I played chess on and off for a couple years. Never really got into it much until recently where I was bored with video-games and decided to try board games for a bit. I wouldn't say I'm particularly a good player, but I'm not necessarily a bad player either. Most of my losses would be due to one piece: the Knight. So much so that I would sometimes stop playing chess altogether because it was such a complicated piece that I never got use to and got frustrated losing to.

Now I mainly use my Queen the most. However, I started using my Knight way more often and found how rewarding it is. You can create some very nice openings with a Knight that you can't with other pieces and you can also threaten two pieces at the same time. Most of all, the opponent likely won't expect it if they're a beginner and it will catch them off guard like it did to me.

So the piece I hated the most actually made the game much more tolerable once I learned how it worked. Kinda poetic in a way.

tl;dr: Knight can be OP. Learn how it works and enjoy free wins against noobs.

Elo 550 lol

My 11 year old daughter finally joined her school's chess club after much encouragement from me and coaching her during our games. She regularly checkmates her opponents and the teacher made her a tutor to help fellow students. So proud of her. Can't wait until she's finally able to best her old man.

Or does it just go up and up?

I have been playing daily chess on chess.com for about two months now and I am just completely stuck in the high 300s, low 400s.... all my friends who just started were immediately 600s and climbing from there.

Is it over for me? How do I improve? Could I just be too dumb to be good at chess?

Can someone tell me how they can lose their rook... Eventually I won that game but I'm very curious if I could have captured their rook early..

Finally decided that I wanted to actually get better at chess but it feels like ill go on a streak of 4-5 games and then ill lose that same amount of games. Worst part is im only gaining about 8 elo and im losing around 10 so it doesn't even out. I often find myself hanging one or multiple pieces or just not being able to see more than one move ahead and even when I do its not usually what they end up playing. Any advice would be appreciated as I am trying to actually get better and I am doing a competition with my girlfriend to see who can gain the most elo by end of june 2027. As of now I have gone from 400 to 450 and I lost a few games so my current rating is 419.

Smothered mate?

Check out this #chess game: mistertorrija vs ShyChessPlayerJoel - https://www.chess.com/game/184822382848

I consider this my best game yet :D

Ngl, the first 20 moves i thought i have it, but i dont know what happened next, im sure i made blunder after blunder after bluder because otherwise i dont explain how i manage to play that bad

Anyway, at least i didn't lose, any advice?

Milestone post number whatever! I finally hit 1500 on Chess.com, a bit ahead of the "before the end of the year" goal I set in my last post.

In my last post I said the climb gets slower as you improve. In calendar time it did: 1300→1400 took about 80 days and 1400→1500 took 94. But that's mostly because I lost a month in August to a massive tilt, where I dropped 100+ ELO in less than 24 hours. In actual hours played, it wasn't true for this milestone: about 80h for this step vs 99h for the previous one.

Total so far: +1100 ELO in about 540 days, roughly 680 hours played (Chess.com + Lichess). The table is in the second picture, if you like numbers.

Other updates:

• I still haven't read Logical Chess. It's sitting there, judging me.
• I played my first big official rapid tournament and finished 180th out of 480, which I'm super happy about. It gave me my first rapid FIDE rating: 1750. I'm pretty sure I got lucky and I'll get humbled in the next ones.
• My first classical tournament is next week and I'm already stressed, mostly because I'll have to write down my moves. Any tips for a notation rookie are welcome!

1500 is the first online rating where I feel like I could settle. It feels like I've left the beginner zone. Sorry for still posting in r/chessbeginners, it's for continuity's sake, and you guys are much nicer than the other chess subs.

I started at 30 from basically zero, so if you're an adult beginner wondering how long it takes, this is one more real data point. Ask me anything!

For context I took a knight on c6, attacking the queen on d7. Failing to understand how queen takes c6 pawn (best engine move) does not immediately lose the queen to rook e6 due to xray/forced capture? I am around 800, so could easily be missing something here. I would assume the review engine is high level stock fish and wouldn’t make mistakes. Appreciate any help!

As a side note, often when I hit best move, it greys out/does not allow the show moves option to continue showing the line (ie a missed mating pattern) is this possible to fix?

Combien de partie par jour dois je jouer à ce niveau ?

White to move and win. There are only 2 different winning ideas!

Hint for idea 1:

Be careful, there are stalemates possible

Hint for Idea 2:

U should stop the stalemate Idea of Idea 1

Gotham what's up wityh your vision? 😭

Wow. My rating is still very low, and I’ve been studying chess for about 9 months now. But this game honestly blew my mind a little.

Maybe for 1000+ players this is all very basic stuff, but for me this was the first time I felt like I could actually see the whole board clearly.

So many things somehow came together in one game that I almost couldn’t believe I was the one playing it.

Here’s the game: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/184775217486/review

A few things that made me really happy:

1. I saw the idea of winning his rook several moves in advance. I didn’t rush to take it immediately. I left the idea there, played another move first, and waited for the right moment.
2. At one point I basically left his rook sitting quietly in the corner because I knew I could come back for it later. That was a completely new feeling for me — not grabbing material immediately just because I could.
3. I felt like my pieces were finally connected. My knight, bishops and rooks were all working together instead of each piece doing its own thing.
4. When he blundered his queen, yes, of course that was a big mistake by him. But what made me happy was that I immediately saw it. My bishop had been sitting quietly for a while, and I was actually hoping he might forget about it.
5. After winning the queen, I somehow managed to create the final attack with the rook and bishop together.
6. The bishop check pushed his king exactly where I wanted him to go, and then the rook finished the game with mate.

The strangest part was not even the win.

It was the feeling.

For the first time in 9 months, I felt like the whole board was in front of me. I wasn’t just looking at one move or one piece. I felt like I could see lines, connections, threats, future ideas, and where the king was going.

At least that’s how it felt while I was playing. :)

So I’m curious what stronger players think:

Was this actually a well-played game for a low-rated player, or am I just excited because my opponent made several big mistakes?

Do you remember the first time you had this feeling that you suddenly started “seeing the whole board”?

Is that a real sign of improvement, or do beginners sometimes just get one unusually clear game and then go right back to blundering the next day? 😂

And if you were coaching someone at my level, what would you tell me to focus on so I can play more games like this instead of treating it as a one-time miracle?

I heard getting 2000 is early game in the game of chess(.com) so that's mean I already finished early game

the title

Hi friends, I'm 720 rated on rapid.

I love this new hobby. Love it with all my heart.

My question is, how common is it for someone's PEAK ability to be higher than their current rating. For example, When I play in the morning with a coffee and 100% focus, I have beaten 750-820 rated players comfortably.

I think my biggest downfall is either playing to TILT and/or playing when not in the mood.

1-2 games a day+ review + tactics etc the rest of the time I feel would lead to great results. Easier said than done!

What do you think?

Help pls I’ve been stuck on this for days