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Currently, since I am a beginner I am focusing on one thing, because I learned basic endgames, and a little bit of openings. I want to MASTER THE SICILIAN. Any tips or diagrams/puzzles you could show me about the Sicilian. Thanks!

I guess I have to start with the bad news so that it makes sense. I just realized that my previous account (which I closed) had a rating of 900. And this account has a rating of 400. *roblox oof* How is it possible for my rating to go down by 500 points XD Well the good news is, I think I know why. This is kinda embarrassing tho lol I may have used the engine going against bots too much. And I may have forgotten how to think for myself. Gosh I know that sounds weird but I think it's true. But the real good news is, now I just KNOW that I can improve. Knowing why my rating is really bad should help me fix it. So now all I need to do is play against a bot without the engine. Again and again until I feel confident enough to play real people. I hope thix fises my problem xD

The matchmaking is so dumb, literally for almost the past ten rapid games I've played (Before this game), they've all been with black, and then they finally let me play with white and they put me against a 2000? nice This was yesterday btw I was just too tired to analyze it last night

So this is the Carro-Kann defense, and after Nf3 it becomes Karpov variation, fairly uncommon with 2500 games played like this on chess.com, yet definitely possible to get into if black plays the Carro-Kann and plays the main line up to the point before Nd7, which then becomes the Karpov variation of the Carro-Kann. Now this is where white can play can play the exceptionally rare move Qe2, which threatens a smother mate if black plays the most natural move Nf6, or really any move other than moving his knight on d7 or the pawns on e7 and f7. Take a look: what’s interesting is everything played until black plays Nd7 is the main-line, so it’s definitely possible if you’re playing against the Carro-Kann your opponent may play the Karpov variation, would could set up this cool smother mate.

What could I have done differently to prevented a draw and win? Tough draw to take being up material.

Aren’t openings theoretical? Every time I see a played out opening, everything has to work out right that your opponent does. Opinions?

When playing the Sicilian vs the Grand Prix attack, I play a6 with my pawn, and do a queen side expansion (moving pawns forward), then playing the dragon moving the g5 pawn to g6, to play bishop at g5 attacking the d4 area. (I’m black) *Example* *note: whites moves are all theoretical, asking if I can do it anyways.

My excuse this time is that my laptop ran out of battery around move 10

This was a game I just had to share, given the tactics used in it were something I learned here at Beginners & Masters! I believe it was @little_guinea_pig who made the comment once that "it doesn't matter the material disadvantage if you get checkmate", and I believe it was @B1ZMARK who explained to me the idea of how sometimes your position on the board can be more important than just gobbling up pieces. So, with that in mind, I went into this game without knowing that I would use those exact ideas from those great players to help me win a very tough game! In this game, I actually intentionally (believe it or not! lol) sacked my rook to get my queen down near my opponent's king, which at the time (and still does) felt like an extreme advantage and only a matter of a few moves until mate. Let's take a look at the game: I actually had written a huge thing of analysis, but my computer DIED right before I could post it and lost it all ... so I really don't feel like re-writing everything again. However, as you can see from the game; during the end-game, I sacked my rook to take white's bishop and get my queen down the board. Also, I noticed this caused white's queen to actually be somewhat useless, as it was now at the opposite end of the board and unable to defend it's king. I got white in a M3 pattern and executed a super sweet smother mate. I would actually be interested on the insight from everyone here as to what they think about this tactic? Should I have or have not sacked the rook to get my queen down the board?

It rivals the Mona Lisa for its artistic value Be quiet @stilldlust & @icyboyyy

I've seen and heard many people say that the Catalan is slow, the Catalan is boring, the Catalan is just a stupid Fianchetto and a way to avoid theory of main lines, but all of that couldn't be farther from the truth. The Catalan, if in the right hands, can absolutely decimate your opponents. I chose this as my main opening and have been extremely impressed by the sharpness of this opening. Rather than going for an immediate, obvious attack in other openings (Ex: King's Indian Attack, King's Gambit, etc), the Catalan prefers to attack with subtlety. The long term, sustained pressure on black's queenside will, if facing someone unaware, cause their position to crumble. The Catalan is a very theory heavy opening, but the plans are extremely flexible. Many positions can often transpose, and most of the theoretical moves of the Catalan are actually quite obvious. Here's an example of a line where black overextends by being too greedy and attempts to retain a material advantage (Apologies for spelling errors, chess.com won't let me edit annotations for some reason) (This is only one line of the Open Catalan btw)

I literally have NO idea how this happened. I had the advantage from start to finish. I myself had no innacuracies and no mistakes. I'm a little surprised. At least my confidence benefited! (I'm having to try hard not to hate chess when I lose a hard game)

I'm very tired, very bored, very etc that's why I blundered my queen (I would not do this in Rapid I promise) btw what a show of resourcefulness sheesh

Sorry for borderline spamming but I like analyzing my games like this and I think that's why my rating is increasing right now

I just watched the chess.com lesson called Weak Targets: f2 and f7 and realized something crazy: So how can I protect my weak pawn from getting attacked? (I know that castling early is helpful, but is there anything else?

i'm currently 1689, I'm so close

The sac was based on a suffocating white space advantage and a weak black kingside. That's what happens when you give up the fianchettoed bishop, I guess. rapid (10min) on lichess.

What is going on with the 1600s today