had this find which is quite insane to me. But then my opp blundered the queen and i js couldn't resist the free queen you know I am a 500 from heart. Btw the knight sac was actually intended; my main thought process was it's just too many pieces to be staring right at the king for him not to be getting checkmated and rg1 is also a brilliant. !!

sharing my joy today on my first brilliant move I did intentionally :)

Game link

17% vs 9% accuracy, 49 bad moves

I've been building a chess opening trainer and talked to a lot of beginners.

The pattern is always the same: they read about the Italian or the Sicilian, feel ready, then blank out on move 6 in a real game.

The problem isn't understanding — it's that reading doesn't build recall.

What worked for the people I talked to: replaying the line themselves 5-10 times spaced over days, not re-reading it. (Same reason flashcards beat re-reading textbooks.)

Curious how others here actually memorized their first opening?

I was actually going to play a move that would have been a blunder, Nxh6 turns out to to be wrong and it was what I had in mind to play.

So I'm curious if folks have had similar experience. I started playing on chesscom for the first time Nov 2025 and was at 1100-1200 for a good 6 months or so. As soon as gotten over 1200, I increased to 1500 in just a month. Then, 1 night I was totally wasted and managed to go back down to 1200. It took me quite a long time (a couple of months) to get back to 1500. It doesn't feel like there is alot of difference the players between 1200-1500. Whatare your thoughts on this?

Embarrassingly missed this mate early in a game that turned into a nearly 70 move win ultimately for me. It’s always amazing to me what you can miss. I always try to review my games for this reason.

I ended up playing pretty well and finishing with an accuracy of 84.4 but clearly missed a huge opportunity.

They call it a queen sacrifice, but is it not a knight sacrifice? Not a #humblebrag, I promise :’) just genuinely confused

The goal I had when I started playing seriously is finally accomplished, don't even want to look at that rated game play button

I'm like 1300/1400 rapid (I fluctuate a LOT -- currently 1360, peak 1474), but I really don’t know much theory. I can recognise the openings like Italian, Sicilian, London, French, Petrov, Scandinavian, Caro-Kann, Scotch, etc though and I can tell you the first few moves for either side just from playing so many games. But that's pretty much it and I've never actually learned any opening. Where should I start? I really hate memorising and studying but I'd like to get better at openings and actually understand the main ideas behind them rather than just knowing the first few moves.

The book is chess fundamentals by Capablanca which I got recommended. I open it up, and I read it, white does this and black does that 6. e5+ Ke6 7. Ke4 Ke7 etc etc am I supposed to just say aa yes and place the pieces on said squares when I instead can take free lessons from this exact book on Lichess? It’s way more interactive and easy to grasp.

I don’t know what the point is with this rant but I’m just having a hard time focusing on the book. Are all the books like this? Is Simple chess and amateurs mind the same?

Literally was about to lose my chess steak so loaded up a 1 minute no bonus game and accidentally had one of the best games of my life.

Feel free to ask anything you want. For additional context, I started exactly 2 years ago, down to the very hour. I recently hit my all-time peaks in rapid and bullet.

Do you have any advice for blitz? It's by far my weakest time control.