Chess

Went out a couple weeks ago to play in an unrated blitz tournament, went 5-3, felt pretty good about my odds vs these old guys and kids. First kid I played was probably 7 or 8, he blundered his queen on like move 10. I thought his dad was gonna beat him when he saw it. Little intense. Then I won a few, lost a few, and got to play the tournament director who says he's the highest rated 75 year old in the country, and actually had a winning position against him before choking in the end game.

Joined the USCF and played my first rated OTB tournament Monday night. Man, you think the autism rates are high in the general population, try a fuckin rated chess event in the summer. First game ever, I'm black and the guy plays the English. I fuckin hate the English. Don't have a good weapon that works. I figured my best bet was he transposed into queens gambit and not some Catalan bullshit, which he did, so I just got to play the Grunfeld, which I'm pretty good with. At one point around move 10 he looked at me like I was retarded for trading a knight for his dark squared bishop, but my uncontested dark squared bishop ended up being the fuckin MVP of the game winning me two pawns and a rook. He almost had me swindled with a rook sac so his pawn could promote, but it would be 2 rooks +5 pawns vs a queen and 2 pawns, so I called his bluff, connected my rooks, and crushed any chances he had.

Second game vs maybe a 10 year old girl. She blundered a knight on move 9. Easy conversion after that. Not much going on there.

Third and final game of the night, I'm on 2 points and tied for first and I get the same kid who blundered the queen from me the first night. He actually plays pretty decent here, at one point overextends himself and I looked at the position for a long time, and just couldn't calculate out the correct sac. It's a lot different playing looking at the board than playing online where you can draw arrows. I couldn't see the continuation and moved back - found out I would have had mate in 4 with a knight sac - I didn't see that the file would open up because the pawn wouldn't be there. Terrible. He proceeds to just steamroll me off the board, I was apparently still winning according to the computer, right up until I chose the wrong piece to recapture with and got myself in a terrible predicament facing an almost certain checkmate in the corner. I stared at it for a long time, begrudgingly took with my queen, dropping my c pawn, and with it, all of my chances, and as soon as I hit the clock I hear this kid say very softly "draw?"

"What?"

"You want a draw for that time last week where I blundered my queen?"

Hell yeah little guy. I told him after I was pretty sure he was winning, but he said he couldn't see it, and he said his dad told him before the game that I was really good, so to offer me a draw if I'd take it, because he was already in first place and no reason to risk 2nd place. Hilarious.

We went up, the TD said 'oh, well if you guys drew, then you split the prize money." Handed this little kid $23 bucks, handed me $22, and his dad took a picture of both of us holding some Jacksons. Lol, what a fucking experience.

Highly recommend.

Cutlery said:

Went out a couple weeks ago to play in an unrated blitz tournament, went 5-3, felt pretty good about my odds vs these old guys and kids. First kid I played was probably 7 or 8, he blundered his queen on like move 10. I thought his dad was gonna beat him when he saw it. Little intense. Then I won a few, lost a few, and got to play the tournament director who says he's the highest rated 75 year old in the country, and actually had a winning position against him before choking in the end game.

Joined the USCF and played my first rated OTB tournament Monday night. Man, you think the autism rates are high in the general population, try a fuckin rated chess event in the summer. First game ever, I'm black and the guy plays the English. I fuckin hate the English. Don't have a good weapon that works. I figured my best bet was he transposed into queens gambit and not some Catalan bullshit, which he did, so I just got to play the Grunfeld, which I'm pretty good with. At one point around move 10 he looked at me like I was retarded for trading a knight for his dark squared bishop, but my uncontested dark squared bishop ended up being the fuckin MVP of the game winning me two pawns and a rook. He almost had me swindled with a rook sac so his pawn could promote, but it would be 2 rooks +5 pawns vs a queen and 2 pawns, so I called his bluff, connected my rooks, and crushed any chances he had.

Second game vs maybe a 10 year old girl. She blundered a knight on move 9. Easy conversion after that. Not much going on there.

Third and final game of the night, I'm on 2 points and tied for first and I get the same kid who blundered the queen from me the first night. He actually plays pretty decent here, at one point overextends himself and I looked at the position for a long time, and just couldn't calculate out the correct sac. It's a lot different playing looking at the board than playing online where you can draw arrows. I couldn't see the continuation and moved back - found out I would have had mate in 4 with a knight sac - I didn't see that the file would open up because the pawn wouldn't be there. Terrible. He proceeds to just steamroll me off the board, I was apparently still winning according to the computer, right up until I chose the wrong piece to recapture with and got myself in a terrible predicament facing an almost certain checkmate in the corner. I stared at it for a long time, begrudgingly took with my queen, dropping my c pawn, and with it, all of my chances, and as soon as I hit the clock I hear this kid say very softly "draw?"

"What?"

"You want a draw for that time last week where I blundered my queen?"

Hell yeah little guy. I told him after I was pretty sure he was winning, but he said he couldn't see it, and he said his dad told him before the game that I was really good, so to offer me a draw if I'd take it, because he was already in first place and no reason to risk 2nd place. Hilarious.

We went up, the TD said 'oh, well if you guys drew, then you split the prize money." Handed this little kid $23 bucks, handed me $22, and his dad took a picture of both of us holding some Jacksons. Lol, what a fucking experience.

Highly recommend.

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I've been to hundreds of tournies. Wait till you see your first knife fight.

Watching igor ivanov play for the first table of the texas state championship while blackout drunk was quite entertaining. His opponents would all hit the clock super quiet and hope he didn't startle awake. After a few minutes he'd startle awake, make a move and then take a shot and pass back out.

If you're ever in europe, I highly recommend going to a FIDE tournament. They are often like little festivals if they last more than a day. Cookouts, and beer and lots of fun.

Looks like I'm in a great spot for it. There doesn't seem to be any rated events anywhere in the Midwest right now, except this chess club plays weekly - several nights a week, in fact.

Turns out one of the old guys I beat handily on the first night is 1700. Maybe there really is 90% cheaters online.

2nd rated tournament. I still don't have an "official" rating because the USCF only updates once per month and that hasn't hit yet. The guy I beat in the first round last week asked me immediately upon arrival if I had a rating yet. Told him I did not, and he said he was curious because he was rated 600 USCF and is 800 on Chess.com. I float around 1400-1500 on chess.com, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Shitload of people this week. Shitload. like 6 quads and then a 6 player swiss at the bottom. So many kids. Took forever to get pairings for the first round. I drew the poor SOB who I beat first last week, and he plays white again.

Fuckin guy plays the Polish. I fuckin hate the Polish. This guy has no idea that he's playing all of the openings that are the bane of my existence, he's just too bad to capitalize on them. Thankfully, I've blundered enough rooks online vs the Polish that I don't make those stupid blunders again. The engine says I had one inaccuracy, and that was the "worst" move I made (going down the line, Brilliant, Great, Excellent, Good, Inaccuracy, Mistake, Blunder). So, I feel pretty decent about that. If people play weird bullshit openings against you and you don't know what to do, just develop your pieces and play solid and wait for them to be dumb. He got his knight trapped on move 12 because he moved forward instead of backwards, thats a mistake I've made so many times that I literally plan an escape route for every knight move before I make it now. Takes longer, but I don't blunder knights on move 12, usually. After that, he decided to sac a bishop for literally no reason, so I was up 2 pieces. I just forced a queen trade and gave back a pawn, and set upon the task of just trading everything down. Didn't quite go as planned. He decided to take a king walk to the center of the board and I had 2 bishops, 2 rooks and a knight to work with, so I just ended up checkmating him on e5 instead.

Second game - a kid I didn't get to play last week. I'm playing white. Not super proud of this one - every time I made a move, right after I thought "ah shit, what if he does this?" and he invariably found it. I was still positionally better, but it was just an annoying conversion, slow squeeze. Fortunately this kid seems to not care too terribly much, so he does shit like get up in the middle of the game to go to the bathroom and stops keeping score when he gets tilted, so it's easy to work. He tried to sac THE ROOK from a Levy video, but didn't work, just ended up running out of pieces and resigning with no checks left.

Third game, 2-0, tied for first and I'm playing the father of 2 very young daughters. This guy is playing in a lower bracket than his kids. I admire it. He's doing the right thing, getting his kids into a game that on paper should have tangible results. He plays the dutch. I have like a 63% win rate online vs the Dutch. That was before I bought a chessable course called "Destroying the Dutch." I can actually post the game here, because the gif isn't that long.



Pretty satisfying getting that over the board.

Tournament director came back and said "Over already?" Yeah. "you win?" Yeah. "I think you're just coming out here to take our money!" Hey, you're the ones that keep putting me in the lowest bracket!

Cutlery said:

2nd rated tournament. I still don't have an "official" rating because the USCF only updates once per month and that hasn't hit yet. The guy I beat in the first round last week asked me immediately upon arrival if I had a rating yet. Told him I did not, and he said he was curious because he was rated 600 USCF and is 800 on Chess.com. I float around 1400-1500 on chess.com, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Shitload of people this week. Shitload. like 6 quads and then a 6 player swiss at the bottom. So many kids. Took forever to get pairings for the first round. I drew the poor SOB who I beat first last week, and he plays white again.

Fuckin guy plays the Polish. I fuckin hate the Polish. This guy has no idea that he's playing all of the openings that are the bane of my existence, he's just too bad to capitalize on them. Thankfully, I've blundered enough rooks online vs the Polish that I don't make those stupid blunders again. The engine says I had one inaccuracy, and that was the "worst" move I made (going down the line, Brilliant, Great, Excellent, Good, Inaccuracy, Mistake, Blunder). So, I feel pretty decent about that. If people play weird bullshit openings against you and you don't know what to do, just develop your pieces and play solid and wait for them to be dumb. He got his knight trapped on move 12 because he moved forward instead of backwards, thats a mistake I've made so many times that I literally plan an escape route for every knight move before I make it now. Takes longer, but I don't blunder knights on move 12, usually. After that, he decided to sac a bishop for literally no reason, so I was up 2 pieces. I just forced a queen trade and gave back a pawn, and set upon the task of just trading everything down. Didn't quite go as planned. He decided to take a king walk to the center of the board and I had 2 bishops, 2 rooks and a knight to work with, so I just ended up checkmating him on e5 instead.

Second game - a kid I didn't get to play last week. I'm playing white. Not super proud of this one - every time I made a move, right after I thought "ah shit, what if he does this?" and he invariably found it. I was still positionally better, but it was just an annoying conversion, slow squeeze. Fortunately this kid seems to not care too terribly much, so he does shit like get up in the middle of the game to go to the bathroom and stops keeping score when he gets tilted, so it's easy to work. He tried to sac THE ROOK from a Levy video, but didn't work, just ended up running out of pieces and resigning with no checks left.

Third game, 2-0, tied for first and I'm playing the father of 2 very young daughters. This guy is playing in a lower bracket than his kids. I admire it. He's doing the right thing, getting his kids into a game that on paper should have tangible results. He plays the dutch. I have like a 63% win rate online vs the Dutch. That was before I bought a chessable course called "Destroying the Dutch." I can actually post the game here, because the gif isn't that long.

View attachment 595075

Pretty satisfying getting that over the board.

Tournament director came back and said "Over already?" Yeah. "you win?" Yeah. "I think you're just coming out here to take our money!" Hey, you're the ones that keep putting me in the lowest bracket!

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Do you take notation? You should post your games if you do. When I played it was mandatory but in the lower brackets it was Not very enforced.

At the very low levels you can get lots of quick cheesy mates if you are aggressive, but around 1200 you’ll start getting burned for trying, unless you go into the realm of the truly chaotic evil openings like the Fred.

Furry said:

Do you take notation? You should post your games if you do. When I played it was mandatory but in the lower brackets it was Not very enforced.

At the very low levels you can get lots of quick cheesy mates if you are aggressive, but around 1200 you’ll start getting burned for trying, unless you go into the realm of the truly chaotic evil openings like the Fred.

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Yeah, pretty sure you're supposed to, unless you have less than 5 minutes on the clock. I run all my games thru the engine and add to my library when I get home

TheNozz said:

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My favorite saying I've heard from watching chess videos is "secret grandmaster move - knights move backwards."

Retreating Knight moves are some of the hardest moves for people to see/play.

3-0 again this week. My OTB record is now 8-0-1. (8-1-0? I'm not sure what format chess uses. Now that I think about it, maybe that - 8 wins 1 draw 0 losses).

First game against a gal rated 1066. Got to play the Caro Kann - haven't played anyone OTB who's opened with E4 yet. My win rate in the Caro is 53% online - you shouldn't have a winning record with black, so this is really good for me. She was booked up pretty good, had an even game for the first 10-12 moves. I started in with the minority attack (not what you get at 2am in the inner city - just 2 pawns vs 3) and she shuffled all her pieces to the queen side. I figured that was an excellent time to sac a knight. Computer says it's completely unsound and a blunder, but she didn't find the correct followup, so I was back to parity after the next move. She tried to sac a rook back to hold, but missed an intermezzo with check, so she just lost it for nothing. Then lost a pawn to a pin, followed by a knight to a pin, then I promoted and she was checkmated in the corner a few moves later. A lot of OTB people fight on to the end - or maybe that's just the rating I'm playing against. After being down a rook with no pawns left, I sure wouldn't be playing on.

Second game vs the kid I drew against the first week. He lost his first game and wasn't playing well - I could tell he was up in his head. He decided to go for a king walk and ended up getting checkmated in the corner. Kinda felt bad for him.

Third game vs a 1241 - highest rated player yet. Super old guy. I get to play white and play my Jobava London, and he is down 10 minutes on the clock by move 15. He actually told me after the game "I was super impressed by how fast and smooth your play was at the beginning. You had all the right moves and I just couldn't think that fast." Well, playing 2000 blitz games online in the last year does that to you. I was still in book at move 14, didn't have to think at all. I missed a game ending tactic - it's kinda unreal how you don't see certain things OTB that you would definitely spot online. Something about the difference in the view of the board. I also missed a knight fork for him, but thankfully he was under 2 minutes and panicked and missed it too. It was mate in 4 when he ran outta time (game in 25, 10 second delay).

Still no official rating yet. Not sure what the hold up is there. They say they run ratings on the 15th of the month, and they become offical on the 1st. Well, I had games in before the 15th, but no rating on August 1st, which means I'm technically still "Unrated" and am the bottom guy in the bracket. So I guess I just get to keep farming the scrubs for a few more weeks before they finally catch on and put me in a higher section. It's pretty solid fun, met a few cool people and that's always pretty awesome as you get older.

Pterodactyl159 said:

Do yall play on chess.com or lichess?

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Both. What is better depends on your situation.

Chess.com has a shitload of cheaters that they don't do much about. They seem to be getting worse about enforcement lately too. When I started playing again a few years ago, I wouldn't go a week without getting rating back from banning cheaters, now its happened like twice this year. Chess.com has better pre moves, so if that's your thing, that's a bonus. And if you're a true beginner and don't know how to analyze with an engine, game review is pretty useful to help teach you.

Lichess, despite being open source, doesn't seem to have as much of a problem with cheating that I've seen. My ELO steadily moves up on Lichess, while I have super wild swings on chess.com. Draw your own conclusions. Premoves are worse on Lichess, but some people consider premoves cheating anyway, so like I said - preference. And if you know what you're doing, the analysis on Lichess is as good as chess.com's paid features, for free.