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MKnight82

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On 2/10/2021 at 10:45 PM, fretgod99 said:

What’s everyone doing to get better? I’m trying to play a lot of games with the same opening. Daily and rapid tournaments are good. I can’t process fast enough for blitz or bullet to do me any good.

Teaching my wife, I think, has made me a way better player.  Explaining the rules, why things go a certain way, and basic strategy like controlling the middle really made me think about the game more than I usually do.  And when she tries things that start to work, I can note it.

But I was on fire last night.  Overcommitted my queen, but I had a bunch of pawns that had free access to the other side of the board, and I got a bunch of pawns, her queen, and her rook out of it.  And since she's new, she can't successfully pin my king without a queen, much less no queen no rook.

Once she lost her queen rook, that side of the board was mine, and I squeezed her into a corner for checkmate with my two rooks.

I'm not a good player in general, and she beat me in her third game ever, then almost beat me last time, so it was satisfying to wipe the floor with her.

Edited by Daniel
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1 hour ago, Daniel said:

Teaching my wife, I think, has made me a way better player.  Explaining the rules, why things go a certain way, and basic strategy like controlling the middle really made me think about the game more than I usually do.  And when she tries things that start to work, I can note it.

But I was on fire last night.  Overcommitted my queen, but I had a bunch of pawns that had free access to the other side of the board, and I got a bunch of pawns, her queen, and her rook out of it.  And since she's new, she can't successfully pin my king without a queen, much less no queen no rook.

Once she lost her queen rook, that side of the board was mine, and I squeezed her into a corner for checkmate with my two rooks.

I'm not a good player in general, and she beat me in her third game ever, then almost beat me last time, so it was satisfying to wipe the floor with her.

Neighbors are gonna call the cops after that kind of abuse dude.  

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On 2/10/2021 at 11:45 PM, fretgod99 said:

What’s everyone doing to get better? I’m trying to play a lot of games with the same opening. Daily and rapid tournaments are good. I can’t process fast enough for blitz or bullet to do me any good.

We've chatted about this but I'm trying to transition to predesigned openings rather than just doing free form play.  So far I'm having a lot of growing pains. 

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25 minutes ago, MKnight82 said:

We've chatted about this but I'm trying to transition to predesigned openings rather than just doing free form play.  So far I'm having a lot of growing pains. 

Growing pains are ok. I got wrecked a lot trying out the King’s Indian Attack before I decided it just wasn’t working for me.

As long as you’re analyzing your games to figure out what went wrong, you’ll make progress. That’s the nice thing about playing with an app; they have engines to help you analyze.

Tactics are big. Game analysis is big. And, honestly, just playing (and consequently losing) a lot of games makes a big difference, too.

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9 minutes ago, fretgod99 said:

Growing pains are ok. I got wrecked a lot trying out the King’s Indian Attack before I decided it just wasn’t working for me.

As long as you’re analyzing your games to figure out what went wrong, you’ll make progress. That’s the nice thing about playing with an app; they have engines to help you analyze.

Tactics are big. Game analysis is big. And, honestly, just playing (and consequently losing) a lot of games makes a big difference, too.

Do you pay for chess.com subscription?  Cause I don't and I'm limited to the analysis once per day.  

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24 minutes ago, MKnight82 said:

Do you pay for chess.com subscription?  Cause I don't and I'm limited to the analysis once per day.  

Yeah, I did get one. Not the top tier. I think it works out to like $5 a month or something. Forgot analysis is limited on free.

You can always play out the game on like lichess’s board editor/analysis engine. That’s free.

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