Beat my first expert rated player (barely over 2000) OTB!
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I’m starting to get into Xianqi (Chinese Chess). I’ve got the hang of piece movement and have been solving mating puzzles, but I can’t even beat the ‘Easy’ bot on the app I’m playing on yet. I think that will be my next game to tackle. Shogi (Japanese Chess) and Makruk (Thai Chess) are on my ‘to learn’ list.
I recently found pychess.org which is a lichess.org clone and a ton of variants coded in, but it looks like no one plays there. If anyone is interested, let me know, and I’d love to goof around sometime.
I’ve played at fishrandom.io before, but it’s also not super active. It does seem like chess.com’s added a ton of variants lately, at least.
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If you like Thai Chess, you could also try playing on www.schemingmind.com. There is currently a public tournament for Thai Chess:
Makruk for everybody: Makruk (Thai Chess)
So this is very last minute, but I’ll be participating in a chess simul Sunday afternoon (assuming I wake up on time!) with GM Rashad Babaev. Do you guys recommend 1.e5 or 1.c5 against 1.e4? My experience with the Dragon has mostly been me as white against @MayanActuary so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do as well as black in a possible Dragon (although I’m sure I’ll get crushed either way lol)
Will try to annotate the game.
Game ended up becoming a Ruy Lopez. I blundered a pawn on move 7 and had to exchange my rook for his knight to prevent eventual checkmate at move 16. At one point I was down 3 pawns and down on exchange earlier but managed to make it to an endgame where he had to earn it (king, rook, 4 pawns vs king, bishop, and 3 pawns). I resigned on move 49 when he was gonna queen the next move.
After the game he said it was an interesting game. The biggest blunder was when i had no choice but to let his Queen take my f7 pawn. At that point I was very scared and thought I was gonna get mated soon, but I was able to prolong it long enough.
Grandmasters are ruthless and will make you pay for any mistake.
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I realized my scoresheet was full of errors so I went back to try to replicate the game. Unfortunately towards the end of the game, I either forgot what I did or the GM had 1 extra move…not sure. There were like 6 of us remaining out of 27 and that’s when they brought clocks out. To account for the discrepancy, I just pushed my black a6 pawn 1 time (which is inconsequential to the game).
This was my first time annotating a game, so I knew I was bound to make errors.
I’ve been annotating for a few years now and I still make mistakes on almost every scoresheet.
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Don’t play the Dragon against a GM. Book lines for the Yougoslav attack go about 30 moves and spoiler it seldom ends well for black.
Yeah the Sicilian can be very sharp so I just went with the safer e5 and it was a Ruy Lopez.
@AbstractActuary @MayanActuary @IPD there was a big chess tournament near DC this weekend, and a friend of mine invited me to come over to MGM to hang out with some people affiliated with the tournament. One of them was GM Marc Arnold and the other person (a UCSF expert who I won’t name for a reason) is someone who ranks pretty high in US Chess.
We talked about a wide variety of things, from chess to of course Hans Niemann. This person who shall not be named is friendly with Hikaru and Hans, and knows the whole backstory behind everything Hans-related. I think people are gonna be shocked when more gets revealed.
In more chess-related stuff, I was talking to the GM about the Sicilian defense. He said he thinks the Smith Morra is garbage and would always accept the gambit against almost anyone with the exception of IM Marc Esserman.
I also said I regularly play the Yugolsav against someone (dzibanche) who plays the Dragon but I always lose. He didn’t have any specific tips but said to keep playing it cause both sides have chances to win.
They’re both primarily d4 players.
Edit: The GM accepted/started following me on IG. Woohoo!
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& :yikes:
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Chess year in review as I have no plans to play any more rated games this year. 22 rated games, got my first ever win over an expert and ended the year at a new peak rating - though I was up in the low to mid 1700s pre-covid. After the long break I was a bit rusty at the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022 before returning to form. Also earned my “2nd Category” title through USCF tournament norms this past year.
2022
Rating start: 1658
Rating end: 1772
| Rating Range | Wins | Draws | Losses | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0000-1200 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 100% |
| 1200-1400 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 75% |
| 1400-1600 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 86% |
| 1600-1800 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 67% |
| 1800-2000 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0% |
| 2000-2200 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 50% |
| Total | 16 | 0 | 6 | 73% |
Lifetime stats
| Rating Range | Wins | Draws | Losses | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0000-1200 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 100% |
| 1200-1400 | 10 | 0 | 4 | 71% |
| 1400-1600 | 22 | 1 | 8 | 73% |
| 1600-1800 | 12 | 1 | 5 | 69% |
| 1800-2000 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 6% |
| 2000-2200 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 33% |
| Total | 55 | 3 | 26 | 67% |
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Happy Holidays everyone! I hope everyone affected by the Arctic blast is hanging in there. Group A just finished its tournament so the results are now complete and are as follows:
Group A:
1st - Minnesotah
2nd - @IPD (SneekySneaky)
3rd - @MayanActuary (dzibanche)
Group B:
1st - staples13
2nd - chess4skool
3rd - @akial (alvinaki)
Group C:
1st - @justrick6
2nd - elai4203
3rd - crinttae
Group D:
1st - @ALivelySedative
2nd - @Potato (NotActuallyaPotato)
3rd - @Italian_Halibut (ItalianHalibut)
The start of the next tournament is TBD. We will have to gauge the interest and find a time that works for the majority of people. In general, the top 2 finishers of each group advance to the next group (with the exception of Group A). Likewise, the bottom 2 finishers of each group get demoted to the group below (with the exception of Group D). In situations where players who have not participated in this round wish to participate in the next tournament, their placement will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
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I would like to continue on into the next tournament 
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Me, too.
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Thanks for this recap. Im sure you can tell ive been less involved lately. Ive got a lot going on, so if you or someone else could continue hosting the tournaments(at least for now) that would be really helpful. Ive also had a bit of chess fatigue lately so Im not sure if ill play in this next one.
For whoever hosts the next tournament(s) if you need anything from me just let me know. Thanks everyone
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Thanks @CuriousGeorge and @Italian_Halibut. I anticipate the tournament will start sometime in January and will reach out to everyone next month, but I will include you two.
@IPD yeah chess fatigue is definitely something I’m feeling right now, although it’s gotten a bit better. I was really hoping to get a trophy for the U1500 Daily championship but recently got eliminated in the penultimate round. After almost a year of playing in the same tournament, I was just playing bad. Currently signed for the Chess dot com Big daily championship tourney (play 15 or 16 others with 1 day no vacation) but 50/50 on whether I want to participate.
I’ll reach out to you if I have any questions about setting up the tournament, thanks.
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Fun times with Duck Chess - face to face:
Happy New Year everyone! I hope to start the tournament either mid/late January or early February. Please express your interest in joining the next tourney either on this forum, private message on GoActuary, or private message on chess dot com.
Players from last tourney:
Minnesotah (in)
@IPD (out)
@MayanActuary (in)
Seasplash (in)
devilrox
@AbstractActuary (in)
staples13 (in)
chess4skool
@akial
@Macroman (in)
@1695814 (in)
@Werewolf
Will continue on next post.
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@justrick6 (in)
elai4203 (in)
crinttae (in)
@J0EBL0W (in)
@randolphdupree33 (in)
@BruteForce
jamesisme
@ALivelySedative (in)
@Potato (in)
@Italian_Halibut (in)
@CuriousGeorge (in)
@Bro (in)
NiftyCanopy