provide the building blocks for more complicated tactics.

I also recommend a tactics primer. Believe it or not, Wikipedia can do a decent job here. The articles on the major tactical motifs (pin, skewer, double attack, etc) are very good. Other than that I can recommend John Nunn's book "Learn Chess Tactics". It explains all the motifs very well and has a bunch of exercises too.

Stop playing 5+5s cause you won't get any better.

I made my way through Comprehensive Chess Course Vol 1 and 2, making sure each problem was solved and understood, especially the motifs for mates (printed them out and cue cards to instantly recognize them). It was a drag for a while, but it was nice to actually start "seeing" things like actual chess players do.

The "checks, captures and threats" thing posted in another thread was also a huge help. Having some sort of rote plan is so important to your mindset as a beginner.

I've also been through and completed Silman's Complete Endgame Course to the end of Philidor and Lucena positions. I found it refreshing to not be completely drawing dead in endgames, and actually exchanging to get into favorable spots.

I found that finding stuff you enjoy and studying that keeps your interest. I was interested in learning the names of the openings - a month ago I had no idea about the difference between the Ruy Lopez and the Queen's Gambit Declined. I knew that learning the actual names of the first few moves wouldn't improve my chess knowledge, but it certainly kept the interest going forward. Particularly when watching online matches reviewed by others. It felt like you were "in the club" so to speak.

Right now I'm working through The Amateur's Mind (Reassess Your Chess after that) and then who knows. It's certainly interesting finally being able to develop a plan given the imbalances in the position. My opening is still garbage, but at my level it's pretty easy to win the middlegame.

Good lord. I'm "+1"-ing the entirety of a Sugar Nut post. What is the world coming to?

FC Bayern goa^h^h^h ...

Great post, thanks. The problem with Chess books is that its difficult to know if the material is appropriate for my level. Everyone recommends Yasser Seirawan's Tactics book, but unclear if its too advanced. Also, John Bartholomew consistently recommends 'Tune your Chess Tactics Antenna' but again unclear if he's speaking to intermediate ~14-1600 level players. But you would go with John Nunn's book at my level?

Edit: Also whoever recommended signing up for Chesstempo premium, thank you. I created a 1000 and under problem set and a mate in 2 problem set and instantly realized I have major holes in my fundamental pattern recognition (I'm just under 1400 standard on CT).

I haven't read "Tactics Antenna" yet, but I know what it's about. Based on that, I wouldn't recommend it to somebody like you. Learn the basic patterns first, then drill them until they're hardwired, and then maybe start "tuning your antenna" so you'll find subtle hints that they might be there.

And yeah, I was also the one recommending the Chesstempo premium. I'm usually not the greatest fan of freemium services, as most of them seem shady at best, but Chesstempo is actually great. Their basic (unpaid) service is fine as is, and their silver membership (which gives you all you need) is 20 ****ing bucks a year. No complaints here.

"Tactics Antenna" might not be best choice right now but I highly recommend it once you got the basic patterns down. It helped me tremendously notice opportunities in-game. It's one thing to find a tactic in a puzzle when you know something has to be there and you have all the time in the world. It's entirely different over the board when the clock is ticking.
The book describes seven signals to look out for: King position, unprotected pieces, alignment (eg. a pin/skewer), knight fork distance, trapped pieces, crucial/overloaded defender, impotent defence/defence too far away.
The book made consciously look for them in every position.

I also liked the "From beginner to chess master" youtube series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSA9...uF8GuWkI1EJ8Zp

It starts with the very basic material and I skipped the first 10 (of 26) videos but I think I got something out of every video I watched. There wasn't anything groundbreaking in there and I have heard most of it before. It helped me though internalize that knowledge.
Most of them are meant to be watched in order. The last three videos though explain basic checkmate patterns and can be watched independently.

Second round of my uni club championship, I'm black this game against an unrated, but I knew he played 1. d4 followed by 2. Bg5 every game, so I did some prep work the night before and quickly won the game...


http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=112609



Third round of my uni club championship, I'm white this game against a 2056 FIDE rated, I did some prep the night before and after a complex struggle and time scramble I end up winning when he blundered in a draw position


http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=112610


The game started with recently up to date english preparation, I messed up the move orders with 9. dxc5 and gave him an extra option of Nd7-b6 which allowed him to equalise but then found a sacrifice in the middlegame for the hanging pawns which gave me a better position but missed a win. I then proceeded to play inaccurately and allow him to drum up counterplay. 18. Qf3 was bad and 18. f3 was preferable as the way to play against the minor pieces is to erect a solid structure with f3-e4 to restrict their square. He then managed to drum up a pretty dangerous attack where we both missed wins and the evaluation kept shifting. We both had less than 5 minutes on the clock (this was a rapid game) and he ended up making the last blunder in a drawn position where he could have repeated moves probably.

What standard rating do you think this is on Chesstempo?

idk like 1100 or something?

Streaming Lichess Titled Arena 5 on https://www.twitch.tv/squishydoggy

It was 1260. Thought it was especially challenging for that level given you had to recognize the smothered mate threat. Guess not though. Sent from my RS988 using Tapatalk

The knight on e5 is guarding f7...

Hi! New to this thread!

Nxd6 Rf8 (Re7) Nxc8 is winning an exchange, but if Black plays Rg8, then Nxc6! is also very strong, so the smother threat is relevant I think.

Took a while, but I guess there aren't many convincing looking alternatives to Nxd6 as candidates, so everyone finds it. Often the difficulty on CT is to do with the plausibility of alternatives rather than the difficulty of the tactic itself.

More or less completed my Caro Kann Repertoire, mostly based off GM recommendations as well as personal preferences. Most of the lines, I more or less covered already.

Here's a nice win in one of the main lines: https://www.chess.com/live/game/2815950032

After my university assessments and exams in the next few weeks, I'm going to practice my lines more as well as ramp up the intensity of my tactical and endgame training...

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=112689

Played a friendly game, and played it quite bad Experimented with some weird ideas in the Italian lines and got a pretty nice advantage, then proceeded to set my position on fire.

Is 4.0-0 part of the experiment or is this your usual line? If the latter, what don't you like about Ng5?