So Many Fakes on Chess.com

PLAYERS BEWARE!  There are a lot of fakes here on chess.com.  Watch out what advice you accept and what advice to ignore.

There are some well-established, proven players who may not be GMs, but are established players that give legitimate advice here on the forums, like pfren, blueemu, and myself, amongst others.  You will also notice we tend not to post where our knowledge lacks.  You will see my name all over French, Dutch, London, KID, 1.e4 e5 posts, etc.  You will rarely find me posting about International Tournament Announcements, the history of Capablanca, or the Grunfeld Defense, areas where my knowledge is lacking.  People like us acknowledge that we don't know everything, are not hot shots, and we stay in our lane.

Then you get the fakes.  They play a few games here, look like they are strong because they have a 2000-2200 chess.com rapid or blitz rating.  Beware of these.  For example, "FAQ - Reverse Openings" has generic, bad advice.  Blanket statements that are false and often mistakes made by Amateurs.  Mistakes like how Carlsen played the London a few times, so the London MUST be good against everything, which is false and Carlsen does not play the London against all defenses every game.

Well, this one has a rapid rating here of 2200, but gives such misleading blanket statements about reverse openings.  You post the truth and hard facts that counter their misleading statements and they block.  I am sure others like blueemu and pfren experience the same.

The truth?  FIde Rapid 1609, never played a FIDE classical game.

Fakes are everywhere.  Watch out what advice you follow.

Bro everyone here knows what is right and what is wrong

When I give legitimate advice theres always some 1700 telling me I'm wrong and everyone sides with the 1700

So now I just troll and hope you all stay 1700 forever

I concur. My advice... stop falling for ragebait.

If someone is giving you dubious advice... might be ragebait.

If someone is making you feel angry... might be ragebait.

If someone is doing all the above and only been a member on chess.com for 6-7 minutes (give or take)... might be ragebait.

@AwesomeAtti I see you got affected by the 6-7 trend 🤧

Ok, I will be careful

A few years ago the word "ragebait" didn't exist. It was called "trolling" and it was considered abuse. And it was moderated.

Nowadays, moderators just shrug and do nothing. Martin_Stahl explicitly stated that moderators are not fact--checkers. It's up to the community to "not fall for ragebait". Which isn't a viable solution. How would a new player know?

But not infected... phew. Must be because I'm in Ohio. But if you want some light reading check out this skibuddy article: https://www.chess.com/blog/AwesomeAtti/skibidi-chess

But @thrillerfan is still right about avoiding the ragebait.

I still don't see what's so bad about chomping on hanging pieces, in spite of all the hate on this particular player/advice. Talk about "ragebait"! This is like waving a red cape in front of a bull. Now here comes the "He's 650! Of course he thinks this is good advice!" comments. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Elitists gonna elite.

Advice is just that. It's advice. You either listen to it or you don't. But common sense will let you know what is good advice and what is bad advice.

"rage bait". So what will be the next hot button word or phrase? The site does next to nothing to curb spamming. The kids run the forums and the site takes the parents $$$.

unironically chomping on hanging pieces is good advice for a lot of players in the forum

if they chomped on every hanging piece they would win every game at their rating

Unironically "chomping on hanging pieces" is not advice at all, it's just pure trolling.

New players don't have the skills to notice hanging pieces in blitz games. They need to play slower games, and improve their board vision. A lot. That would be good and useful advice.

If you just burp out "chomp on hanging pieces" instead, that's useless and misleading and insulting.

A lot of beginners don't know what a hanging piece is or why it's important

If they scan the board every move to look for hanging pieces to chomp then they would improve

It stops being useful at a certain rating but whatever

You're 785, ofc you think that's good advice

Such confidence

You could just write

"I'm a troll sympathizer".

It is much more economical.

Long time no see ! How are you !? I thought you closed your account?

OP Is legit! He gives some instructive advice 👍