Brilliant move ? Can you see the consequences.

White just played Queen takes h6.

There's a brilliant move for black in this position, can you find it?

Well, apparently I still suck :-D

Guy resigned but I don't know how this wasn't checkmate? King can't move and nothing can take the bishop? Or is it a brain fart moment?

Did not expect to mate with my pawn on move 9..

I finally learned how to deal with this annoying opening and now I understand why so many people say its fun to play against someone who uses it. It used to frustrate me to no end and it took me so many tries to counter it but now honestly when I see the queen come out it really is nice for me because of how badly their position ends up being. This was a while ago though and I’ve since moved up in elo and yet I still see it every few games at around 900.

My question is, when do people stop this? Again I don’t mind it now that its easy to counter and leads to a worse position for them but I’m just curious how it still works on people enough for it to be worth playing in the 800s/900 range.

Equal trades where we both lose a queen or a rook are rarely taking but trading a knight for a bishop or knight knight bishop bishop is taken far more often. Do beginners over value these pieces or don't know how to checkmate with a rook and king?

Hi everyone. I’m a chess player (2200 on Chess.com Rapid and Blitz) and I’m starting to explore the idea of helping adults who want to improve but feel like they’ve been stuck for a long time.

Before designing anything, I want to hear from the people actually living this. I’m not selling or offering anything with this post. I just want to understand the problem properly so I don’t build something that doesn’t help.

Who am I looking for? Players who:

• Already know the rules and play regularly (online or at a club).
• Feel like their rating or level hasn’t moved in months or years.
• Are around 1200 on Chess.com / Lichess (up to ~1800 is fine).

It would help a lot if you could share, in the comments or by DM:

1. How long have you been playing, and what’s your approximate rating?
2. How much time per week do you put in, and how do you spend it (games, puzzles, videos, books...)?
3. What have you tried in order to improve, and what worked or didn’t?
4. What frustrates you most right now? (hanging pieces, openings, endgames, time management, confidence, not knowing what to study...)
5. If you could fix ONE thing about your game, what would it be?

If anyone would like to chat for 15-20 minutes by video call or text to tell me more about their situation, I’d be happy to listen (no strings attached, no sales pitch). I’ll also share a summary of what I learn here so it’s useful to everyone.

Thanks in advance. I’ll read everything and reply to every comment.

So I have been playing a lot of chess in my phone since I started to rekindle my interest in chess. I don’t have a physical chess set (but I plan to buy one next year) nor someone to play with since I’m sort of an introvert and I almost never attend social events outside work and family. I play chess through Lichess and Duolingo and I noticed that when I play against the “computer”, I frequently win, but when I play against a human user, I always lose. In fact, it has been several months since I last beat a human in chess, and since then, I consistently lose against humans, but I would tend to keep winning streaks when I play against the “computer”, which sometimes break on a bad day.

Anyone can explain why is that so? And any advice for me to be able to competitively play against a human, especially that I plan to buy a chess set so I can play real physical chess with a human and improve my chess skills?

I have a couple specific openings I enjoy and I’m primarily a d4 player. But when I watch YouTube content, invariably there will be a game where the streamer’s opponent plays a suboptimal move right away, and the streamer will respond with “well obviously I take the whole center here” and land pawns on both e4 and d4.

This is nearly always described as being a big advantage. And I’m not naive to why controlling the center is important. But all of my best play regarding the center comes from the C or F files (with knights or bishops or supporting pawns), not from actually planting a pair of pawns side by side at e4 and d4. If I try to do that myself, I’m inevitably overextended and my position collapses in the midgame.

Yet a couple days later I’ll be watching another video and get again “well obviously I take the whole center here”.

How do I practice “taking the whole center” and learning to build from that when it isn’t a matter of studying lines in common openings? Should I just set up a move 3 position and play a bunch of bots from that starting point? Is there a video where Captain America spins his chair around and says “So You Took The Whole Center” and shows me what to do? How does one develop this particular skill set?

im lazy does anyone want to put this into a chess analysis

I have been playing the Caro Kann for over a year and score very well with it, but I lose most games that end up in the Tartakower structure. I follow Alex Banzea's chessable course and we get these structures from the Classical or sometimes the Two Knights.

The main idea seems to be to create this Queen-Bishop battery with the Bishop dropping back to c7 and the Queen going to d6, but when that doesn't work it feels very awkward to play. Usually, he has the knight maneuver over to f8 and that also feels awkward and useless.

I feel like I'm supposed to play aggressively since my structure is worse in an endgame, but I find it very hard to attack with this setup and usually less space. I also never know what to do with the kingside pawns or knight on f8.

Anyone play these lines and can give me some advice or send me some good games to review? Thanks!

Whats the best way to punish black moving to f2?

Can you see the consequences?

The game says it's a checkmate

To all of my opponents who thought I was playing beyond my rating. Or that I should not have improved that quickly. It's definitely not because I am above average. It's because Danya broke the curve and was an excellent teacher. Danya is responsible for all of my Jobava London lines.

I'm thankful.

It's not every day that you see a bishop pinning another bishop