I will never forgive Netflix for letting the Scholar's Mate out of the bag. You should learn that from a parent, aunt, or uncle. It is an initiation.
I learned about it at my first, and only, tournament game.
A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
111–120 of 135 posts
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand what you're saying and agree, although I may suggest that 1700 number come down a bit to maybe 1200. I'm around the 1000-1200 range (just picked it up again recently) and I'd say most of my peers on Chess.com around that range have definitely studied openings and present sneaky traps consistently in the first ~5-15 moves. Playing as black for me is the real driving force for me to study openings because…
I'm at 2250 on Lichess, and I consider openings a waste of time. Ok, I confess I wasted a lot of time on them in the past, and my rating was rather constant for years and years, until I started tactics via the woodpecker method. It's hard work, but definitely worth it. (quite a few of the easier exercises are opening tactics) https://www.amazon.com/Woodpecker-Method-Axel-Smith-Tikkanen...
What age did you get serious with chess? 2200 in lichess is high.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#113Out of curiosity, what would be the final rating of the the Beth Harmon character from Queen's Gambit ?
The author of the book of the same name says he based her character loosely on Bobby Fischer. Vasily Borgiv is clearly inspired by Boris Spassky, a contemporary of Fischer’s who lost to him in the 1972 World Cup.
Spassky had a peak rating of 2690 and Fischer’s was 2785, which puts him about 19th in the world today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_play...
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
1700 on lichess is about 1400-1500 on chess.com. Lichess tends to be about 200 points overrated on average.
Wait, how is that even possible? Are they not using the same ELO algorithm?
Only differences between player ratings matter for Elo Numbers.
You can add 1,000,000 to the ratings of all players on lichess, and it wouldn't change a thing
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have different player populations. A pool of Elo ratings only rates players relative to the other players in the population. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 2400-2600, and you create a new pool of Elo ratings for them, their new Elo ratings will range from 1400-1600. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 1400-1600, and you create a new pool of ratings for them, their new Elo ratings…
So what does that say about the relative strengths of the players between chess.com and lichess.com? That chess.com has the more elite players from lichess.com and so the lichess.com players are weaker on average than the chess.com players?
This is a common misconception and the ratings are not comparable across player pools. lichess starts you off at 1500 and so the center of the bell curve is 1500, chess.com starts you off at 1200, so that's where it balances the 50% at.
https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/blitz
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/wiki/faq#wiki_my_chess.com_ra...
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#116I will never forgive Netflix for letting the Scholar's Mate out of the bag. You should learn that from a parent, aunt, or uncle. It is an initiation.
I wrote a simple chess AI for fun before I had really played much chess beyond knowing the rules, and the AI pulled it on me in one of the earlier test runs. I remember feeling stupid and proud at the same time.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the major chess websites and organizations use a similar Elo-like rating system where 1500 is about the 50th percentile. So, roughly speaking, 1700 probably means "when you're at the 70th percentile of active chess players". One example: https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/blitz
Ratings on chess sites are massively inflated compared to USCF/FIDE ratings. 1700 on lichess is probably somewhere around 1200 USCF.
It is not really inflated, they just use a different middle point. Lichess start you at 1500 and therefore, 1500 will be the median point of the distribution, Chess.com start you at 1200 so this will tend to be the median point.
It is really obvious when you look at the stats for classical or rapid for example: https://lichess.org/stat/rating/distribution/classical
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
1700 on lichess is about 1400-1500 on chess.com. Lichess tends to be about 200 points overrated on average.
Wait, how is that even possible? Are they not using the same ELO algorithm?
No, they use different rating algorithms. Lichess is using Glicko-2. Chess com is using Glicko.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#119My advice to beginners is to not stick with one opening, but to play them all. Include wild openings like the Kings Gambit and Danish Gambit, as well as strategic openings like the Queen's Gambit. You will be out of 'the book' very quickly, and that's actually good. You'll be learning to play, rather than recall. Another piece of advice: Study endgames before openings. Learn about K + P vs K, the elementary mates, (K…
> Study endgames before openings. Growing up we had a copy of The Art of Chess by James Mason. The book starts out with the endgame, goes into the midgame, and ends with openings. The philosophy was that if you don't understand how to play when there are four pieces on the board, how will you be able to play when there are 32?
The trouble with that order is that you dont get to actually play the game and dont get to have any fun for months. Which means you will stop playing chess entirely.
And I mean, I started to play late and I am not good, but the "if you don't understand how to play when there are four pieces on the board, how will you be able to play when there are 32" does not really check out. The two are just different.
Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)
#120Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…
The King's Indian as a way to avoid theoretical preparation? Seriously? That's one of the most difficult and theory heavy openings in all of chess. I abandoned it because it was just too much work.