@zaunkoenig exactly!
Except I'm Black so it's Bh2 Bxh2 b8Q Bxb8 Kg1

My opponent did not find Bh2 in the game so luckily I won 🙃

I just played Bb8 (I'm Black) and celebrated my victory but White has a way to draw!
#chess

This week, the Galician #Chess Federation (local federation under national federation under international federation) published the whole calendar of events for 2024, while the International #Chess Federation just published the schedule for the World Rapid and Blitz Championship on the next month...

Good luck to all the players around the world getting their visas to travel to Uzbekistan.

#chess Petrov Defense is boring... oh wait

https://www.chess.com/events/2023-qatar-masters/04/Gukesh_D-Yilmazyerli_Mert

I will need a whole week to study the subtleties of yesterday's #chess endgame between WGM A Pourkashiyan and WGM G Tokhirjonova.

https://www.chess.com/events/2023-us-womens-chess-champioship/06/Pourkashiyan_Atousa-Tokhirjonova_Gulrukhbegim

@pontulo there's of course no best answer - many good options and an infinite field to study...

But I'll try my best at giving a tip here. I like to recommend studying concrete openings first, that is openings with direct threats (ex: 1. e4 as White with direct Bc4 lines, even going for Fried Liver and so...; Scandi or Alekhine as Black against e4, maybe even Budapest against d4; etc) rather than more flexible openings (London System, Sicilian Defense, Kings Indian, etc).

Concrete openings are maybe not the best long-term, but they narrow down the options you have to study. Ex: Scandi against 1. e4, White only has one good option (exd5) and you'll always get the same pawn structure. That means it's a great choice to later on study other more flexible options such as Caro-Kann, French, etc with that same p structure plus other possible p structures.

But all that being said, again there's no single answer and I'd say study whatever attract you most anyway :)

I can't believe I did the same mistake again for the 99th time 🤦‍♂️

Pretty sure on the 100th I'll remember to avoid long-side defense when setting up Lucena.

#chess is hard 🤷

@SCampbell I really don't know (it's been decades since I was a beginner), but I'd suggest to stay away from openings books. They're only useful after you get certain experience.

A common tip for beginners is to just play, analyze and do puzzles. A book can only teach you so much and never replaces the learning you get with practice. That been said, I'm pretty sure there are many great books for beginners that I don't know, so I hope someone else gives you a better answer 🙂

Hey #chess and #languages lovers. I have a doubt about the use of "still" in the sentence:

- The game is still close to even, but you lost your winning advantage.

It refers to a mistake where you had an advantage and after that you don't, but you're not losing. So "still" has the meaning of "it could be worse" or "you still have a chance".

My problem is I'm too literal and to me "still close to even" only makes sense if it was "close to even" before, but it wasn't.

I understand "but still" is a common construct in English to show a concession so this would make more sense to me:

- You lost your winning advantage, but still the game is close to even.

Or maybe better with "and yet":

- You lost your winning advantage, and yet the game is close to even.

Am I too crazy/literal or is there some logic to my thinking? 🤔

@SCampbell never trust new accounts, they could be strong or experienced players just creating a fresh account 😬

Next step is to get mated in more than 10 moves 🙃 Chess is hard, take it easy 🤷‍♂️

@trick especially when both checking pieces are "hanging", that's the most pleasant 👌

I swindled my way to 2500+ #chess bullet rating. I'm so not proud of my chess but hey my skills for dirty flagging are there 😬

@andreasdotorg @runarcn
Following opening principles is a very valid point. The engine can say you do "fine" in the opening (as in not losing pieces) but still you get a bad position. And most tactical mistakes come from bad positions where it's hard not to blunder. So very valid point 👍

Another typical issue at lower ratings is missing the opponent's threats. I think this causes 90% of blunders. Focus on what your opponent threatens with their last move. If you miss a threat it doesn't matter how much you trained your calculation, you'll just be calculating the wrong thing and blunder anyway. So alertness for threats is IMHO the no 1 skill to train to prevent blunders.

Cheers and good luck!

Happy International Chess Day :-)

It's been a few hectic months, but I'm back socializing... I think 😅
What did I miss? 😬

I just found out that "intromission" is a false friend for Spanish "intromisión". Good thing I always double check my texts before sending them 😅

Just wrote another #chess blog post:

https://www.chess.com/blog/pepe_chessable/dont-overcalculate

I guess it's a post about time management without talking about time management 🙂

Tactics Tuesdays!

Join me for some #chess puzzles. Goal is 3300 today.
Starting stream in a few minutes at https://www.twitch.tv/pepellou

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen:

https://checkmatefuel.com/

They sell supplements for #chess players.

> We are helping chess players increase their Elo
🤦

I just accidentally told someone how to do their job.
How's your day going?

😓