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Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

19loveless91 — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 18:15:55 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 11/17/2013 23:15

So, the way things look now, it seems that Magnus Carlsen will beat Viswanathan Anand and become the new world chess champion. Which, considering how far ahead of everybody he is in the rankings, seems the only fair. I know that nobody's following the match, it just seemed like a good opportunity to bump the thread.

Also, in other chess related news, the European team championships ended today with victories of Azerbaijan (men) and Ukraine. Our team was missing some of the main players (esp the imported Ukrainans) to make a really good result, but there were some highlights, e.g. Lenič being a total badass and beating world #6 Caruana.

... Yeah, I know

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

AlexZangari — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 23:32:15 GMT

Author: AlexZangari

Posted: 08/26/2013 03:32

19loveless91 wrote:

Sorry I never replied to this. It's really interesting to me, actually. I don't think we have such a thing as "companies" that would run chess clubs in schools (only one sorta chess "company" I guess, but I'm not sure that's even what they do). If I were to be an instructor in a school chess club, I'd have to be connected to the school via the club I'm in.
But I'm not sure how good I'd be with kids, especially if they wouldn't take it (/me) seriously... Do you enjoy doing it?

It's a decent job. There are a whole bunch of pros and cons to working with kids. It's more coaching than teaching.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:25:44 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/25/2013 20:25

ppnw wrote:

Hey, I'm a loose cannon. I play it fast, and I play it loose.

😄

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:20:59 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/25/2013 20:20

Hey, I'm a loose cannon. I play it fast, and I play it loose.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

19loveless91 — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:19:43 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/25/2013 20:19

AlexZangari wrote:

I work for a company that runs chess clubs in schools around Atlanta. Unfortunately we only really work with elementary and younger, with maybe one or two middle schools. One of the schools I coach at is our best; this year they had a team get 3rd in states and another get 12th in nationals.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

19loveless91 — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:12:36 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/25/2013 20:12

I've been playing at chess.com for the last week or so. Despite the fact I haven't played chess in a while I got awesome win percentage in the last few days, must've been close to 90% at one point, and with my rating as high as 2170 (which is pretty fucking high).

Yesterday I played two games with purple. The sheer stupidity of his moves made my playing level drop so hard that I still haven't recovered. I just won my first game after losing six in a row.
Never again, purple, never again.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 15:42:15 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/24/2013 19:42

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Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

AlexZangari — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 00:38:25 GMT

Author: AlexZangari

Posted: 08/22/2013 04:38

I work for a company that runs chess clubs in schools around Atlanta. Unfortunately we only really work with elementary and younger, with maybe one or two middle schools. One of the schools I coach at is our best; this year they had a team get 3rd in states and another get 12th in nationals.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

19loveless91 — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 20:23:58 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/22/2013 00:23

tekin wrote:

I loved when people played Benoni and I'd just jump at the chance of Benko; the game would always turn out wild but I'd lose every time I played it (I never studied it thoroughly though). I always wondered how people like Anand and Kasparov can pull it off in hard games with that system playing with black. I could play blindfolded easily when I was in high school (I tried it a year ago, lost all the picture after 7th move). We would play all the time with one of my friends on the way back home and continue it tomorrow. But there came a time that my family didn't let me dedicate myself to it. Seeing that you'll never be sth always can turn you off; I've not played seriously for four years now.

Ah, I played Benko for years (still might occasionally online) with black. Not sure if I ever won an "important" match with it though. I guess nowadays I play Benoni mostly, but I don't know that much theory, just have a basic idea of how to play. Blindfold chess is something I'm quite horrible at.. Okay I should try it out first as it's been a while, but honestly, there are guys that are otherwise roughly on my level and can play blindfolded games simultaneously, which is something that is totally inconceivable to me.
It's a shame if your family didn't let you dedicate time to chess (i.e. if you wanted to), I think it has been completely the opposite with my family. Looking back, I feel like there were a lot of times where I continued playing just because of how much they supported me, even if I myself hated training it..

tekin wrote:

That "I can beat my mom" option has this tiny flaw: what if you're Judit Polgar's child?

Well I guess the order of answers is shuffled a bit for them, but they have plenty of other options. On the other hand, RZA seems to be a popular answer, but I have no idea how good he actually is. He surely seems enthusiastic about chess

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AlexZangari wrote:

I'm a chess instructor, actually.

Like.. Do you run a chess club in a school or something like that? I'd be interested in hearing more about that. I have an option of potentially with something like that too, but as my chess friends tell me it's usually little more than a daycare center.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:39:04 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/21/2013 23:39

That "I can beat my mom" option has this tiny flaw: what if you're Judit Polgar's child?

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

bongritsu — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:35:31 GMT

Author: bongritsu

Posted: 08/21/2013 23:35

I really wanna learn :0

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Patman360 — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:29:16 GMT

Author: Patman360

Posted: 08/21/2013 23:29

I can occasionally beat someone on the Chess With Friends, but that's the limit of my playing in recent years, I like chess, just wouldn't play it often to be honest.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

AlexZangari — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:25:47 GMT

Author: AlexZangari

Posted: 08/21/2013 23:25

I'm a chess instructor, actually.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:19:45 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/21/2013 23:19

I can be generally good at chess, but it's hard to get better when almost everyone you know doesn't like it or know how to play it.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 19:05:16 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/21/2013 23:05

I loved when people played Benoni and I'd just jump at the chance of Benko; the game would always turn out wild but I'd lose every time I played it (I never studied it thoroughly though). I always wondered how people like Anand and Kasparov can pull it off in hard games with that system playing with black. I could play blindfolded easily when I was in high school (I tried it a year ago, lost all the picture after 7th move). We would play all the time with one of my friends on the way back home and continue it tomorrow. But there came a time that my family didn't let me dedicate myself to it. Seeing that you'll never be sth always can turn you off; I've not played seriously for four years now.

Re: 64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 18:39:48 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/21/2013 22:39

I grew up playing chess. I never took it that seriously, and never studied or analyzed strategy or anything like that, but I'd say I've gotten pretty good from playing quite a bit over the years. My fondest memories of the game came from my gifted teacher in Elementary school who had a chess tournament every year. Prior to the tournament itself we would always spend a lot of class time learning the game and playing it for fun. It was pretty dope.

64 squares, 32 pieces. Mano a mano

19loveless91 — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 18:17:14 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/21/2013 22:17

I don't know if it's just a sudden bout of nostalgia, or just me being lazy with my studies and diverting my time and attention to irrelevant things again, but I suddenly feel like playing chess these days. Now I played (and trained) a lot when I was younger, to the point that I achieved quite a bit, although I never became as good as I would need to be to actually be able to keep that up after I would get out of "youth" competition. I had for a while (still do to some extent) held a grudge towards this game, as I felt like it took too much of my time in the past while I never really became as good as I could have.

Still I have admiration for this game, I hate when I hear people describing it as a "board game", as it's way more sophisticated and can be a pleasure to just study.. And let me tell you, there aren't many things as satisfying as when you get a certain tactical combination right, or when you build up an elaborate plan in your mind and it turns out to be perfect.

So how about you? Do you know how to play chess? If yes, how well? Do you have any special feelings towards it, any special experiences?

I have a feeling this could be a short thread, but I know there's at least one user who mentioned playing chess before (tekin)