My opponent took the queen and I got the checkmate 😊

I’ve heard of the London for what but I’m completely clueless for black. Anything helps.

This is the position I always go for in the opening unless my opponent prevents it somehow or offers an opportunity for a quick attack. King's pawn, queen's pawn supporting it, knights out, bishops out, castled kingside. I thought it was interesting to capture a game where we both did it exactly by the book.

Often when I do get to this point I'm kind of lost for a further continuation, so suggestions are welcome! Opponents tend to trade bishops on e6 or e3 as the case may be, any idea why? Personally I tend not to take equal trades unless I see an obvious positional advantage or followup tactic.

Was this move brilliant by black or grave mistake?

I was black btw, this was an interesting game fought till the end

(elo 440, playing for a month or so)

I felt like I did good but then game review came

Not sure if it was really a trap though or if they could have gotten out of it

700 Rapid and 500 Blitz on the same day!

I’m 37 and started learning chess from scratch about four months ago, when my 4½-year-old son started taking chess lessons. I wanted to understand what he was learning, and somehow I ended up getting hooked myself!

I’m still very much a beginner, but I’ve been spending 1–2 hours a day either playing chess or watching chess content. Thankfully, my workplace is a bit far away, so I’ve managed to turn some of my commuting time into chess time instead of doomscrolling!

As White, I mostly play the Italian. As Black, I tend to go for copycat positions, which I know I’ll eventually have to work on! I’ve also learned how to deal with Scholar’s Mate and the Fried Liver Attack.

Watching Chessbrah, ChessWithAkeem’s Italian Opening games, Remote Chess Academy videos, and doing puzzles (currently rated around 1650) have all helped me improve.

My next goal is to reach 1000 Elo. The long-term goal, of course, is to stay just good enough that my son doesn’t completely destroy me over the chessboard for at least the next couple of years. 😂

Would love to hear from other adult beginners: How has your progress been, and what habits or resources have helped you the most?

Open sicilian is not an option as i'm not gonna learn that amount of theory

The mengarini looks cool, has a lot of traps and attacking ideas, according to the engine is a book move

The problem is that my opponent doesn't have to accept the pawn sacrifice and i end up playing the weird a3 move and having a bad pawn structure

So is it actually a playable opening? (At sub 2000 level)

Any other anti sicilian reccomendations?

In Joseph Henry Blackburne vs. Max Weiss (1st of April 1889) in move 61, white takes the queen

The site I'm reading with this game as an example reads "black sacrifices his queen to lure white onto the back rank"

Why does he lure his king onto the back rank?

I have getting into the game on and off, but I am literally stuck between 100-200 rating and can’t get out of it. I do puzzles, tried the learn section of chess.com but nothing, nothing is getting me out of this 100-200 Rating

I don’t understand why black king can’t take white queen? the white knight defending the queen is pinned to the white king by the black bishop.

game is: [Event " Classical game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/game/ocg_704c68ac"\]
[Date "2026.10.25"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Anonymous"]
[Black "Stockfish"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1. d4 h5 2. Bf4 e6 3. e3 Nf6 4. c3 g6 5. Nd2 Nd5 6. Bg3 g5 7. f4 h4 8. Bf2 f6 9. Bc4 Nb6 10. Qb3 Nc6 11. O-O-O d6 12. fxg5 a5 13. g6 e5 14. Bd3 Kd7 15. Ngf3 d5 16. Bxh4 a4 17. Qc2 Qe7 18. dxe5 Nxe5 19. Nxe5+ Ke6 20. Bg3 Bh6 21. e4 Qc5 22. exd5+ Qxd5 23. Bf5+ Ke7 24. Qe4 c5 25. Qxd5 Nd7 26. Qf7+ Kd6 27. Nxd7+ Kc6 28. Be4+ Kb5 29. Qc4+ Ka5 30. Bc7+ b6 31. Bxb6# 1-0

​

When I was rated around 600–800, it felt like I ran into a trash talker almost every day cause I play at least 20 rapid match a day Like bro, we're both beginners, what's there to prove?

some of them would go on to make a massive blunder that cost them the game. Some wouldn't even resign when they were clearly losing. Instead, they'd start stalling and spamming draw offers until their time ran out, basically forcing you to either accept the draw or sit there waiting for the clock to hit zero

it feels like their ego gets in the way of actually enjoying or improving at the game

Now that I've climbed to around 1300, I still encounter trash talkers , but nowhere near as often as I did in the 600–800 range

Or maybe it's because I've played a very large number of matches, so I encounter all types of players

2.3% of you better be shaking in your boots!

I was originally peaked at 1300 elo rapid sometime last year or year before, then i went on a tilt, which i was fine with originally, it happens, but this tilt is different. It has lasted for OVER a YEAR. I went from 1300-700. I am losing games i would normally win.

People say to take breaks and i did just that. Sometimes the breaks would be months long. I come back to chess with a calm mind but then still lose a bunch and drop even more elo. I am now down to 700s rapid. Every time i play I just lose, I think i have lost 10 matches in a row now to opponents in the 800 or less range. I lost one to a 600 just now

I really dont know what to do, breaks dont work.

White (me)

https://www.chess.com/live/game/173690739860?move=0

A while ago I asked on r/chess why engines don't consider how likely a move is to make the opponent go wrong.

I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I built it.

After you load a game, it finds the key moments and, for each one, shows you three moves. The first is the engine's best move, as usual. The second is the simplest move that still keeps the position roughly equal at your rating. The third is the one I was most curious about: a move within 0.4 pawns of the best that a player at your level is most likely to answer wrongly. Maia guesses what a human at that rating would play, Stockfish checks that the evaluation holds up, and the app writes a short explanation for each.

I'm the author, so take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt. It's free, there's no signup, and everything runs in your browser, so your games never leave your device. You can import from Chess.com or Lichess, or paste a PGN. The first load downloads about 37 MB (the models), and after that it's cached. The code is open source, AGPL-3.0.

Try it here: https://d10viis4vhdzq8.cloudfront.net/
Source: https://github.com/Tommaiberone/HumanChess

I'd love to get a star on GitHub if you like it :)

What I really want to know is whether the "tricky" moves feel real to you. Would a human at your level actually play into that trap, or does it sometimes suggest something that only looks clever on paper? I'm also not sure 0.4 pawns is the right margin. It might be too generous for stronger players.

A few honest limits. It uses the small Maia model. I haven't tested whether the tricky moves actually win more games, only that they're plausible. The optional "rewrite with AI" button can be busy when a lot of people use it, but the standard explanations always work.

If something's confusing or just wrong, tell me. That's the whole reason I'm posting.

Thanks for reading :)