This Website Sucks For Beginners

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Avatar of PawnTsunami
NervesofButter wrote:

The more i look at the OP's games the more I'm convinced its another troll account.

He seems to play on auto-pilot with plans that make no sense and then blunders massive amounts of material for move, after move, after move.  I can certainly understand why you would come to such a conclusion.

Avatar of PlayByDay
NervesofButter skrev:
PawnTsunami wrote:
NervesofButter wrote:

The more i look at the OP's games the more I'm convinced its another troll account.

He seems to play on auto-pilot with plans that make no sense and then blunders massive amounts of material for move, after move, after move.  I can certainly understand why you would come to such a conclusion.

I have seen these types of posts on other chess sites.  They start with the usual: "What am i doing wrong?"

They get a ton of advice both good and bad.  They ignore the advice.  Then they start with the "Why did my opponent resign."    Its just such a common theme.  But i guess with school out.  Kids get bored, and God forbid they should go outside and play.

You could probably play the game of "troll or clueless newbie" and never really know. This is similar to other forums I've been on where, from time to time, you get new user asking:

  • "How do I lose weight when I toooootally control what I eat but nether the less can't give you any numbers on kcal in/out or even rough estimates",
  • "How do I learn effective self defense on youtube and how many month will it take",
  • "I think creating a site which is a mix of facebook, tinder and youtube but in 3d/vr how do I do it and no, I haven't any experience in programming at all"

In most cases, 1 out of 100 even try to follow any advices at all. But at least other readers, who might have same questions can read it and hopefully get some value. That is what makes forum fun, we share the knowledge with everyone and not only OP.

Avatar of BuckShot900

Something I wanted to add:

When you train tactics here or on any other chess site, don't just click randomly until you get the correct move, calculate everything beforehand, and calculate all the variations. Start easy, sit on your hands or something and only move the piece when you are 100% sure this is the right combination if you do all of these and it's not the correct move! Don't worry! You're training your thought process anyways, check if you miss something, re-calculate, and correct the mistake. 

Don't calculate just one move like " Ok this is the move... and now what?"  You are not doing anything with this, you are just being lazy. Work on Mates in 2  or Mate in 1. I'm doing some composed puzzles where I set my board IRL and it's really interesting, as well as in books, it's only your mind and the paper, nothing else, no premoves, no anything.

Try to work this way with tactics, and I believe you will improve and will blunder less 2 moves sequences. Yes, I'm trash, and my rating sucks, but it's something that I'm doing right now and I swear to you guys (and girls) that this is the way and it feels really good.

Avatar of b1zismypookie
oranmilne420 wrote:

Still blundered a bit, but I think I did pretty well in this last game.

3. f3 does not follow opening principles because it opens the diagonal to your king which is weakening

5. Nge2 now your white squared bishop is stuck, you should have moved it first or made a different developing move

6. Rg1 accomplishes nothing, focus on getting your bishops and knights out, where they can control the center. And allow you to castle.

9. a4 is a bad move because if you are going to castle your king is going to end up on c1, if the a pawn is on a4 then it's not doing anything to protect your king which is the goal of castling

Castling is a good thing, try to do it quickly

 

Avatar of oranmilne420

@ShouldBreezi I am trying to castle right away, that's what that first opening move always is. It's me trying to castle as soon as possible. 

Avatar of oranmilne420

 AlexiZalman wrote:
oranmilne420 wrote:

I've been playing for a bit and following all the opening principles, reading the guides, doing lessons and puzzles, and even analyzing my games when I get a chance to use a free analysis. Even still I couldn't break 500. It really doesn't help when so much of the community then turns around and says "well if you're under 1000 you're clearly blundering all the time." Like that doesn't help me at all.

I also have pretty even and well done games with people of higher scores and also tend to get knocked down by people of lower score as well. It's like I literally can't progress. And when I ask for help all I get is the same responses with a link to some blog or the opening principles or the "Analyze every game and see where you missed." 

For One thing, I can't afford the analysis after every game. I don't have the money to pay for premium and I'm playing to enjoy myself and not be reminded of my financial situation. Second off It'd be nice to actually have somebody to at least guide me or try to give me some advice for where i'm falling and not just be brushed off as a "blunderfest" just because my rank is so low. And when you do get advice it always boils down to "stop Blundering" and "think 2 moves ahead of your opponent".

Like how? If I knew how to stop blundering, I wouldn't be asking you how to stop blundering. And I wish I had the psychic power to know what my opponent is going to do 2 moves ahead. I guess that's just something Chess players can do that I haven't picked up yet or something. 

And the worst response is "Keep playing, you'll learn from playing." That's what I've been trying to do but the more I play, the more I lose. I find I'll go on, have a good couple games, then start dropping in quality and getting my butt kicked shortly after out of nowhere. The only thing I've learned from this is that people like to taunt you into resigning when you start losing, and nobody is actually willing to help you unless you pay them or subscribe to their youtube channel.

One thing that has not been suggested - and rarely is - is play the BOTs.

When I was a kid my father started me off on Chess, I was very successful and eventually he won't play me. As an adult I realised he was letting me win and when he realised he didn't need to he threw the towel in - no one likes to loss at chess! Simple fact is, there would be far fewer chess players if they started of losing 99% of their games.

You have played around 100 games and have lost about 65% of them. No doubt about it this is very discouraging.  The ELO system is intended to produce fair match-ups, i.e. approximately 50% win rate. Simple fact is it is broken at the beginner levels.

The BOTs on the other hand can be very accurately rated in the sense the one with the higher rating will be more difficult to beat than the lower one - over the course of a few games.

So start off with the lowest BOT at an ELO rating of 100 and when you are quite confident you can beat them easily move up to the next level BOT, and v.v.. Your win rate will be well above 50% and you will not get discouraged from playing and enjoying chess. 

Note that you can play with infinite time and thereby can max out your talent with each move you make - this is a good cure for anyone who plays too fast. Additionally you can play with an evaluation bar on display, thereby see instantly when you have made a poor move and are more likely to actively work out why the move was bad at the time - this is far better and more memorable than passive post-game analysis. 

I would also recommend puzzle work and doing the lessons (even if chess.com is very mean with them), anything else you do should be considered entertainment rather than learning - and that includes rated games against real players (whose ELO ratings are out of whack)!

 

To be fair I have a 3 crown win over Svenbot

Avatar of Grievious

GM's and chess engines can evaluate a position better than anyone else, but if you learn from a GM, and have them mentor you, you will become a GM.  There is no limitation to learning unless you have a learning disability, or a brain injury of some kind. 

Avatar of PlayByDay
Grievious skrev:

GM's and chess engines can evaluate a position better than anyone else, but if you learn from a GM, and have them mentor you, you will become a GM.  There is no limitation to learning unless you have a learning disability, or a brain injury of some kind. 

... or lack time, money or motivation to get GM, or even any regular coach, and improve your game. And motivation is the key, if you got it or at least some need to learn chess without quitting, then you will find both time and money.

Avatar of Twilwind

"Analysis" function can be used for free without limitation in this website. Only the "Game Review" function charges, yet one free trial per day is totally enough for improving your technique.

Avatar of AlexiZalman
oranmilne420 wrote:
....

To be fair I have a 3 crown win over Svenbot

The low level Bots have an strange oddity that if you threaten the Queen it just gives it away - as in your game. However note that within the first 10 moves you had managed to place your Bishop is a silly place - 3. Bd3? - and give away a Knight before the Bot threw it's Queen at you.  I rather suspect that this Throw-The-Queen-Away feature is designed to compensate for horrid player game play! happy.png  Weird as it may seem if you actually had a stronger game the Bot would have giving you a tougher game. Also note that I said you should move up the Bot ratings till you find one that is an acceptable challenge.

However if this game is typical of your gameplay I rather suspect my suggestion is duff. You would be far better off working your way through a beginner's book on chess, using an appropriate Bot as a dartboard.

Avatar of Chessflyfisher
TheManWithNo_Name wrote:

As previously said here, play long games, 5 mins minimum. Ideally 20. Less than 5 mins is for players who can play 5 to 10 opening book moves. I learnt a lot about opening book moves by playing Hundreds of daily games with the opening explorer, eventually drilling the sequences into my head. 

Excellent advice! May I also add that joining a club and/or playing in rated tournaments will help immeasurably as you will talk to others about the games that were just played. Also consider playing vote Chess to learn openings/defenses and playing in correspondence tournaments.

Avatar of Dru403
oranmilne420 wrote:

How do I tell if I have a mate-in-1. I thought I had one here for a sec but then lost my queen as a result.

you need to look at what can attack the piece you just moved before you move it. in this case, the mate in 1 square was guarded.  After reading this thread, and seeing you keep ignoring the advice given, I dunno what to say. 

 

Avatar of duntcare

im not really good but my advice is look ahead

if you cant calculate blunders or something look at every single piece one by one, see where ti can move, see what it can take (protected squares) and then choose a move

then before you play it look diagonally, vertically and horizontally, and look for knights that can take it, then look back to the piece's original position and see if any pieces there are now undefended or might be captured if you move this piece 

 

Avatar of PawnTsunami
NervesofButter wrote:

"But at least other readers, who might have same questions can read it and hopefully get some value"

Very good point!

That is why I annotated a couple of his games.  Hopefully someone will be able to benefit from it - whether it is him or someone else.

Avatar of ginahop
KevinOSh wrote:

It is not that folks are trying to be mean or rude, it is just that a lot of guys on these forums have been playing chess for so many years now that they don't really remember what it is like to be a beginner anymore.

very true

Avatar of PawnTsunami
ginahop wrote:
KevinOSh wrote:

It is not that folks are trying to be mean or rude, it is just that a lot of guys on these forums have been playing chess for so many years now that they don't really remember what it is like to be a beginner anymore.

very true

Eh, it isn't even that.  It is the fact that these same questions pop up on the forums all the time and have been asked and answered dozens of times.  So, when the same kinds of questions come up and they are answered yet again, it starts to get like nails on a chalkboard.

On sites like StackExchange, if you ask a question that has already been asked, the moderators will instantly close your question as a duplicate.  The idea being that you have to be willing to do the basic work of searching for your answers before asking a question instead of being spoon-fed the answer.

Avatar of Fidd_1

This website doesn't suck for answers. I got platinum for 49 dollars and I can do infinite analysis, puzzles, and a lot of lessons per week. If you can't afford a rank I would recommend to go to Gotham Chess' youtube channel. He is an IM (International Master), and he has a lot of videos for low rated players.

Avatar of Mike_Kalish

If you think this website sucks, that says more about you than about the website. 

Avatar of Mike_Kalish
HappyWorldDaddy wrote:

I completely agree. This website is not only hostile to beginners not only in terms of its design, but as well as the Chess community at large, but is consciously designed to turn them away. I've only been on this site for a short time (I got my rating from playing on a lot of Lichess) and I've managed to bump it up in no small part to totally ignoring my fellow Chess players; possibly the most arrogant and condescending bunch in all of "sports" and accessing content outside of the site (as innefficient as it may be). It doesn't help that 90% of this site's content is locked behind a steep paywall. Chess.com thinks we're made of money! Their financial game of restricting content may help them in the short term, but in the long term it will kill the future of Chess and beginners are locked away from the most basic of tools (analysis nerf anyone??). 

These are the things that make me renounce such games. I renounced Poker on black Friday and the subsequent rakeback nerfs, and I should soon renounce this. Unless Chess.com gets its act together, it is in no small part killing the future of the very thing which it is built upon.

tl;dr - OP is completely correct! 

As I suggested, your comments say a lot more about you than about chess.com.  This site is probably doing just fine financially and being visited by hundreds of thousands of players daily.  Your criticisms lack specificity and while they may apply to a small percentage of players here, my experience as a beginner here was wonderful. Other players were respectful and friendly.  My impression is that the vast majority of players here are just average people who are looking for a good chess game. I'd be surprised if they were, in total, more arrogant or more anything than humans in general. Maybe you're seeing arrogance where there is none or maybe you're projecting. 
And I don't expect something for nothing. My gold membership cost of $30 per year, is peanuts compared to the value I get. 
Maybe it's a matter of attitude?

Avatar of Jalex13
You remind me of Coolout. I read through that post and halfway thought it was Coolout. Wow….