I miss him a lot in this world, and my heart still gets all twisted up thinking about it. Thinking about his family - sending support and hoping they're getting through it. Gonna watch some of his videos today, and probably learn a thing or two.

You were the best! 💙🤍

----

I also want to reshare this beautiful post regarding the Naroditsky memorial and fellowship, by Communications Manager u/ChessKelly at Charlotte Chess Center from today:

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/s/gf9DMfCJXO

“Pranesh was not in the Olympiad, right? He’s a very, very good player, by the way. Another player who, in a normal country, would be on the Olympiad team.
If Pranesh lived in any normal country, he’d probably be board two or better on any of these teams. But unfortunately, he lives in India. And India, as we know, has a few too many good players.
I’m not saying he’s better than Nihal. I’m just telling you that, if I look at it objectively, he’d be board one or board two.
India is not a normal country in the chess sense. There are too many good players in India. It’s not a normal country because there are a bunch of ridiculously good players. I feel that probably the 20th player in India would be a board two in most countries.
I’m saying that in a good way. I’m not saying that in some kind of weird, disrespectful way about India or something.”

Hi all! I just got to the halfway point of the 5334 Polgar brick. I just wanted to share with people because I'm super proud of myself. I've been working on it since Feb 11, 2026.

I recently made an IG account documenting my IRL adventures with my book. I wonder if it will get some celebrity autographs one day.

https://www.instagram.com/the5334polgarpilgrimage?dlrf=MTd0NmV5NWx3cG51Nw==

In this 2300+ Chess.com puzzle, black's kingside is collasping with white's recent capture on h7 - Mate is inevitable. Can Black turn the tide of this game?

Solution

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-us-chess-championships-open/09/Caruana_Fabiano-So_Wesley

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-us-chess-championships-open/09/Oparin_Grigoriy-Shankland_Sam

I'm on a losing streak but maybe this means I'm on the upswing

Had this position as black here. I was clearly worse and defending for my life, but Ne4 actually gave me an opportunity to get a better position

I'm 2100-2200 in rapid and blitz lichess but I'm still struggling playing as black against d4. Any recommendations? Are there any free and reputable resources where I can study opening repertoire courses such as nimzo indian, queens indian, QGD etc. My only weapon against d4 is reverse london set-up . Most of the time it leads pretty boring positions.

Last week there was a post about the new Total Chess Rating system, and thinking about the system (and whether it makes sense) took over my mind for a bit, so this post is the result of that. For context on me, I am a maths Lecturer with a background in analysis and ML, and have done a little work on Elo systems in the past.

TL;DR: As the TCR website describes, no single combined Elo rating can perfectly describe every matchup across Classical, Rapid, and Blitz. TCR is one possible compromise, but it is heavily skewed towards to your strongest format. There is an alternative compromise: find the rating of a hypothetical opponent, equally rated in all three formats, against whom you would score 50%. For the players in the Total Chess World Championship Tour, this ends up being very close to simply averaging their ratings.

1. The problem

The basic question that TCR is a proposed solution for is:

If we have Elo ratings for a bunch of games or game variants (in this case, Classical, Rapid, and Blitz), how can we combine them into a rating for a combined game?

By "combined game", I mean choosing one of the three variants at random, and playing that.

The key thing about Elo ratings is that the number does more than just say who is higher rated: the difference between two ratings predicts an expected score. With the usual scoring, a win counts as 1, a draw as 0.5, and a loss as 0. So an expected score of 60% means an average of 60 points per 100 games, not necessarily winning 60 of those games.

In particular, if two players have Elo ratings A and B, then the Elo system predicts an expected score of

Elo(A, B) = 1 / (1 + 10^((B - A)/400))

This means that if two Chess players A and B have Classical, Rapid, and Blitz ratings A_1, A_2, A_3 and B_1, B_2, B_3, then the expected score in a random game of the three is the average over the expected score in each game:

E(A,B) = 1/3 * Elo(A1,B1) + 1/3 * Elo(A2,B2) + 1/3 * Elo(A3,B3)

This also gives the expected proportion of points if A and B play an equal number of equally weighted games in each format.

The dream would be to find a single pair of Elo ratings A and B giving this expected score, i.e. Elo(A,B) = E(A,B). Unfortunately, as the TCR website describes, this is impossible, as it is possible for players to form rock-paper-scissors-like cycles (e.g. A is better than B at Classical and Rapid, B better than C at Classical and Blitz, yet C is better than A at Rapid and Blitz).

Thus any combined rating is a compromise, as compressing three ratings into one always loses some information.

3. The TCR method

The TCR uses the formula:

TCR = 400 * log10((10^(Classical/400) + 10^(Rapid/400) + 10^(Blitz/400)) / 3)

In words: convert each rating into an underlying Elo "strength", average those strengths, then convert back into a rating.

The website gives four requirements that uniquely determine its formula. Roughly translated:

1. Keep the scale. If you're 2000 in every format, your combined rating should be 2000.
2. Improvement should help. Increasing any individual rating should smoothly increase the combined rating.
3. Combining ratings in stages should give the same answer.
4. Improvements in higher ratings should count more, in proportion to the Elo odds. If one rating is 400 points above another, a very small improvement to the higher rating should have ten times the effect of the same improvement to the lower one.

The last requirement is a bit odd. If my Classical rating is 2400 and my Blitz rating is 2000, why should improving my Classical rating count ten times as much as improving my Blitz rating? Why are we having my Classical rating play a game against my Blitz rating?

3.1. TCR strongly rewards your best format

Mathematically, the TCR is a quasi-arithmetic mean that is closely related to a LogSumExp. LogSumExp is often used in machine learning as a smooth approximation to the maximum.

To illustrate, suppose that Classical is your best format. Then your TCR has upper bound

TCR < 400 * log10((10^(Classical/400) + 10^(Classical/400) + 10^(Classical/400)) / 3) = Classical

but also has lower bound

TCR > 400 * log10((10^(Classical/400) + 0 + 0) / 3) = Classical - 190.85.

Your TCR is never above your highest rating, but never more than 191 points below it. This remains true however low your other two ratings are.

This makes things odd if we try to use the TCR to predict the outcomes of combined matches. For example, suppose an exaggerated classical specialist rated (2800, 2000, 2000) plays against an all-rounder rated (2400, 2400, 2400). Then the specialist's expected score is about 36.4%.

But the specialist's TCR is 2613 to the all-rounder's 2400, which plugged into the Elo formula gives an expected score of 77.3% for the specialist. That's a big swing!

4. An alternative: who would you break even against?

Here is another way to choose the compromise: Imagine a hypothetical all-rounder opponent whose rating is the same in all three formats. When their rating is really small, you always beat them; when it is 3000, you never do. Somewhere in the middle, you would expect to score exactly 50% against them overall. A choice for your combined rating is the rating of the all-rounder opponent you would score 50% against. I'll call this the all-rounder rating.

For example, suppose your ratings are 1600, 2000, and 2400. Against an opponent rated 2000 in every format, your expected scores are about 9.1%, 50%, and 90.9%. Those average to 50%, so your all-rounder rating is 2000. This rating will always be at least your worst rating and at most your best rating.

Unlike the TCR, this rating doesn't have a neat formula, but it is very easy for a computer to calculate: just start off at the average of your ratings, then nudge it up or down (e.g., via Newton's method) until the expected score is 50%. And just because it doesn't have a formula doesn't mean we can't understand how it works:

• If all your ratings are 2000, your all-rounder rating is 2000.
• Improving any one of your ratings always improves your all-rounder rating.
• Adding 100 to all three ratings adds 100 to the result.
• It treats strengths and weaknesses symmetrically: mirror all your ratings around 2000, and the result mirrors around 2000 too.
• It is most sensitive to your Elo in formats where your rating is closest to the hypothetical allrounder's. This is because if you already score almost 100% (or almost 0%!) against that opponent in, say, Blitz, gaining or losing a few Elo in Blitz won't really change your expected score; but if you're evenly matched in, say, Rapid, then gaining Elo in Rapid will have a bigger effect.

For the 2800/2000/2000 specialist above, their all-rounder rating is about 2178, rather than their TCR of 2613 or a plain average of 2267. However, this is still a compromise. It exactly identifies the all-rounder you would score 50% against, but it makes inaccurate Elo predictions even against other all-rounders. For example, using 2178 against the 2400 all-rounder predicts about 21.8%, whereas the format-by-format calculation gives 36.4%.

A potential drawback of this all-rounder rating compared to TCR is that combining ratings in stages no longer gives the same answer. For example:

• Combining 1600, 2000, and 2400 directly gives an all-rounder rating of 2000.
• Combining just 1600 and 2000, with equal weights, gives one of 1800.
• Replacing those two ratings with two copies of 1800 leaves 1800, 1800, and 2400. Combining those gives about 1959, not 2000.

A weaker consistency property does survive: the overall all-rounder rating always lies between the highest and the lowest of the all-rounder ratings of the subgroups you combined. (EDIT: This is however maybe not a big deal, as any method with properties (1) to (3) must be a quasi-arithmetic mean, so really that is all that is being dropped.)

5. Does any of this matter for actual players?

Below are the ratings (rounded to the nearest whole number) for the 24 Total Chess World Championship Tour players, taken from the October 1st list from the website.

The all-rounder rating and plain average agree after rounding for 22 of these 24 players! Their unrounded values differ by less than half a point in every row. This is because when a player's ratings are fairly close together, the Elo curve is approximately a straight line over the relevant range, so averaging the expected scores gives almost the same answer as averaging the ratings. TCR generally sits a little higher, with the size of the difference depending on the spread.

6. In conclusion

All this thinking for meagre gains! I quite like the idea of this all-rounder rating, and it has some neat maths to it that I've been resisting flooding this post with. But honestly, if you like the all-rounder rating then it looks like just taking an average is the way to go, and if TCR like their rating more than a plain average, all power to them.

P.S. A note on the averaging

In all of this I've given all three formats equal weight, as the TCR method assumes. But looking at the actual announced daily knockout format, what they do is:

If the target is the expected share of those game points, we should really use a weighting that is 40% Classical, 40% Rapid, and 20% Blitz. Both methods can accommodate this. For TCR, take a weighted average of the three underlying strengths. For the all-rounder rating, find the evenly rated opponent against whom your weighted expected score is 50%. Weighting TCR this way would reflect the allocation of points, but would retain its extra sensitivity to higher ratings. All of these ratings will likely be close to the weighted average of the Classical, Rapid, and Blitz ratings.

Link to the game: https://www.chess.com/events/2026-us-chess-championships-women/09/Li_Rachael-Paikidze_Nazi

Hey everyone,

After a short break, I’m back with my monthly AMA, which I first started 1.5 years ago.

A little about me for those joining for the first time: I’m a semi-pro chess player currently competing in six national team championships and 2-3 individual tournaments each year. I became an FM at 18, and my rating has stayed above 2300 ever since, with an online peak of around 2800. I stepped back from professional chess at 20to focus on other parts of my life. At that time I started coaching part-time. I’m most proud of winning the European U12 Rapid Chess Championship.

What’s probably most unique about me is my unconventional chess upbringing. This shaped my style into something creative, aggressive, sharp, and unorthodox. My opening choices reflect this as well: I prefer rare, razor-sharp lines over classical systems, often relying on my own independent analysis. This mindset gives me a strong insight in middlegame positions, which I consider my greatest strength.

Beyond the board, I’m passionate about activities that enhance my performance in chess and life. I explore these ideas through my blog, where I share insights on how “off-board” improvements can make an improvement in your game.

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-us-chess-championships-open/09/Caruana_Fabiano-So_Wesley

Last year I brought a chess set onto a cruise ship and played about 50 strangers. I'm about to do it again. Sailing from Boston October 25. Seven night cruise stopping at Halifax and Bermuda and then returning to Boston. Traveling solo. Interior cabin was only $500. This is NOT an organized chess cruise. It's just me and a chess set. Let me know if you want to go too. Here is last year's experience......

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1pgy4qh/trip_report_second_cruise_with_chess_20_photos/

A book is in the works about Claude F. Bloodgood (1937-2001): the convicted murderer and chess Senior Master whose litany of enticing but often over-the-top tales about his life have mesmerized countless reporters from both chess outlets and mainstream media outlets over the years.

Ben Graff, a UK journalist who is co-authoring the book with the widely published chess writer IM Cyrus Lakdawala, reached out to me recently upon learning that I have a cache of handwritten letters from Bloodgood. Those letters came to me during my senior year of college. In a column I was writing for a small postal chess club, I had placed a note asking club members to submit their games for me to annotate in the column. Bloodgood, a prolific correspondence player while serving a life sentence for violently killing his mother in a fight over money, sent me a letter with a game he’d played against a British politician named John Walker.

Instead of publishing Bloodgood’s game, I challenged him to a pair of postal games with me, to which he readily agreed. I’m sure you’d love to see a critical position from one of our contests, and/or a replay link to the annotated games… but Reddit mods, sadly, prefer that you not see them. With a well crafted search string you should be able to find them on the web.

While relaying his chess moves, Bloodgood’s letters conveyed colorful tales of various adventures and misadventures both in and out of chess. But I view many of his claims with a tablespoon of salt. For instance, he told me he’d delivered weapons to Fidel Castro’s forces in the Cuban Revolution that concluded at the beginning of 1959. He also wrote that he’d played blitz with Humphrey Bogart when the actor’s USO tour visited a military base where Bloodgood was stationed within the U.S. That one I believe… but he also told interviews that Bogie then invited him to a cabana several times to play chess with a bevy Hollywood stars – sounds like a fish story to me.

A more consequential story involved his 1974 escape while outside on a chess-related furlough. Bloodgood and a fellow inmate turned the tables on their prison guard and took off with his guns. They were captured a few weeks later. In typical blame-anyone-but-me fashion, he blamed his escape on the guard! “I testified against a popular prison official, e.g., George Winslow, for attempting to use me to pull robberies while out on chess trips,” one of his letters to me read. “… The escape came when Winslow put guns in our hands. The choice was rob or no chess trips, and neither appealed to me. So….”

Many years later, Bloodgood’s U.S. Chess rating became a source of high-profile arguments when it reached the 2700s amid an endless series of USCF-rated OTB tournaments inside prison walls that Bloodgood organized and played in. There were unconfirmed allegations that he rigged in-prison events by plotting for some inmates to regularly throw games to others to help accelerate his own rating advance. Bloodgood denied that, noting instead that he’d repeatedly warned federation officials that closed player pools such as prisons can distort ratings even without deliberate manipulation. He did concede that his actual strength never much exceeded 2400; I and most others who played him assessed him as more like 2100-2200, at best.

I found Bloodgood to be an adept, engaging writer. That no doubt aided his visibility and (mostly misplaced) credibility among the many journalists and others who interviewed him.

By Leonid Kubbel

If you quit and let the game timeout instead of resigning you are a dbag.

That is all.

By Kaiev

And I don't mean it in the way of "who was the best during chess history". I mean "with whom you relate the most". Maybe you love their unique style, their personality, maybe personal story. Tell me about them

O-O. After looking at a bunch of engine variations, I get that giving up the knight keeps tempo and keeps pressure on the black king. I see that black is underdeveloped and that white's bishop is hard to dislodge, but I just don't see how to get to the conclusion that giving up the knight is the best option here.

Hi all,

For more than 6 years now, I have used a chess opening app called Chess Reps by Jonas Mayer.

It let me create any opening I wanted from a given position, name it, and then add lines using lichess data of master and amateur games. Once you created the lines, you'd practise 'reps'; it would show you your score and how long it had been since you last practised. Where one position came up in two different openings, it gave you the option to transpose between them, making learning English/queen's pawn openings a dream. Best of all, it was free; although I gladly paid for an 'omniscient knight' feature which actively searched for gaps in my opening knowledge.

Unfortunately the app hasn't been updated since '21; its lichess plugins and omniscient knight features no longer work, and the transpositions feature is buggy. With a heavy heart, I have tried to find another app. However Lotus Chess, despite being expensive, is nowhere near as powerful as Chess Reps was; it tries to push you towards certain moves. Chessable courses meanwhile are often expensive, you lack the ability to create your own repertoire, etc.

Has anyone got an obscure app that fulfils a similar purpose to Chess Reps, allowing you to put in any opening you like, see where transpositions occur, gaps in your repertoire, lichess top moves, as well as providing a platform for you to repeat opening moves and get accuracy scores/when you last practised a given opening?

Did anyone on here ever use Chess Reps? It's still the best chess app I've ever used, and being able to see my entire chess repertoire laid out like that allowed me to reach 1840 OTB after Covid, a rating that has pretty much stayed the same ever since...

What biases or blind spots cause decent players to fail this puzzle?

Best move: Nd2