I find that funny, but let’s skip that.  This chess talk is really intriguing me.  Like literally   Couldn’t resist.  I know the basics rules of chess but these nerds are taking it to another level.  Full disclosure, I love nerds and am one myself.  I’m fascinated by it.  I want to learn that too, though admittedly, I won’t.  Sorry for misplaced commas.  I heard they were a thing as a youngster.  Pawn to queens bishop 4!!!!   Whoa, what? I’ve been playing chess like checkers.  There’s opening moves? You mean like more than “hey, there’s 8 planets, but only 7 after I destroy Uranus”. Fascinating stuff.  I just can’t get enough.  Damnit, will my wife ever go back to the office?

The wife is always the last to know.....

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When you get into the endzone, act like you've been there before.

I find that funny, but let’s skip that.  This chess talk is really intriguing me.  Like literally   Couldn’t resist.  I know the basics rules of chess but these nerds are taking it to another level.  Full disclosure, I love nerds and am one myself.  I’m fascinated by it.  I want to learn that too, though admittedly, I won’t.  Sorry for misplaced commas.  I heard they were a thing as a youngster.  Pawn to queens bishop 4!!!!   Whoa, what? I’ve been playing chess like checkers.  There’s opening moves? You mean like more than “hey, there’s 8 planets, but only 7 after I destroy Uranus”. Fascinating stuff.  I just can’t get enough.  Damnit, will my wife ever go back to the office?

The wife is always the last to know.....

Yeah, that true, but I already destroyed that one.

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Thanks!  Got it!

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Here is an example of my main weakness.   I won this game, but I did not see that I could have had that rook for free until I ran the analysis.  Unbelievable.  The "??" is the computer telling me the move I made was a blunder.  And the arrow is the computer telling me the move I should have made.  How do I miss stuff like that?  

[img][/img]

OK, that wasn't exactly an aggressive move!  You're down a pawn, but have a much stronger position.....should be a win for white.  I assume the program you're playing notates the game and allows you to return to any move number and replay?  You might find that helpful.

I assume black's last move was P-QB4 (B5)?

PS  When you have that kind of positional advantage, ATTACK!!!  Push the Queen's pawn for all it's worth!

I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

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I am an avid puzzle assembler, and unfortunately my youngest is too young to do more than help pick out border pieces and my oldest gives up the second they become challenging.

I've still knocked out a few over the past couple of weekends.

My biggest problem with puzzles is that my Lab likes to sneak his face up on the table and eat the pieces.  We thought maybe he had gotten over it since he's now two.  Nope, the puzzle we finished on Saturday had 15 pieces missing (and two chewed ones that weren't missing).  He must be sneaking out there at night because we haven't actually seen him doing it.  We started covering the one that we started on Saturday night.

Two cats, so I share your pain. The last one I built I forgot to cover, woke in the morning to find that someone(I know which one, stupidcat) was on the dining table and clawing at the pieces, and they were scattered. No pieces missing, but especially when the puzzle is incomplete, I have to lay a blanket over everything, or we are bound to lose a piece or two to the vacuum.

stupidcat's claim to fame, though, involves a puzzle we got from goodwill type second hand purchase. I built the puzzle, and found about 15 or so pieces out of 500 were missing. Bleh. So at feeding time, stupidcat eats her food (she gets her name by being too dumb to understand that chewing aids digestion), jumps up on the dining table, onto the detached leaf upon which I built the puzzle, and yaks her food all over it. Guess she wasn't impressed with my work.

We cleaned up the mess, and the puzzle went into the box, and straight to the trash

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Working.. As part of the DoD, we got deemed essential..  Bittersweet..

gubmint here as well, still in office.

for now, at least. It's still so hard to focus on work. I could be building puzzles!

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OK, that wasn't exactly an aggressive move!  You're down a pawn, but have a much stronger position.....should be a win for white.  I assume the program you're playing notates the game and allows you to return to any move number and replay?  You might find that helpful.

I assume black's last move was P-QB4 (B5)?

PS  When you have that kind of positional advantage, ATTACK!!!  Push the Queen's pawn for all it's worth!

I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

White's position in that pic is overwhelmingly strong, especially on the D file. Those rooks/Queen are dominating while Black's pieces are still on the back line, one rook is out only b/c of castling, the rest is a disaster.

I am subject to the same dumb mistakes but mine are in moving something that then gets captured b/c I didn't look closely enough. I feel like I'm Bortles marching down the field and then I throw it right to a linebacker.

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.

 

        

I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

White's position in that pic is overwhelmingly strong, especially on the D file. Those rooks/Queen are dominating while Black's pieces are still on the back line, one rook is out only b/c of castling, the rest is a disaster.

I am subject to the same dumb mistakes but mine are in moving something that then gets captured b/c I didn't look closely enough. I feel like I'm Bortles marching down the field and then I throw it right to a linebacker.

That's so funny because that's exactly what I was thinking about my chess playing- I'm the Blake Bortles of chess.  I swear I was just thinking that yesterday.

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White's position in that pic is overwhelmingly strong, especially on the D file. Those rooks/Queen are dominating while Black's pieces are still on the back line, one rook is out only b/c of castling, the rest is a disaster.

I am subject to the same dumb mistakes but mine are in moving something that then gets captured b/c I didn't look closely enough. I feel like I'm Bortles marching down the field and then I throw it right to a linebacker.

That's so funny because that's exactly what I was thinking about my chess playing- I'm the Blake Bortles of chess.  I swear I was just thinking that yesterday.

Haha. Blake would probably be proud to know that he is now the competence/incompetence standard in the chess world. Right now, I am a 92 on the Bortles Scale. Blake himself is 100.

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.

 

        

OK, that wasn't exactly an aggressive move!  You're down a pawn, but have a much stronger position.....should be a win for white.  I assume the program you're playing notates the game and allows you to return to any move number and replay?  You might find that helpful.

I assume black's last move was P-QB4 (B5)?

PS  When you have that kind of positional advantage, ATTACK!!!  Push the Queen's pawn for all it's worth!

I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

I definitely would tried BE4 --- BH7. You still would have the rook pinned if they saw the King.

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I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

I definitely would tried BE4 --- BH7. You still would have the rook pinned if they saw the King.

1) My first move is pawn to d7.  There's nothing he can do about that.  I have 3 pieces defending that square.  Knight, queen, and rook.  I can even bring another piece to the defense of that pawn if I play my Bishop on f3 to c6.  

2) Then I want to get that pawn on e5 out of the way of my rook on e1, because if I do that I can threaten rook to e8.  To do that, I have to get that bishop which is guarding the pawn on e5 to move.  So I move my pawn on g2 to g3.  He has no choice but to move his bishop from f4 to g5.  

3) Then I play rook takes pawn on e5.  

He has no defense at that point.  Notice that no time during this sequence can he play his pawn on f7 to f6 to defend his pawn on e5 because I can then play knight to e6, forking queen and rook.

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OK, that wasn't exactly an aggressive move!  You're down a pawn, but have a much stronger position.....should be a win for white.  I assume the program you're playing notates the game and allows you to return to any move number and replay?  You might find that helpful.

I assume black's last move was P-QB4 (B5)?

PS  When you have that kind of positional advantage, ATTACK!!!  Push the Queen's pawn for all it's worth!

I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

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When you get into the endzone, act like you've been there before.

OK, that wasn't exactly an aggressive move!  You're down a pawn, but have a much stronger position.....should be a win for white.  I assume the program you're playing notates the game and allows you to return to any move number and replay?  You might find that helpful.

I assume black's last move was P-QB4 (B5)?

PS  When you have that kind of positional advantage, ATTACK!!!  Push the Queen's pawn for all it's worth!

I did win.  I won the way I almost always win.  Not with some pretty checkmate, but by getting a material advantage, trading down, pushing a pawn or two to the end rank, creating a couple of queens and getting an eventual checkmate.  

In this case, I eventually got that pawn to the 8th rank, D8.  

If you look at that position, both his bishops are very badly placed; they have nowhere to go and are effectively out of the action, and black's white bishop is keeping his rook out of action.  Black is in a terrible position, for sure.  There's no way to stop that white pawn from getting to the 8th rank barring some huge sacrifice of material.  

His next move was to move his rook to A7, getting away from my bishop.  I don't remember how it went from there, but looking at the board, I can see playing pawn to d7, and depending on what he does in response, I play pawn to g3, he has to move his bishop, and I take his pawn on e5.  From this position, there's no way an evenly matched opponent can stop me.  Of course, a better opponent could probably wiggle out of it.  

But of course my point was, when I run the analysis on these games, it shows me so many obvious blunders, like this one, failing to see that I could have just taken that rook, that it's humbling.  How can I miss a gift like that?  But I suppose that's just par for the course at my level, which is 1100-1200.

To improve your game, you first need to lose more.  You're playing down to the opposition level you selected (let's admit it, it's fun to win), but that rook never should have been exposed anyway.  Bump your opponent setting up a couple notches and try again.  When you find yourself getting into an unfavorable position, back up to a key move and try again.

When you're considering a move after the first 10-15, how far ahead are you thinking?  At that point do you typically have a clear strategy in mind based on position?

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When you get into the endzone, act like you've been there before.

You guys are putting wayyy too much work into figuring this out. I shot my first opponent and have won every game since. Easy peasy.

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You guys are putting wayyy too much work into figuring this out. I shot my first opponent and have won every game since. Easy peasy.

No doubt about that.  This home detention is a lot more boring than I thought it would be.

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You guys are putting wayyy too much work into figuring this out. I shot my first opponent and have won every game since. Easy peasy.

The Tonya Harding of the chess world.

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When you get into the endzone, act like you've been there before.

To improve your game, you first need to lose more.  You're playing down to the opposition level you selected (let's admit it, it's fun to win), but that rook never should have been exposed anyway.  Bump your opponent setting up a couple notches and try again.  When you find yourself getting into an unfavorable position, back up to a key move and try again.

When you're considering a move after the first 10-15, how far ahead are you thinking?  At that point do you typically have a clear strategy in mind based on position?

Hmmm, interesting. I haven't played in 20-25 years so doing this on home detention has been fun. I've played a couple of games at Level 3 and the bot has made some really dumb moves...almost like it intentionally wanted to lose the game.

For instance, there was a pawn which had advanced on the far file (H I guess, getting used to that) to H4 and was strongly supported by the rook up at H8. My H pawn was gone so the file was open to my castled king at G1 behind a G2 pawn and beside my F1 rook.

I was worried about that for about 8 moves, not wanting to do something stupid and risk a dumb checkmate when he inexplicably moved the rook to an insignificant place on the 8th rank and removed the threat.

I think he Bortled it as I was then able to just crash in. But you're right, it is fun to win.

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.

 

        

Since I'm home anyway, I'm thinking about starting a grassroots movement to pronounce all silent letters in words.

Who's in?

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Heck my favorite dinosaur is the pterodactyl. That’s my favorite word to pronounce the the silent p

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To improve your game, you first need to lose more.  You're playing down to the opposition level you selected (let's admit it, it's fun to win), but that rook never should have been exposed anyway.  Bump your opponent setting up a couple notches and try again.  When you find yourself getting into an unfavorable position, back up to a key move and try again.

When you're considering a move after the first 10-15, how far ahead are you thinking?  At that point do you typically have a clear strategy in mind based on position?

Hmmm, interesting. I haven't played in 20-25 years so doing this on home detention has been fun. I've played a couple of games at Level 3 and the bot has made some really dumb moves...almost like it intentionally wanted to lose the game.

For instance, there was a pawn which had advanced on the far file (H I guess, getting used to that) to H4 and was strongly supported by the rook up at H8. My H pawn was gone so the file was open to my castled king at G1 behind a G2 pawn and beside my F1 rook.

I was worried about that for about 8 moves, not wanting to do something stupid and risk a dumb checkmate  when he inexplicably moved the rook to an insignificant place on the 8th rank and removed the threat.

I think he Bortled it as I was then able to just crash in. But you're right, it is fun to win.

Don't forget you can play "live chess" on that website, against either a bot or a real person.  "Live chess" means you are using a clock and you don't get mulligans like you do against "Level 1" through "Level 10" computers.  You can get a rating and play for rating points.  

I know what you mean about the computer sometimes Bortling, and it led me to wonder, how do they make the computer play at these various "levels."   And I have a theory, that, on the lower levels, randomly throwing away a piece every now and then is one of the ways it reduces its playing level.  Because how could they program a computer to play poorly?  But I don't know that for sure.  I do know that it never seems to do that on the higher levels.  

Playing the higher levels can be pretty frustrating.  It's like being slowly strangled by a python.  There's no one place apparent where you could have made a better move that would have changed the outcome.

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Such a waste. I could be out on the course hitting golf balls terribly in this beautiful weather. I weep.

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Hmmm, interesting. I haven't played in 20-25 years so doing this on home detention has been fun. I've played a couple of games at Level 3 and the bot has made some really dumb moves...almost like it intentionally wanted to lose the game.

For instance, there was a pawn which had advanced on the far file (H I guess, getting used to that) to H4 and was strongly supported by the rook up at H8. My H pawn was gone so the file was open to my castled king at G1 behind a G2 pawn and beside my F1 rook.

I was worried about that for about 8 moves, not wanting to do something stupid and risk a dumb checkmate  when he inexplicably moved the rook to an insignificant place on the 8th rank and removed the threat.

I think he Bortled it as I was then able to just crash in. But you're right, it is fun to win.

Don't forget you can play "live chess" on that website, against either a bot or a real person.  "Live chess" means you are using a clock and you don't get mulligans like you do against "Level 1" through "Level 10" computers.  You can get a rating and play for rating points.  

I know what you mean about the computer sometimes Bortling, and it led me to wonder, how do they make the computer play at these various "levels."   And I have a theory, that, on the lower levels, randomly throwing away a piece every now and then is one of the ways it reduces its playing level.  Because how could they program a computer to play poorly?  But I don't know that for sure.  I do know that it never seems to do that on the higher levels.  

Playing the higher levels can be pretty frustrating.  It's like being slowly strangled by a python.  There's no one place apparent where you could have made a better move that would have changed the outcome.

I was wondering how it could intentionally lose, too, and came to the same conclusion you- that it randomly throws away a piece. It was disappointing as we had a pretty good game going last night when it took a pawn with a knight for no apparent reason and opened a file for my rook.

I thought it had to be a trap where I'd be Bortled into losing a rook but I couldn't see anything so I took the knight basically for free. The board center was then open and my rooks just cleaned up.

The "live chess" against a bot with a clock sounds interesting. I'll step up to that after a few more rust-shaking games.

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.