Forum

Hi everyone. If you'd like to say a few words after class, here's the place. Thanks all. :)

black at the moment has the advantage, but has no good moves... the french defense is my faroite opening, but i often end up lacking good moves, at a sort of stand off to see who takes a risk first. it also helps put me up in the endgame.. check it out!

[COMMENT DELETED]

This Forum is to promote self created Tournaments. Write 1. before your tournament that all you questions or comments that concern your tournament can be titled with 1/1. Answer.... 1/2 Answer..or comment.

Please discuss issues here. Thanks.

Dear Chess.com Friends, It is with great pleasure that I would like to invite you to our 3rd Chess Holiday. The event will take place on 10-17 August 2015 in Budapest, Hungary. This year, we will be working very closely with various International Masters to help you improve your chess game. Not only will there be detailed workshops about the key principles of the opening, middlegame and endgame, we will also be sightseeing in one of the most beautiful cities in Central Europe together. For any chess player, our holiday is one of the best ways to relax, adventure,build a community. and learn. During the week, there will be many activities planned, as well as workshops and tournaments. You can find more information regarding the 3rd Chess Holiday at . www.chessholidays.net Don't forget to follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/chessholidays and Twitter (#chessholiday), as updates, itineraries, and mini-lessons will be updated regularly. I look forward to hearing from you! Atilla Turzo International Master and Chess Coach www.attilaturzo.com Do you have any questions? Send me a message!!

I want to play live chess with my freinds,can some body help me with this question.How to choose opponent(from friends list) to play live chess?!

Hello Chess.com University Students! You will find links to all the announced seminars and courses in this forum. So far 1 course and 5 single-day seminars have been scheduled. Here are links to the scheduled seminars/courses. You'll find all the info you need by reading the news posts: Seminars: Chess 111: Opening Principles Chess 151: Amazing Games by Kramnik and Botvinnik Chess 221: Tactics - The Pin Chess 231: Development-Initiative Chess 311: 6.Be2 Najdorf for Black Chess 341: Basic Pawn Endgames and Opposition Courses: Chess 481: Pawn Structures - Backward Pawns This forum will be updated as more seminars and courses are announced so be sure to track this forum! [Last Updated: May 22, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific Time]

Hey guys, would any of you guys want to get together in a nice and big group chat on google hangouts or oovoo, and just let each other know our favorite tips and tricks, and in turn learn some tips and tricks ourselves? Tell me if this is a good idea and if you want in. Thanks, Thomas

Method 1 of 2: Becoming a Better Chess Player 1 Learn how to play. You can't get better if you don't know the rules or how to move a piece correctly. 2 Join a local chess club. Be social and free with chess. Don't make yourself feel good by playing people that clearly are worse than you. If you have to to make yourself feel better after a loss, a good way is to start planning how to brutally crush your opponent. 3 Learn the values of the pieces.A pawn is worth one point. Knights and Bishops are worth three points each. A Rook is worth five points. A Queen is worth nine points. Do not sacrifice material unless you have a clear win. For example do not sacrifice a knight for a king side attack unless you are sure you can win. It is not advantageous to trade a Bishop (worth 3) and a Knight (worth 3) for a rook (worth 5) and a pawn (worth 1) because the Knight and Bishop are more powerful than a Rook and the pawn will not come into play until the very end of the game. These values are relative. In some positions, a bishop or knight is stronger than a rook. 4 Always develop bishops and knights.Pawns are overused and overextended, and often the developing pieces don't get developed. Then, your opponent will usually put a bishop through your pawn structure. Moving too many pawns weakens the castled king side and opens you up to attack. Moving too many pawns usually will weaken your endgame pawn structure. 5 Understand how you play.There are two main ways that people play. Some have a strong defense, and aggressive people that use this style can be incredibly deadly. The other type capitalize. They instantly seize hold of any mistake that their opponent makes, developing quickly and leaving with an open position. Neither is the better, although the main population are more sturdy than capitalizing. It is easier to attack than to defend. Some like to play gambits where they sacrifice a pawn to get an attack because they find that they win a higher percentage of games. 6 Enter your first tournament. Go there feeling like you are going to kick butt in this series of games. Forget the rating. Forget the scores. Just get out there and play the best you can, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 7 Get a rival. Find someone that is better than you and "compete" against them. Play them. Go to the tournaments that they do. Slowly get used to their playing style and use it against them and other people. Don't think of this "rival" as someone to do better than. Don't beat yourself up if you lose. Play them again. And again. And again. Do this until you have learned their style and how to counter it. 8 Study your favorite GM (grandmaster). Study, play, study, play. Learn how to use their techniques, and how to counter them. 9 Read one of the top 10 books written about chess.Here are a few good books: "Logical Chess move by move" by Irving Chernev. It teaches you how to attack the king in the king pawn openings and how to play positional chess with the queen pawn openings. "My System" by Aaron Nimzovitch. "Think Like a Grandmaster" By Alexander Kotov. This book explains how to analyze variations so that you can play the middle game at a much higher level. "Judgement and Planning in Chess" by Max Euwe. A classic book that explains how to judge a position based on space advantage, combinations, endgame advantages, king attack and pawn structures. "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" by Bobby Fischer. A classic book that teaches chess tactics for the beginner. "Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur" by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden. This book explains how a master beats an amateur by making the right move based on a positions needs. "Practical Chess Endings" by Irving Chernev. 300 endgames that start simple but end difficult. "1001 Checkmates" by Fred Reinfield. A classic book that will help you to see checkmates and calculate the variations. "Ideas behind the Chess Openings" By Reuben Fine. Explains the strategies behind the openings so that you can remember and play them better. "100 selected games" by Botvinnik. "Basic Chess Endings" by Reuben Fine. A thick book that is a classic and explains all types of endings. "Point Count Chess" by I. A. Horowitz. A Classic book that rates 32 positional features and teaches how to convert these 32 advantages into a win. "How to win in the chess endings" by I.A. Horowitz. This book explains endgame strategies without complex variations. "Chess Fundamentals" by Jose Raul Capablanca. This book teaches the opening, middle and endgame strategies. 10 Learn the basic endgame rules.End game Strategy, "If ahead in material, exchange pieces not pawns. If behind in material, exchange pawns and you can force a draw.” Without pawns you must be at least a rook up to force mate, the only exception to this is that two knights and a king cannot force mate against a lone king. The king is a powerful piece, use it to block and attack pawns. Bishops of opposite colors draw most of the time because neither side can advance pawns without losing them. A rook pawn and bishop only draw against a black king if the bishop is the opposite color as the queening square. Bishops are worth more than knights in all but locked pawn positions. Pawns, Rooks, and Bishops become more valuable as the game proceeds so play to keep them. Many games with all the pawns on one side of the board end in a draw. 90% of master games end in a draw where all the pawns are on one side of the board because the master with the less pawns will exchange pawns and then sacrifice a knight or bishop for the last of the pawns. If you are left with just a Bishop or Knight you cannot force mate. Rook and Knight or Rook and Bishop many times can only draw against a Rook. In Queen endings, he who moves the Queen to the center first dominates play. 11 Powerful Pawn Structures are: An "Outside Pawn" lures the opponent’s king to other side, enabling you to gobble the rest of his pawns or advance your pawns on the other side of the board. A "Passed Pawn" is not obstructed by another pawn and should be pushed. Nimzovitch said, "Passed Pawns must be pushed". A "Protected Passed Pawn" is a passed pawn that is protected by another pawn. A Protected Passed Pawn forces the opponent to constantly defend against an advance. 12 Weak Pawn Structures are: Doubled pawns cannot defend each other and are subject to attack. Isolated pawns are weak and must be defended by a piece. Backward pawns on open files are extremely weak and subject to attack by rooks. A King with the opposition can draw against a King with a Pawn. A Rook on the seventh rank is worth sacrificing a pawn. Zugzwang is where if your opponent moves his position becomes weaker (he would rather give up his turn), and is common in Chess. Rook and Pawn endings are the most complicated so avoid them. Method 2 of 2: Practicing Like a Champion 1 Memorize the first 12 moves of the 20 top Grandmaster games. You can find these games online easily at sites like chessgames.com. You should memorize the first ten moves of black and white to get a sense of how true masters begin their chess games. This will help you get a sense of not just how to succeed, but how to truly excel. Also, memorizing these moves will make you more disciplined because you'll have to train your mind to absorb these moves as well as to understand what makes them so great. 2 Solve 10,000 puzzles on your favorite puzzle website. You can use websites like Chesstempo, Chessity, or Puzzle Books. As Malcom Gladwell once hypothesized, working on anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert, so imagine what a pro you'll be after solving 10,000 puzzles! Of course, this can take a very long time to achieve, but if you aim to do at least one a day, you will go far. You can also start by setting a more realistic goal for yourself, such as 1,000 puzzles, and see where you go from there. 3 Use Chess apps on your phone. You can also use the world champs chess app or other apps that are geared toward chess players. Though practicing to be a chess master takes complete concentration, having an app on your phone that relates to chess can help you train when you find yourself with some unexpected free time. 4 Play in local tournaments. Sign up for as many as you can and make sure you play at least once a week, no matter how tired or frustrated you may be. Local tournaments are the way to help you practicing playing against real players and to improve your technique and strategy. 5 Review your games with a chess engine or chess coach. Having a chess coach may cost a pretty penny, but he can definitely help you improve at the game and to develop the discipline to be able to think outside the box. You can also find a chess engine online that can help you review your moves and have a sense of what you did wrong and what you did right. Recognizing your flaws and your strong suits is the best way to succeed in chess. 6 Play at least 10,000 games of chess.Remember what we said about becoming a true professional after you've done anything for 10,000 hours? Though doing all of the above practice methods will certainly help, in the end, it's all about playing as many games as you can. If you're truly committed to being a better chess player, this is the path you should follow. Video Work hard! Beginners can't win all the time, and even the masters lose sometimes. Be happy with your victories, but don't become complacent. Tips From experience, I can tell you SOME blitz is good for you; it keeps you sharp tactically, can help you get a 'feel' for an opening relatively quickly, and helps give you basic patterns that are necessary. However, if you're playing more than 3 - 5 blitz games a day, you're probably playing too much blitz. Play SLOW games (at least 15 5) that allow you to think and work on your calculation. If you play too much blitz, you'll find that you won't be able to calculate accurately, you won't be able to apply ideas from your studies, and you'll have trouble taking on strong opponents over the board. It is a good move in the beginning of the game to move your knight. It can threaten enemy pawns and some players move there bishops out. The knight can also capture the enemy bishops and weaken their pawn force that your enemy will need at the end of the game. Understand that like anything, practice makes perfect. Chess is no exception. In fact, it takes years (upon years) to become a strong chess player, but don't become discouraged. Make a consistent and reasonable study plan (and stick to it), and you'll find yourself slowly becoming stronger and stronger. chess.com is an excellent resource; chessmentor, their database, and their videos (especially IM Rensch's "live session" videos) are all very instructive and useful. chessfriend.com has excellent move by move analysis videos of modern grandmaster games. I recommend playing at ICC (if you can pay for the membership), as I've experienced less cheaters on ICC, probably because ICC forces you to cough up $60 for a membership. Chesscube has a cool interface, and has very interesting tournaments (warzone), but there are a LOT of cheaters. If you can't afford ICC, try FICS. If you're below 1700 USCF, you will likely benefit most quickly from doing at least 30 minutes worth of tactics (chesstempo, chess.com, chess.emerald, etc) a day. Don't be lured into believing fictitious lies about "eye contact" or "faking people out." Read and focus on the board. Chess isn't poker. Don't worry about your rating, focus on getting better. The rating will take care of itself. Strategically, study McDonald's "art of logical thinking," and Seirawan's "winning chess: strategies." Books like "My System" are indeed classics, but are way over the head of beginner/intermediate players. You'll end up wasting your time; you really must learn to walk before you can run. When you study strategy, write down the ideas and plans that are given to you, and make a point to implement them in your own games. It's easy to have one of those "a-ha!" moments when you're studying, but then immediately go back to your same old thought process over the board. To get better, you have to refine your thought process and implement new ideas, over the board. Don't worry about studying opening lines; when you start, you'll find that no one plays main lines (because no one knows them), so all that rote memorization will be for nothing. Focus on solid principles (move each piece once before you move any piece twice, centralize your pieces, inhibit your opponents development, develop your pieces so your opponents pawn breaks more difficult to achieve) and you'll at least be equal coming out of the opening (which is all you should be asking for, anyway). DON'T play wild gambits like the Blackmar-Diemer or the Latvian. They don't rely on solid strategic understanding, they can be easily refuted if your opponent has 'booked up' on them (the Ziegler defense literally refutes the BDG flat out), and they will inhibit your learning of traditional chess principles. You may win more games in the short run, but your overall improvement rate will be severely hampered. Play classic Ruy Lopez, Italian, Scotch, Sicilian (probably closed sicilians are best sicilians for beginners), or Queens Gambit positions. Source from : http://www.wikihow.com

http://live.chess.com/live?v=2014091601#g=937141760

Leonard Nimoy, known worldwide as Mr Spock in the original Star Trek television series, has died. He was 83. His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, told the New York Times he died of of pulmonary disease, which he attributed to a smoking habit he had ended 30 years ago. He was hospitalised in Los Angeles earlier this week. Nimoy co-starred with William Shatner on the original Star Trek TV series from 1966 to 1969. His half-human, half-Vulcan character was a perfect counterpart to Shatner’s Captain Kirk in the series, which spawned several films and later TV reboots. He appeared as “Spock Prime” in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness, in which actor Zachary Quinto took on the role of Spock. He last tweeted on Monday, closing as he often did with Spock’s familiar line, “live long and prosper”

This is a classic logic puzzle. There are two different tribes. The members of one tribe always tell the truth and the members of the other tribe always tell a lie. You come to a fork in the road and there is one member of each tribe at the fork. You need to find out which way to go but you must be able to find out which is the native always tells the true and which one always lies, so you will know you are given the correct directions. You can only ask one question to only one of the natives to find out which native always tells the truth and which native which native always tells a lie. What question would you ask? Then you can ask which way to go?

Leonard Nimoy, known worldwide as Mr Spock in the original Star Trek television series, has died. He was 83. His wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, told the New York Times he died of of pulmonary disease, which he attributed to a smoking habit he had ended 30 years ago. He was hospitalised in Los Angeles earlier this week. i.guim.co.uk/static/w-{width}/h--/q-95/sys-images/Sport/Pix/columnists/2015/2/27/1425059578782/Leonard-Nimoy-giving-the--007.jpg"> Leonard Nimoy Read more Nimoy co-starred with William Shatner on the original Star Trek TV series from 1966 to 1969. His half-human, half-Vulcan character was a perfect counterpart to Shatner’s Captain Kirk in the series, which spawned several films and later TV reboots. He appeared as “Spock Prime” in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness, in which actor Zachary Quinto took on the role of Spock. He last tweeted on Monday, closing as he often did with Spock’s familiar line, “live long and prosper”

Hello everyone!! I am FIDE Master Dalton Perrine, one of the lead instructors for Chess.com University (specifically for the Prodigy Program) and I wanted to let you all know about my Twitch.tv livestream you can find at Twitch.tv/mattydperrine! I stream myself playing high-level chess and commentate my games as well as watching other games too. I explain my thought process behind all of my moves and aim to make sure that every viewer gets some instructional information each time they watch the stream that will help them to improve their game. I really enjoy interacting with my viewers and we all have an awesome time during the streams too! I stream each week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 4-8pm EST. Fridays are special because I do "Friendly Friday" where I play against anyone who decides to challenge me, no matter how high or low your rating! I specifically try to play against the viewers of the stream and those who have me as a friend here on Chess.com. Today (Tuesday February 24th) I will be doing a special stream starting at 2pm EST where I will be playing in the "Titled Tuesday" tournament on Chess.com against all of the toughest players online! Come watch me play against other master-level players and feel free to ask questions and improve your chess as well as hang out and have a good time with the other viewers and myself Don't forget to click the "Follow" button below the stream in order to get free alerts when I go live so that you can tune in each time. I hope to see you soon! -Dalton Perrine

If you would like to post a game, please be free!

If you would like to post a game, please be free!

If you would like to post a game, please be free!