4th best*. I confused h5 with Ne5.
edit: Nh5** (roflmfao)
I know for a fact that Chess has grown in popularity over the years and will keep growing in popularity… so I wanted to know a little bit about its history. Today I was reading a bit about its potential origins being Chaturanga. An ancient Indian strategy board game that was also played on an 8×8 uncheckered board. Knowing these things makes chess more epic, and interesting to me. 1400 years ago, is crazy. Now humans speed-play it on their computers and smartphones… and we have all these advanced analysis tools available. Intriguing perspectives.
I also checked out some World Chess Championship 2024 clips to see what the fuss is about. Apparently the challenger won because the champion made a huge blunder, lol. It’s good to know that even the best of the best make big blunders, roflmao.
One of the best books I’ve ever read was endgame, a Bobby Fischer biography. Did you know the president at the time (I forgot who… Nixon?) called Fischer regularly during the world championship to encourage him and basically beg him to play when he considered dropping out.
The US needed a win against Russia during the Cold War, and Fischer vs Spassky was the climax of Russia vs USA sports. Chess blew up at that time like it is now
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A lot of processing going on, so I might not play chess today.
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I was winning so clearly, until I blundered. I blundered twice today. I was +5.5, and I threw the game. Why did I go Nd4??? I don’t even know why I made that move. After I made that blunder, I felt like the opponent got activated or his coffee kicked in. They started making really fast moves all of a sudden. I’m blaming raikov scripting trying to make me like Ding Liren, roflmao. I can’t believe I just threw this game. I think it was honestly needed though. If I won this game… holy shit, I would literally go crazy in this journal. The fact that I almost pulled that off, wow. I have a feeling that I’m going to bounce back hard from this one. Someone please explain to me his d2 sacrifice… what the hell was that? This person may have been a genius if he did that on purpose to prevent me from castling and then ending up using that to his advantage. That’s next level. I’m not used to playing with my king in the middle. Very interesting, and very unpleasant game.
I’ve never seen a move like this ever in my life, lol. Heh??
Throwing away his bishop to prevent me from castling, creating an awkward position that I’m not yet experienced enough to maneuver. I need to step my shit up, lmao.
Wow I hate this board layout lol. Was this a chess.com game? I really can’t follow along.
But tbh ya I have no idea what the idea of Nd4 was. An f4 push? ND4 just attacks 2 extremely well defended pawns
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There is absolutely 0 explanation for the bishop “sacrifice” it’s complete garbage. Probably a misclick.
I mean, you have an open d/e file. Your next moves after that should be Rd1, Kc1, Re1, and you control the central open files while his king hasn’t castled yet… (edit: he spends time castling*)
Maybe support with f4 after that and boom you’ve castled queenside by hand.
f4 keeps him cramped af because you have a clamp on the center, but it also preps f5!!! (Only a good move at the right moment) with the idea that you chip away at his e-pawn… because again remember you have rooks on the e/d file so you wanna shred open that center
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@Skadoosh Do you know the golden rule of how to win a game when you’re up a piece?
It’s very simple but binary. You either know it or you don’t.
Once you’re up a piece, look for_______
Once you’re up a piece, look for Trades.
Found your game. Qf3 is extremely questionable. Where is your knight gonna go? When you gonna castle? What is your queen ACTUALLY threatening? Play Nf3, castle, and then do whatever you want with your queen.
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Great points. Yeah, I need to process this game and bounce back. I’m aiming to hit 1200 by at least the end of this year, lol. Yesterday I wasn’t in the mood to play so I tried doing puzzles but it was too boring… I ended up playing a game different from chess.
You can warm up with a few rounds of puzzle rush on chess.com rather than making it a sesh.
Wow u brain farted hard this game. But props to him because the sequence leading up to this pin was crazy.
I think you seem to misunderstand the importance and mechanisms of central control/dominance.
Not putting your rooks on the d/e file shows that. Leaving your king in the center shows that. Because in the former, you don’t use the center aggressively. In the latter, you don’t realize being the one in the center is dangerous.
And here…. MAYBE you could have won this game if you took the pawn with your pawn instead of your knight:
But… taking with your knight?!?!? Look at the consequences. Now your second knight is pinned EXACTLY THE SAME WAY your first knight was, and you made it worse because now there’s a king AND a queen pinned by his rook. Loloolololololol.
Your best chance to save the position early was actually here:
Because you need a barricade against the center… but I didn’t see that at first - hindsight is 20/20, I would have taken with the queen too. But it shows the center principle.
What I DID see though was that you immediately needed to go Rd1, Kc1, because the #1 factor of chess is king safety. Your king is in the center? Stop whatever you’re doing immediately and shelter him.
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You should be aware of this move . It comes up a lot. Most of these early queen thrusts on the queen side fail to the geometry of the knight’s ability to attack the queen and defend its threat. Happens ALL the time in almost every queen’s pawn opening.
Also, your 5.5 advantage was too wild
To calculate. You had to sac the b-pawn and then sac your knight AND THEN SAC YOUR BISHOP.
If a 1200 played that against me I would abandon the game and call Kramnik immediately.
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This is what your dream position would look like. Rooks in the center. Pieces developed. King safe. H-pawn already attacking the king. Bishop pointing at his king. Destruction.
This was just an example position I made and then the computer lines go crazy.
Best move is plant the knight in the center, then immediately sac the other knight. Second best move is to immediately sac the bishop for the pawn, then to sac the exchange and take his knight with your rook, because THEN YOU SAC THE KNIGHT ON f6!!!
Except it’s not a sac 
And of course the only way to defend the devastation is to bring pieces in, but then…. Then you just trade off those pieces because you’re UP a piece… and what you want is a position where you have a knight and 5 pawns vs just his 5 pawns. You’ll never lose that. Equal trades will always win for you.
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It’s only been 25 days since I started this journal, and I can already say 100% that Limitless works. I spend 0-30 minutes a day actually playing chess and I’m pretty satisfied with the rate of my progression. I’m really interested in what rating I’ll hit a plateau… that is if I even hit one, lol.
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Yeah, unfortunately I have to point this out on the public journal that it’s a complete joke not to be taken seriously. I have to do this for those weird conspiratorial “mind-control”, and “subliminal-made-me-do-it” types that have the IQ of a potato, no social skills, and realistically shouldn’t even be using subliminals.
I have countless instances of taking full accountability for poor play in my journal, so it’s not even an “if” I’m doing this, lol. I’m just clearing this up so that nobody in recon gets paranoid.
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We should all chill more just like Ding…
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Lol, the blunder he made was so bad… apparently some people are even saying that he did it on purpose. That’s kind of wild.
if true, that’d make him the second champion in a row to voluntarily give up the title.
magnus carlsen didn’t defend his title because he thought classical chess at that level was boring and not worth it.
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The guy had been struggling with his performance for 2 years and had lots of mental health issues during the time, so the fact that he held so long was actually quite amazing and shows his determination and fighting spirit.
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That’s a really good point, lol. Determination and fighting spirit are definitely important traits to me, but even more important is getting the job done. I find that to be the harsh reality of anything competitive. Results are what the people remember. Victories write the headlines, it’s never the struggles.
If you’re in game 7 NBA finals with a chance to make the game-winning shot, and you gave it your 101% all but miss - the only moment people will remember is the one where the ball goes in. Winning is what makes you legendary. The world doesn’t celebrate effort, it celebrates execution and results.
That’s why similarly on this chess journey of mine, sure I’ll talk about my win streaks, my derps, my losses, my lose streaks (if they happen, lol), my learnings, my plateaus, my processing, etc - but the only thing that matters to me is hitting my desired ratings. All that other stuff doesn’t matter. I’ve cultivated a results-driven mindset, which involves focusing on the things that actually matter. That’s why I get results. Interestingly enough, I’ve looked at some chess.com profiles of past opponents. Some people have been stuck at 1000 rating for years. Their growth curve indicates being stuck at plateau of 1000 rating for the past 3 years, lol. They have hundreds of games. I think some people just play chess as a form of coping mechanism, like they’ll crank out a dozen blitz or bullet games without any analysis or strategy towards becoming better. That’s weird to me, lol… I play an extremely small amount of games, taking them one step at a time, one game at a time, one move at a time, and I soak in everything there is to absorb from within each one to the best of my ability. I try to progress smart, efficiently, and by putting in the least amount of effort. Someone will read this journal, and think that Chess is a major part of my life… I play 0-30 minutes a day maximum (3 games max, and Rapid games average around 10-12 minutes I would say). I spend maybe 30 minutes - 1 hour on actual analysis and that’s if I even feel like it, lol. It doesn’t take much for me to hire a chess teacher, crack open books, watch a ton of informational YouTube videos, and go “scholarly” with the game. I’m currently avoiding that because it’s time-consuming, I don’t want chess to become a chore, and I especially want to avoid burnout. I’m playing quite casually right now, which I find exciting like a “learn as you go, adventure”.
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