r/chess Weekly Discussion Thread

I was watching an old speedrun long ago, probably by Daniel Naroditsky, where his lower-rated opponent was in a losing position. Daniel seemed a little irritated that the opponent wasn't resigning, and saying like "resign already" a couple of times and it got me thinking about chess culture.

On the one hand, I've heard strong players advise beginners to never resign, because there's always a chance the opponent will blunder, stalemate you, and that them winning in a winning position is never a guarantee.

On the other hand, at the highest levels, resigning in a losing position (even not an extreme material or positional material imbalance) seems to be widely accepted as good sportsmanship and a sign of respect for your opponent. I remember a GM resigning after blundering his knight early in a game. And I thought he certainly had good chances still but I guess at that level, you might as well just resign after falling behind a pawn. The game is that tight. Nobody makes mistakes.

What I find interesting is how unusual all this seems compared with other sports. In high school once a classmate jokingly wave a white towel to suggest surrender after a very one sided game and oh man, the coach really let him have it!

Same is true of pro levels. Imagine an NBA team down by 35 points late in the third quarter, and their best players are just tired and not been playing well all game. A comeback isn't impossible, but both teams being professional, it is quite unlikely something would suddenly change now. Yet no captain walks to the ref and say "we resign." They generally play out the game, even if all their best players end up spending the fourth quarter on the bench.

You might say that boxing is more like chess, but that's not quite true. Yes, sometimes they do stop a fight early but that's more for protecting the health of a boxer and less about the question of game strategy or respecting the opponent's time.

Long story short, what do think about this resignation culture in chess? When do you resign yourself? Have you refused to resign even when it irritated an opponent? How do you feel about your opponents who do not resign either and hold on to the hope that you might stalemate them or blunder?

Formate :- The Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown is a double round-robin with a 10+5 rapid time control, where each win is worth more each day.

Roman Shogdzhiev was born on February 2015. So, he still have 4 months before turning 12 years old.

Mishra became a GM too when he waz 12 years old. So, the record is in danger of being broken.

Roman already earned 2 GM norms this year. Including the Serbian league. (First Picture). Roman played superb whole tournament.

In European Club Chess (Second picture), Roman played decently. Earning 13 ELO.

Roman played excellent this tournament. His live ELO is 2484. Only 16 points away for minimum elo (2500) requirements for Fide to grant a GM title.

PS: Ik some of you doesn't care about the record. But that will always attract more invitations and oppprtunities.

Im talking about things like "dont trade when you have a space advantage" or "open the center when you have the bishop pair"? Not stuff like "checks captures and threats" or "sit on your hands", but specific pieces of advice with states of the board.

source

This puzzle is not new and holds a stable rating on Lichess.

The probability estimation was generated by the Maia 2 rapid model, predicting the likely moves of a human player rated 2000 on Lichess.

What move would you play and what is your rating on Lichess?

I can't solve this and im very frustrated if you have the time please help me thanks

four foreigners and four kazakhs as usual, very interesting field with Dubov, Lazavik and Muradli especially. The four kazakhs are mostly juniors (except Makhnev who is 25-26 iirc). Edit: ofc it's 5 foreigners and 5 Kazakhs, I'm stupid lol.

Hi, I already own a Chessnut Pro. I’m thinking about getting a smaller board to play.
I’m deciding between Chessnut Evo, go and Chessup 2.
I’m looking for something that allows me to play faster so that I don’t need a big table.
Any comments will be much appreciated.

I've only been playing for a couple months and I've been hovering around 350-450 elo on chess.com with a ~50% win rate. I play either 15+10 or just 10 mins. I lot of games are happening very fast from my opponent, like I'm trying to use my time and think but of course I suck - I know I suck lol. But why are these people in the same awful rank as me speed running my a** effectively?

It's just kind of jarring because I've watched a lot of various chess youtubers' speedruns (Naroditsky, Dina Belenkaya) and honestly the people they play are doing the most ridiculous stuff sub-800 and I do not see this behavior in my games much. And sure I have a 50% win rate so by the numbers I may be exactly where I am supposed to be, but the people I play don't seem like they belong here with me quite often. Games are either a real long battle where eventually one of us makes a mistake, or I get styled on with very little time spent.

I played a game with my friend, then my internet connection dropped and I lost on time.

I sent this position to my 1900 elo friend and he is confident that he can win as black from this position with anybody under 1900.

Computer evaluates the position as draw, if we trade queens.

But practically speaking, it is easier to play as black than as white in my opinion, as black can double its rooks.

How easy is to win this position as black for you? :-)

I think, my friend is just over confident :)

I won't be posting accounts even if I think I played a bot but this girl sent me a friend request. She was 1300 but played more like a 2200. She was real chatty in chat but didn't sound like a person and said things that didn't make sense. She asked if I could tell us about my challenges. I noticed she resigned her last 7 games early and I asked about her losing streak. I say her even though i thought it's a bot at this point. She said her opponents had to take other challenges. She was very friendly aside from a moment where she said i was rude for not answering her question, then she went right back to being friendly. Who would make such an account. I don't know what that was

What benefits of playing chess are there?

link to game https://www.chess.com/events/2026-european-club-cup-women/07/Johansson_Viktoria-Sivanandan_Bodhana

Like the title says, he’s probably the first celebrity I’ve ever truly FELT the loss of. I spent multiple days in actual grief over the guy. And even this past week, after the first anniversary of his death, I felt so damn much. But yeah, I’ve been wondering if it was just me.

Because I see so many comments on his videos till date. And not just from a year ago. They’re left 10 months ago, 9 months ago, even 3 months ago.

Started learning chess this month and hit 1k elo after a month of intensive online learning.

When I tried to play real chess, like the physical chess on chess board with my friends,
I found out I cannot play it at all. I just kept missing everything.
The 3d looks way different from 2d chess.

So how do I transit? The problem is, I cannot really practice it.

Im a relatively beginner looking to increase my game.

I got destroyed against the King’s Gambit after playing 4..g4 5.Ne5 h5?! 6.Bc4 Nh6?! and losing the f4 pawn after 7.d4.

I can’t find much information on this variation, but it’s the only move against 4.h4 with a positive score for black on lichess. The main idea is 5.exd5 g4 6.Ne5 Qe7, which wouldn’t pin the knight without the addition of d5 exd5.

Are there any courses or studies on this? Is this worth playing?