Ask me Anything [I beat Titled Players all the time] :)

Plz be nice

I enjoyed teaching a Chess class this week called Chess 101 at my school and I focused on teaching the basics for beginners

it is really quite a rewarding experience. a lot of the new players watched the Queens Gambit on Netflix or learned about the game from their relatives or parents who play chess.

it was a pretty good turn out. 53 people... my grandma made spaghetti with meat sauce & garlic bread for everyone and my uncle brought a large container of iced tea and chocolate cupcakes

I was surprised that 27 of the attendees were females which is over half. that was surprising because I was expecting maybe about 10 or so girls & maybe 43 boys but it was close to 50% each

I showed them how to set up the pieces, identified the different movements that pieces can make on the board and taught them how to use a chess clock.

I got some of my classmates to bring their boards and we got a couple donated by the local store, the roll out type of boards with a bunch of plastic pieces

because there was an odd number of players, I separated the class into two colors, white and black

Team White Played Team Black and the most advanced player played me. a lot of the parents came to watch too and it was a lot of fun!

I wanted to try something different

so, while the 26 boys were playing each other, I got a board and taught the girls a very simple opening and the scholars mate

then I brought everyone together and told them that we were going to have a short tournament. Winners would advance to the next round

First round we had 48 players

second round 24 players

3rd round 12 players

4th round 6 players

semi finals 4 players (I added in the most advanced player)

finals 2 players

I found that in the first round 18 of the girls won their matches against the boys

so advancing to the round 2 were 18 girls and 6 boys

by round 3 there were 11 girls and 1 boy

by round 4 there were 6 girls and 0 boys

then I added in the most advanced player who was a boy into the semi finals

the final match came down to the top girl player against the most advanced male player

guess who won?

I learned from this that it doesn't really matter whether you're a boy or a girl when you start off playing chess

by putting your finger on the scales, it is possible to dictate who will win in a predictable manner based on what you teach

it isn't magic or science. it is just predictable

by teaching the girls who to play openings and the scholars mate, the girls entered the tournament with a distinct advantage against their male counterparts who only knew how to move the pieces but had no strategy. the boys knew how to move but didn't know what to do to win

I found it quite amusing because one of the participants was my brother and his friend. they are pretty arrogant when it comes to competing against girls so it was fun to pit them against girls who I gave a slight advantage to.

when my brother and his friend both lost to girls, I had to smile because I knew that they were in an unfair fight but they thought that they could win and my brother's friend even looked like he wanted to cry. LOL. it was so much fun

a local trophy shop in town donated the trophies. we had a red plated trophy for 3rd place; a green plated trophy for 2nd place and a large gold plated trophy for 1st place. my uncle bought Amazon gift cards with the first place receiving a $100 2nd place $50 and 3rd place $25.

we took pictures and a group photo but the standing rule was that no one could post pictures or videos online to share it with anyone outside of who attended.

in that way, it's just our special little secret chess club and the only people who knew about it were those who attended. no bragging about who won or criticism of who lost. no judging. just all positive vibes and no one else in the world knew about it

until I posted it online here on Chess.com

hmm interesting .....

can we be friends man !! we should have a match ...lol

Holy yap

I feel like this topic has aged well in the past week ever since I reached 2400 Bullet!!!!!!!!!!!

My school gave me permission to start an Advanced Chess Club & a small budget & one of my teachers is our advisor/mentor

I showed my school Principal that I'm ranked #8,801 worldwide on Chess.com & that sealed the deal b/c it showed that I'm well above the expert level in Chess now

I hope to encourage my classmates to study Chess & to love the game of Chess that we all love to play on Chess.com

I think people are interested in Chess but sometimes the game can be rather inaccessible

I literally started here rated in the 1300's in blitz but I studied a lot of Chess & played a lot of tournaments thanks to the support of friends and everyone.

now I feel pretty confident that I can beat GMs & very soon Super GMs

I would love to compete against Hans Niemann & Gukesh & Caruana & Nepo & Hikaru & Magnus & Ding & Anish & Kasparov & Polgar & Pia too!

I may sound like I'm dreaming, but I think that I can not only be competitive but also beat those well-known players!

This is delusion on a whole new level