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Post all of your studies here! It could be from Reti, Troitsky, Mansfield, or your own personal composition!

Hello, and welcome to the Variant Puzzles Forum! If you'd like to post a puzzle from any variant, this is the place to put it! Make sure that the puzzle is legitimate, and that there aren't any multiple solutions.

Hello friends! The title of this forum is pretty self-explanatory. Tell us the origin of your username and if you want, inform us on how it defines you! I'll start. A few years ago, I created a chesskid.com account. In the process of choosing a username, the system gave me the option to choose two random words! So I turned around, closed my eyes, and picked two words that would eventually create the username..... ScatteredWealth! I've had this username for so long that when I created a chess.com account a few years later, I decided to stick with the same username. Now it's your turn. How did you come up with your username? And was there a background story? You can even go further and tell us the origin of your pfp! I am looking forward to it!

it can be 1 for black and 1 for white.

In my game I was losing so I tried to play Nxb4 but the bishop managed to snake through and guard a7. Bit longer puzzle, but I like this endgame since it's very eye-pleasing for white to win with a knight, and the concept of the overloaded bishop fits well for these moves. Have a good one!

Hello! Sometimes I have trouble understanding a puzzle even after seeing the solution, so I'm just going to post some of them here over time as a record and also see if anyone can help explain! 1. https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/1053166 2. https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/985980

Hey everyone! Puzzle Rush and Puzzle Battle are two widely-used puzzle platforms. Now although both puzzle rush and puzzle battle have a time control of 3 minutes I find that a one's puzzle battle record is generally higher than their puzzle rush record. For example, my puzzle battle record is 43 in 3 minutes while my puzzle rush record in 3 minutes is only 41. I think the reason for this is because there is added pressure in puzzle battle, whereas you don't face an opponent when rushing alone. I wonder if this theory applies to you. Let me know how your puzzle battle record corresponds to your puzzle rush record!

We not only got the first two wrong, we also did that at the exact same time

@PlayClassicChessOnYoutube

For the first time in a long time, we are going to have a match for the Medieval Wars League. We will be playing against Road 2 IM, and need you all to join here: https://www.chess.com/club/matches/road-2-im/1416291

I created this forum to share what I think are some of if NOT, the BEST clubs on chess.com. I highly recommend joining them... I've brought up 4 of them with me,each with different characteristics that give you a reason to join one over the other. Let's start with "CHESS BOOT CAMP". CHESS BOOT CAMP | MATURE - SERIOUSCLUB LINK: https://www.chess.com/club/chess-boot-campOWNER | @benhunt72 Recommend it for people who don't want anything extra, classic chess talk. Ben (I don't know if that is his real name) is a very strong 1500 who makes youtube videos to teach people over the internet. His channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChessBootCamp THE PUZZLE PATZERS | ALL AGES - DUCKS (i think this is the best one no cap fr fr ong fr capno fonr onforgo dno nofcnop souus)CLUB LINK: https://www.chess.com/club/the-puzzle-patzersOWNER | @ScatteredWealth This club focuses heavily on puzzles, so I recommend it mainly for people who want to improve their tactical vision and learn new patterns... and for people who like... ducks... and memes... THE CHESS TACTICS CLUB | ALL AGES - CLUB EVENTSCLUB LINK: https://www.chess.com/club/the-chess-tactics-clubOWNER | @justchesscrazy Somewhat similar club to "THE PUZZLE PATZERS", they do more club events, specifically live tournaments. It has been a little quiet recently, the owner is currently busy... When he is not, there are events left and right, and there will always be something to do. Recommend for the competitive kind. KING OF 64 | ALL AGES - BASICALLY A DISCORD SERVERCLUB LINK: https://www.chess.com/club/king-of-64-1OWNER | @hiryanli This club can be for all ages, but you will most likely get more out of it if you are 13+. Recommend this for most people, as they do everything, I think... I wonder how this club has less than 1k members, it must be new... This is the all-rounder, if you are looking for an active club to join, and want to guarantee a good experience... look no further. I'm scared to post this but I don't want to let the effort go to waste

@simon2344 has left us. We shall pay our respects to him in any way our Master wants us to. SSSincerely, Snake

Guys, is it just me, or did club interface get completely screwed? Notes are so cluttered, and homepage is a mess, is this another genius chess.com "update"?

Recently, Eli asked me how norms worked, and instead of responding, I decided to make this post, even though technically it's a bit off-topic. First of all, what are norms? To become IM or GM, you need to get three norms as well as the required FIDE rating. Note that a GM norm counts as both a GM norm and an IM norm. To get a norm, you must play a FIDE-rated tournament of at least 9 rounds, with at least 3 opponents who have the title you are seeking (IM or GM), and your opponents have to be from at least 3 countries (I believe this includes the US, though I may be wrong). The time control must provide at least 2 hours of "thinking time" to each player for the tournament to be eligible for norms, although with increment, this rule is irrelevant, as increment technically provides infinite "thinking time". To get an IM norm, you must achieve a performance rating of 2450+ in such an event, and to get a GM norm, you must achieve a performance rating of 2600+ (FIDE has an official perf rating calculator you can use). There are some other minor rules, but they aren't important, as pretty much every high-level tournament will let you know on their front page whether there are norm chances. Thanks to Abhimanyu Mishra crushing the record for youngest GM, one of your three norms is required to be in a superswiss tournament. Essentially, a tournament with a ton of different federations (20+ I believe) playing. Now, what are some ways to approach getting norms? Let's assume you are already around 2100 or higher FIDE, because you won't have the opportunity to get norms if you aren't. 1. The "spray and pray" strat If you have the time, you can strategize around simply playing a lot. If you play enough norm tournaments, you will eventually succeed. I'm not going to name any names in this article, but I know quite a few kids who became IM by just playing a lot of norm tournaments, especially during the COVID years. 2. The hunter strat Look for IM norm invitationals like the one in Charlotte, NC; the one in Seattle, WA; or the one in NYC. Try to get 6.5/9 or 7/9 (they will let you know beforehand how much you need), and try to focus on being able to beat weaker players. You can draw with the IMs and the occasional GM, and beat all the untitled players, and you will get IM norms. Note that you probably can't do this for your superswiss norm, and also that you will need to be able to beat strong players to get GM norms. 3. The underdog strat If you are seeking IM norms, you will only need 5 or 5.5 out of 9 in a GM norm invitational. Shore up your defense game, and if you can avoid losing, you will get IM norms easily. Note, however, that this is literally not possible to get GM norms. Summary: As you can see, it's a lot harder to get GM norms than IM norms, and getting a GM superswiss norm basically requires you to win a tournament like National Open or World Open. Luck is definitely required, but if you try enough times, you should get some results. The main takeaway is that you should not focus on getting norms, you should focus on getting better. The norms will eventually come.

check audit log if you are SA

Hint: white is one bad move away from getting checkmated but can checkmate black with a few accurate moves.