What, in recent days, has happened?
I’ve not been particularly eager to follow the news recently.
That would be interesting - not too sure it would be so good for Canada.
I don’t get it.
the concept of controlling the center is so critically important it could almost be considered a priori. it there was nothing to it, we wouldn’t find nearly ever chess master from capablanca to fischer stand beside that principle. believe it or not, despite the element of unpredictability in playing, there are always certain practices, certain methods, certain rules guiding movement, that tend to be more beneficial than others. and in fact, you can observe this in the game engine when it suggests what and where to move. that decision is not random, and while the engine is too faced with not having a clue what your opponent will do next, at that moment calculations are made which maximize that piece’s offensive/defensive capabilities… given the state of the board at that moment.
of course none of this is a demand that chess should be played this way. there is no way it ‘should’ be played. rather there are certain things about the game that are consistent, both in being effective and observed in game play, that should at least be noted. i’d instead just like to hear you say ‘yeah, you’re right,’ and then choose to play differently. at least then you’d be making a competent choice rather than pretending you understand what the frick i’m tryn to tell you, blood. i aren’t going to insist on anything. i’m just tryn to do chess theory with you.
now then, on the matter of what you called ‘committing’ to the d and e pawn (whether passed or not). this is decent insight and very true. you are saying ‘if i’ve committed a minor piece to protecting one of those pawns, i cannot both play offensively with it and seize an opportunity if i see one… while at the same time keeping it stationed to defend the pawn.’ see now that’s a chess theory question.
here of course you have a point. however, keep in mind that at that point we have entered the mid-game and there is enough activity on the board to begin planning. the decision to protect or disregard and move elsewhere will be based on considerations that come to life at that point… but not before. the important part is that you’ve established a very strong position… one so strong that even if you disregard protecting it, at worst there will be a few exchanges and you’ve lost nothing. at best, the interrogation you produce elsewhere after disregarding those pawns will increase the pressure on your opponent. you must understand that holding/controlling the d and e file presents incredible opportunity that, regardless of what you do after that point, will be substantial and effective. it’s simply logic, my nig. almost mathematical. statistically speaking, it’s advantages have been observed and experienced over and over and over again.
so imagine the problem your opponent would be faced with if you had bishops, knights and a rook (opened after a castle and brought to a center file) all converging on a single area on the board. imagine further that you could maneuver those pieces around to include new/more squares of attack while also not jeopardizing the security of the pawns they’re defending. finally, those minor pieces are also positioned such that in an emergency they could break away and provide immediate defense for your side of the board, if needed. if you can manage to create a situation like this, you’re in good hands with all-state.
next item of discussion; that dreaded bishop on a4 you’re still trying to justify. i won’t hear it. you’ve cut that bishop’s power in half, stuck him over on the side, and somehow you think it’ll become useful if you just sit there and wait. look at his attacking diagonal. what’s there? two pawns, both defended. you wanna know what’ll happen? you’ll end up moving him toward the center at some later point and wonder why you didn’t do that in the first place. you call that bishop ‘solid’, but you’re thinking wrongly. the fact that it isn’t in danger there means very little. if you were in danger anywhere else you simply move it. so, to keep it there and limit its power because its a square that happens not to be in danger, is very poor reasoning. lol, your logic is (and you said it) ‘put a piece where it’s very hard to move it, and you’ve done something.’ by that reasoning, i would put my queen where my rook is just because that’s ‘unorthodox’, yeah? here’s that principle again that you hate so much; the closer to the center a minor piece is, the greater its attacking power. bringing a bishop immediately to a4 is so silly it almost doesn’t warrant any comment. a4 is where you go way later in the game, if at all, but not in the opening.
anyway these discussion are good because examining situations on the board - however fucked up they are - is like a rehearsal in a sense. you get to see and commit to memory the kinds of things that can happen ‘if x’, and you gain foresight.
i stopped at 17 minutes cuz i’m fixin to eat. i’ll watch the rest later.
haha… that advancing knight that’s all of a sudden ‘in your shit’ would’ve never made it that far had to brought bishop to d3 like i suggested in my vid. not that soon anyway. why not? because he wouldn’t be able to pass through a center that you controlled. if you let him get as far as e4, he’s either gonna sit, or he’s comin for ya.
but that game is just generally sloppy. guy’s running a rogue knight that’s working with no other pieces to the complete opposite corner of the board for what? to swap a piece? who does that?
bro. your bishop isn’t ‘sniping’ shit. opponent’s gonna castle and then what? what do you do with that bishop. hope he absentmindedly walks a piece into it? never happen. that bishop is either gonna get wasted or you’re gonna move him and wish you did sooner.
seriously, look at that bishop’s position. there is, literally, nothing he is attacking… except for a pawn that won’t be there for long. and he sure as shit isn’t working with any of your other pieces. if he were a real bishop, he’d be stripped of his office, excommunicated, and expelled from the church.
by the gods.
do me a favor. just for a few games. take the moves the engine suggests and watch the game. let the game drive and just ride shotgun for a few games. you can do that for me, right?
p.s. nah you don’t suck in talkin about chess. it’s just that your mind is moving too fast and you’re thinking too much. remember what’cher boy N said: sometimes i don’t want to know many things.
Regarding the engine suggestion, I have been offered chess lessons by massively intelligent players. I have not taken them. That is not why I play chess. Self-improvement is not my thing. But, having been playing steadily for about 10 years and having also steadily risen through the ranks of the caliber of player I can demolish, i feel I now have some things to say that will likely hold true in any kind of chess game.
My question has always been: what is the focus? What is it that your mind must be revolving around, focused on or latched on to, to maximize your chances of winning?
This mentality, the build-up-the-center-until-something-that-makes-more-sense-comes-up, is not as powerful as: what is the economy of the board? What bears investment? How much investment? how does it pay off? What can the opponent get away with? What can you make him pay for? Better: what can you make him pay for, consistently? Follow this ethos long enough, and you will not only know the answer better and better, but you will know what players tend to WANT and THINK they can get away with. It is less correlated to randomness or strategy, and more to schools of thought. What players THINK chess is. I can pretty accurately predict what mistakes indicate what schools of thought. But I don’t stop there, for I have no time to be cataloguing schools of thought. I can accurately determine where weaknesses are.
Why are high ranked players harder to beat? Because they are more realistic about what they can get away with.
That C pawn, for example? If even a 2000 player moves it, more than 70% of the times, so more than random chance or statistical flatness, i will make him pay dearly.
That’s also why I am bad at being coherent in explaining. Not so much because I have so many thoughts, but becauise I am like a feral child, I learned all I know far from the pale of discussion and language thinking. there is no school of thought. But I know it makes sense, and find myself now curious as to to what extent I can lay it out in words.
I know the first thing that must be made clear is: economy.
The pzerian shotgun.
Because snipers do work motherfucker.
They do work.
BANG
Now true, I get away a lot with the sheer how scary a shotgun is. Panic is a chess player’s worst enemy.
But also true: there is a reason it is so terrifying.
“Not that I have to be at this range, but yes, I am a fucking surgeon with a shotgun.”
He also did something very scary. But I won because I didn’t freak out and he did.
The strongest player I have come across yet is the player that has no hard and fast rules, and that makes small incremental gains, with small ambitions and traps that build elegantly on eachother, without bombast or fanfare.
These are the players I train to beat.
I mean shit he blundered his Queen and it only put me 2 points above hahahahaha.
Sorry, f pawn, not c pawn
So I registered at lichess, played two games… lost two games. That’s what I call a grand entrance. I’mma have to get back into this before we play, Haus. Haven’t played in ten months or more, and I’ve always been a much better theorist than a player. I don’t have the short term memory necessary to excel in this game.
Beautiful.
I only started getting good when I started accepting loss as my only teacher.
Theory is only support for practice, there is no “it” theory can get to the bottom of.
After you have played 10 or 20, look at a Magnus game.
There is no book that has ever been written in which he shows up.
my time playing chess may be described as three stages. there was the period before the age of twelve when i played the old man. never once beat him, and had really no understanding of the game. i don’t count this period because nothing was learned or retained… except for the rules of the game. i would not play chess again for over twenty years. second stage was the year in the county. i played almost everyday there because there wasn’t much else to do in a 15’ by 10’ room… unless you wanted to pace, read, work out, play cards, or watch TV. i would not play again for approximately two years. last stage was the zynga days. i played on that app for about nine months or so until i got burned out on the game. during that time i only played hot chicks with the occassional random dude once in a while. this is why my stats were decent; i was playing novice players so i was winning more often. but what i enjoyed was more about teaching hot chicks how to play better. the basics, i mean, which gave me the opportunity to be like a farcical chess master. i played your homegirl phon quite a bit too and watched her get better and better. finally, i get burned out… a period of about ten months elapses… and now i’m going to see if i can get interested in it again. this concludes the history of the promethean75 chess player.
well chess has been so extensively analyzed and inventoried in the books, it’s impossible to play the game without doing something a book has already explained. so in the case of magnus, it’s not that he’s escaping the books, but rather jumping from one book to another with his style of playing. seriously, there is nothing new in chess. the phenomena was already fully understood centuries ago. whatever you do, however you play, none of it is ‘unique’. you can buhlee dat.
now here’s what’s gonna happen. until i get my groove back, you’re gonna win a few. but once i get it, i’mma put a hurtin on ya. i’ve watched enough of your games to be confident i can handle ya. and if i lose, it won’t be because you played well… but because i played badly. you will win, yes, but only by accident.
this is gonna be good.
No no, you don’t understand. That’s why I’m saying play 10 or 20 first.
What you just said is like saying sculpture had been fully understood before Michael Angel.
By the way I approve of playing hot chicks. As long as you don’t try to convince us that the joy was in the teaching.
It is a very special kind of hot chick that can have that effect, and even then the deeper joy is not in the teaching.
Also, I can’t wait.