To take is a mistake

I once gained 100 points in a year, does that count for something?  lol.

Yeah, that rate of improvement is impressive no matter who you are.  Sounds like he has talent for the game.  Also sounds like he had good help.

I want to make 2200 in 2 years.  Someone reading this contact me and make it happen

About FIDE arena I'm wondering, in terms of practice, how it would be different from 45/45 games (or similar) on ICC?  Cheat detection or prestige maybe?

3 year old (inactive) FIDE rating of 1870 FWIW.

I read somewhere it takes 90 days to build a habit.  I've also noticed (maybe by coincidence) that it takes ~90 days until muscle memory feels >90% of what it used to be.

Still, it's mostly a guess, but I'm thinking it will take ~90 days for me to regain reasonable analysis habits.

All this to say, I don't know what my playing strength is.  Plan is to do some analysis and some long online games for a month or two and then go back to tournaments... and regardless of results not beat myself up too bad until 90 days have passed ;)

Interesting, thanks.

Yes, I want to solve / analyze / play from my set to mimic how I'll be playing in a tournament.  Not sure how much it matters.  Some pros look away from the board to analyze (which I imagine they're doing it in 2d).  Then again, I'm no Ivanchuk, so I don't mind being cautious heh.

"To take is a mistake" Fundamentally bad advice because it all depends on the situation.

By this logic every rule in chess is a bad advice because it all depends on the situation...
And he didn't say that you should never trade pieces. You just did not understand the point of the video. But it's an important rule.

He would lose to anyone that ignored his advice.

I think as a lot of people have stated in different paraphrasing that taking is sometimes a mistake. Keeping tension is often better, though the complexity is sometimes harder to deal with when you have many possible combinations of captures. Often you should look for in between moves which may be better than straightforward captures. The earlier offered idea that capturing to later chase a piece is very valid. You of course can chase pieces at any time, but you have to be careful you don't chase them to better squares.

it depends, but taking is a mistake is in many positions true, even though also it's in many positions good to take

So if they are attacking you furiously you're not gonna take an attacking piece? While not capturing may be good in certain situations, never taking anything is not going to go well for you it all depends on the position so don't make statements like that

"To take is a mistake" doesn't mean you should relentlessly avoid captures. It just means you shouldn't initiate a capture unless you see a material or positional advantage to be gained, or the capture would dig yourself out of a disadvantage.

If you see an unguarded piece, go ahead and take it, unless it's a trap where you taking it would help the opponent to gain an advantage.

If you see an opportunity to capture a rook in exchange for losing your bishop, go ahead and take it because that's a material advantage (again, unless you can see it's a trap).

If you see a way to trade an equal value piece because the opponent's piece is stopping you from moving one of your other pieces to a better position, trade it because that opens up a positional advantage for you.

If you have a piece that's under pressure and likely to be lost soon because it doesn't have any good squares to escape, go ahead and trade it if you can, so it's not a complete loss.

If you're significantly ahead in material (at least a knight or bishop or multiple pawns), start trading equal-valued pieces off the board to reach the endgame quicker, because in the endgame your material advantage will be more decisive.

Sometimes in the endgame it even helps to trade down, if the exchange leaves you with enough material to secure a win. For example, I was in a game where I had a queen and rook vs. the opponent's rook. I traded my queen for the rook, because with my king and rook vs. the opponent's lone king it was easier to win than trying to coordinate an attack with their rook moving around.

hello