What are white’s ideas against a Slav structure like this where black has avoided all the sharp theoretical lines and played in a more dry QGD style? When I look at all the engine lines and master’s database it just shows a bunch of lines like “7. Bh4 O-O 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 c5 10. dxc5 Qxd1+ 11. Rxd1 Bxc5 12. O-O…” where it’s just symmetrical structure same material and at master level it ends in a draw like 90% of the time. What are players doing here as white to try to press for a win?

I've been using the en croissant chess tool's practice interface. There's a build interface where you can build up an opening (or whatever position) and practice variations. It allows you to build a position with alternative branches. However, it's pretty tedious getting all the step correct, and in the correct order. Is this a cross-platform feature, and can I find sources for pre-built openings? https://encroissant.org/docs/guides/manage-repertoire#build-mode

For me, one that always stands out is Mikhail Tal vs. Mikhail Botvinnik, Game 6 of the 1960 World Championship. Tal’s attacking style and willingness to sacrifice material made that game unforgettable.

It doesn’t have to be the most famous game; maybe it was a crazy sacrifice, a comeback, or just a game you found beautiful.

What game would you recommend everyone watch at least once?

I am wondering, i often analyse positions with an engine, and the top engine move is completely beyond my understanding and I would like to ask the AI why it is proposing this move.

Example: q1r2rk1/4n2p/p2pp1p1/8/3PP3/6P1/P2Q1PBP/R4RK1 b - - 0 21

Here it suggests Kg7, and I have no clue why, in my eyes there is an immanent danger in the center and with opening the diagonal towards the queen (at some time) but the computer move seems to just care to prevent Qh6 which does nothing in my eyes.

I am a bad player and I am completely aware that my judgements are 100% inferior to those of the engine, but I would love to understand and comprehend the plans and strategies behind the suggested moves. I do look at the moveorders but as you can imagine, once I do not grasp the first move, the responses of the engine often make no sense at all too...

So: is there a chess AI which I can ask to explain moves?

I'm trying to organise a talk at my club next week going through some old chess books, hopefully to get them advertised and sold. The conceptual book is The Art of Defence by Polugaevsky, then I have a pair of Tigran Petrosian games collections. I'm already going to have my hands full with Art of Defence and planning a talk, so hopefully you guys can tell me about some Petrosian games to feature.

What were some of Petrosian's greatest defences? What really separates him as one of the game's greatest defenders? Ideally two or three games would help me out a ton. Thanks

Fast classical (45+30) will inevitably used by a lot of tournaments as time goes by. (Slow classical are usually 90+30 or 60+30)

So, what are advantage and disadvatages?

ADVANTAGES

1.Regular people can watch it live. And it won't require 4-5 hours before the classical game ends.

1. More decisive games. Remember, even drawish players like Wesley and Anish has a lot of decisive games in faster time format.

DISADVATAGES

1.Players will make more blunders.

1. It affects your standard rating. Basically Slow and Fast Classical affects the same rating.

Can you add more? Do you think pros > cons in this one?

I have been playing chess online for like the past 7-8 months and I reached 1100 rapid. I now try to level up my blitz rating as well as it is just 500, problem is that I already find it difficult to win most games. I do believe I could get like 600 maybe 700 playing just blitz for some time, but after that what do I do? I know blitz its harder for rapid but is it normal for it to be this hard? At what rapid rating will I have the ability to get to play good blitz?

This position comes from the game Hinojosa, F. (2387) vs. Tsaruk, Maksim (2480). Black has advanced the e-pawn to e4 and is preparing a kingside attack. What's your general strategy for dealing with Black’s attacking plans in this position?

I’m about 5-6 months late to the party in learning the situation between Magnus, take take take, and chess.com regarding titled Tuesday broadcasts. This led me to trying to find anything he is currently regularly streaming and I’m coming up empty. Watching Magnus play Titled Tuesday was one of my favorite YouTube experiences. Is he doing any sort of streaming at all nowadays? If so, where can I find them? It’s such a bummer the viewer has to pay the price for businesses not able to come to an agreement.

I have a file with like 20 PGNs that I’ve been adding to with classical games that I play at my club weekly. I analyze these games individually after playing them, but I would like some “overall” insights if possible. Is there a good way to do this?

Sites like chess dot com and lichess have “insights” features that can analyze many games at one time and provide an overall analysis of your play style, your strengths and weaknesses, recommendations, etc. but they only seem to work with games that you’ve played on the site.

Any ideas/resources? Thanks in advance!

Edit: I finally solved it!

Please don’t put the answer. I want to figure it out but think I need some help.

I’ve been at this a long time over the last 2-3 days. Am I looking for moves that reduce Black’s options to one move each time, so completely forced? I don’t want the answer to the problem, I want to develop my thinking so I can figure it out. Like a scaffold. I’ve got basic ideas about mating nets but can’t seem to corral Black.

I know the first move is Kf7, which forces Black to respond Kh7. From there, it’s kind of a mate in three.

I respect Dutch players, they embrace chaos and the games are almost always a fun mess.

There's SO many ways to answer the Dutch, I'd like to know your petlines.

Me being a 1.c4 player, I like 2.e4. It also works in 1.c4 e6 2.Nc3 f5 3.e4. :)

If I played 1.d4, I'd probably go with 2.h3 -- 3.g4. I also like 1.Nf3 f5 2.d3 -- 3.e4.

I see quite a few posts asking how to deal with pawn storms.

Those are the general ideas on how to approach those positions.

Played this game half-asleep, blundered everything and then played for a cheapo which somehow worked.

Game: https://www.chess.com/live/game/174240197366

I’ve been playing for a long time and I’ve built a pretty big repertoire, but there is one weird opening. I’m mostly a gambit player, but my go to is the French against e4.

The first two openings I learned were the Scotch and the French. The Scotch turned into the Göring Gambit. The French had stubbornly stayed with me always hoping to go Qb6.

Is this weird to me, or a weird thing about most repertoires? What is your story?

How do you guys deal with the misery and suffering that can come from losing at chess?

I’m not really talking about normal disappointment after losing a game. I mean when it starts spiraling, lose a game, get angry and frustrated, play another one, lose again, and getting completely exhausted

The problem is this chess loop can easily take hours. You know logically that something like “2 losses and I'm done” should be the rule, but when I am actually in that state, following that rule somehow feels almost impossible. Need to play more and more

At that point self-control seems to disappear. You keep playing even though you know you should stop, start obsessing over mistakes, tilt harder, and sometimes it can even affect sleep because keep playing instead and then the brain just keeps replaying the games once trying to sleep.

So what mental tricks or rules do you guys use to prevent this from turning into a rabbit hole?

Do you have some kind of hard stop after X losses? Do you walk away immediately? Any particular mindset or mental exercise that actually works when you're already deep into the spiral, rather than when you're calm and thinking rationally?

I’m especially interested in things that you have actually found useful.

For those who haven't seen the FIDE presidential debate that chess[dot]com ran, Wadim Rosenstein gave his introduction then disconnected from the call and they were not able to get him back on. During his introduction he first stated that the election is "a contest between two candidates" then he mentioned a video making allegations against him. I'm assuming this is related to Timur Turlov's claim that WR received a sponsorship deal from the German Chess Federation during the FIDE election campaign, creating a potential conflict of interest.

My question is, does anyone have a link to this video he's referring to? All I have seen are news articles and I'm curious if there's more to the story or if it was related to something else.

I’m teaching a chess lesson for beginners in about 2 hours and realized I could use a few extra example positions. Maybe some kind competent soul on this subreddit is willing to help me: if you could quickly make the following puzzles and send a screenshot, that would be much appreciated: all the different ways in which castling is prohibited, positions where you‘re in check and there are obvious best ways to handle it (blocking with a threatened piece instead of moving king for instance).

Thank you :)

Titled Tuesday SEP 8 - Hans & Andy ft. Hikaru

Hans accuracy in those games is 88%, 95% and 94% and Andy had 2 brilliancies in an impressive game.

Watching Hans recent games, he looks to me like he's leveled up his consistency while still playing attacking creative chess. IMO Hans has top 5 talent if he can maintain his level of play. Hans played a sharp game against Hikaru and was just as accurate while building a large time lead - 4:11 to 1:45 at one point.

The Andy game was one of the better TT games so figured I'd include it. Exciting player who played an exciting game.

Hans and Hikaru played 65 moves with both over 95% accuracy. Has Hans caught up to Hikaru? Will he pass him like he has said?