White to move, mate in 4.

Hi, just wanted to say I hit 2000 tonight. I don't have many friends that are into chess so I thought I'd share my achievement with you.

I've been playing online since 2020 and I played a little as a child and in highschool. When I started again as an adult it got me hooked! It's such a nice game and I wish I had more friends to play with.

I've been doing some puzzles and watched some tutorials for openings, but mostly I've been just playing more or less actively. At one point I watched lots of YouTube content such as chesswithpatrick, apexxchess, Gotham and chessbrah.

I play Vienna and Caro-Kahn which I know quite well. Later I learned Grand Prix variation against sicilian since many people played it against me. But outside of those I don't have much opening theory. I tend to play the simplest lines so I don't blunder in the very first moves.

Funny thing about my chess journey is that since my first kid was born, I started to play much better and my ratings skyrocketed. I thought I couldn't play any longer, cause I've been getting little sleep for a long time now. But I think less time to play ment more playing with focus and intention. We all hate to go to bed after losing, so I thought that, if I have time for a game in the evening, better not lose.

If you read this far, thank you for your time! Keep the grind up and you will see improvement! If any of you have any questions, I try to answer them :)

I am so pissed😭😭😭😭

I always end up throwing the game after having +4,+3 advantage, the whole game i was so calculative and then i blunder mate in 2😭😭

The game link for reference:-

Check out this #chess game: pawnhub1022 vs Joaopsg - https://www.chess.com/live/game/185368437682

I've been playing chess for 3 months now. You won't happy how happy I am. Also the game I played felt really nice as well and I felt like I performed really good

I still remember how much I was stuck at 400 and kept going back to 350 and coming back to 400 and repeat. Or when I hit 700 then spent a whole month trying to reach it againg from 500 cu that felt like hell

Anyways tho, long story short I'm really happy and I wanted to share it with someone. In case anyone is wondering, Im watching levy's slowrun and mostly followed gm aman (chessbrah's) building habits v2. Building habits helped A LOT since I was London and maneuvering a closed position was so hard for me

The engine says the line after exf5 is

…Qxf5; d4, exd4

How is opening up my center and maybe trading a knight for a bishop better than a guaranteed rook for a bishop?

After ...Nd7 I was trying to find a move better than forking the queen and king. Yk maybe there's a solid mate or something. Didn't see anything and was like "Ah I don't see anything. I don't wanna waste time let's just play it safe and win the queen for a knight."

I played it and it was checkmate in one lmao. BEST FEELING EVER. A bit embarrassed that I didn't see the mate in one but ehh I guess it comes with time. I think I played pretty well positioning the queen on b3, taking with the bishop on e5 instead of the knight as the knight can jump to the weak, juicy light squares around the king. Very satisfying game!

Though moving the queen to d5 wasn't really accurate unfortunately. I didn't wanna be too passive with Qd1, or block my dark bishop via Qc3. c4 walks into Na5, but it was the best engine move 'cause that knight move wastes a tempo and is bad; I shouldn't have been scared of it. Of course, I didn't the very obvious Nf6 attacking the queen. Eh. I'll play more and get better!

Hi all! Have played chess on and off throughout my life but only recently started to actually play, if that makes sense. Lately, I’ve decided to do nothing but play the Magnus Carlsen bot on the Chess dotcom app, because - like with music - I only want to play with the best I can find. Usually, the bot destroys me, and I still haven’t beaten it, BUT I made it to an endgame against the bot and had a game rating of 1900 AND only 1 blunder! For someone pretty new to the actual chess scene, I’m kinda proud of myself for that.

Sorry for the long windedness! Just wanted to kinda brag on my newbie self for a moment. Haha.

There's a popular legend in India about where chess came from. In one version, Ravana, the ten-headed demon king of the Ramayana, invents the game for his queen Mandodari, and she learns it and beats him. In another, Mandodari invents it to keep him home from his wars. (Historians place chaturanga, chess's ancestor, in North India around the 6th century, but the legend is a great one.)

Ravana's ten heads are traditionally read as ten vices. It's Navratri in India right now, the festival that ends with Ravana's effigy being burned, and I realised the vices map almost perfectly onto the ways we lose chess games:

1. Greed: grabbing a free pawn while your pieces sit at home

2. Anger: throwing everything at the king and leaving your own open

3. Attachment: refusing to trade even when you're ahead

4. Jealousy: copying your opponent's setup instead of playing your own plan

5. Deceit: falling for early-queen traps on f7

6. Haste: premoving into a blunder with 40 seconds left

7. Untruth: believing a flashy sacrifice without checking the reply

8. Selfishness: keeping your king hidden in a won endgame

9. Fear: never breaking a locked position

10. Ego: playing for brilliancy instead of good moves

Mine is definitely Haste. Which head beats you most often?

Hey all. I’m very overwhelmed and need help.

New player, trying to find my way in the game and I’m very overwhelmed by how to learn.

I’m trying to learn an opening, but find they can only be played if the opponent plays a certain move… if they don’t you have to learn something else…

How did you all do it?

Did you create written flows of what do play in response to certain moves?

I’ve tried the colle system but I find I spend time getting set up and by that time I’ve invited pressure and then spend most of the game on the back foot.

Idk how that even worked... i passed up on a free knight for some dopamine sigh.

Oh! Mate

(left one is what the engine recommends while the right one is what occured in my game)

I thought I was told not to block the center pawn's movement and not letting their pieces gain control over the center, so why is this? I may js be looking very stupid and fell for what looks to be a gambit in here but this baffled me truly.

They sent this message 20 moves earlier when I was down a minor piece and in a worse position. Knew I was going to lose but couldn’t give them the satisfaction of resigning

Never resign

How i can improve my game?

Had a random person request a 3-day game with me, accepted because I enjoy playing ha, she started messaging me a whole bunch and then asked for me to talk on telegram and for money to meet up and all this other stuff, blocked and reported

Stay careful out there, lads

I didnt

Tbh I don’t really know what clicked over these past few weeks, but I think the most of my improvement has come to hanging free stuff less and spotting when my opponents give me free stuff.

I also don’t know any openings or gambits either and haven’t really had many played against me, but I’m sure I’ll encounter more on my way towards 1000.

I think they were blind to my king being able to do literally anything tbh

I have no idea what white was thinking here.

Please use spoilers for any line you see.

Mate in 2

I rarely play online against other people. Accidentally started a game because I wasn’t paying attention. I decided why not and played it out, thought for sure I was done for on the first slide. Lucked out that my opponent had a few bad moves and ended up getting mate with the rook and king.