Chess forum by Grandmasters

Unironic anxiety playing against real humans

I'm posting this on a throwaway account 
Ever since a long hiatus from playing chess, i have been very, very scared to play humans and only really play against bots, which has been very bad, considering i didn't perform like this years ago, when i only played against humans. That's the short version of my story. 

It started on november

I got word from a youtuber i've been following about chessmood having a 1-month membership giveaway. Naturally, i was hyped and i instantly signed up right away. I have been reading the blogs from lichess from GM Avetik so i knew that this platform was great.
Was watching tactic ninja daily, until i discovered the simplified openings (whitemood and blackmood). My repertoire kinda needed some fixing so i decided to switch to these.

Here's where i think i went wrong.

When watching the opening courses, i told to myself that i won't play until i finish the course! This was mostly in part on how random on what openings you are gonna see during each game. One day i might be looking for against the caro and i'll get e5, something like that. So i didn't play it, but i got the files for it. 

LIfe just pushes you back, man

During January, my life went through a very steep downward hill, so that meant no chess because i need to focus on other parts of my life ASAP. Health issues, Debts and other stuff kinda factored in my long hiatus.

Until around april, I was finally able to play chess again! Sort of. The "i should not play until i get this" mentality still lingered, and i can't put myself through consistent, against human sessions. One day i might play 2 games against ppl, the other day i'll totally forget it.

The problem with bots

As i said, all i play with is bots, which isnt that bad, until they play a move for 2 seconds, even if a timer is at 30 mins. My mind feels like i'm playing a bullet game, even if i got 15 minutes on the clock. There's straight up no downtime when you play against bots. It hurts my progress and i feel like it shouldn't be like this.

How can i break free from this? Do i just hit the "play" button? or is it better to find some training partners i'm comfortable with?

Replies

Hi TRIII,

Why the throwaway account?  There is no shame in asking for help with your chess (I should know, I do it all the time!)

To be honest, I was initially reluctant to play against human opponents too.  Much like you, I wanted to learn enough first to be able to play competitively.  The trouble is, as I soon came to realise, part of that learning process is to actually play games!  It is this experience that improves our board vision and allows us to develop as players.  I don't like to lose (who does?!) but it helps to think of these losses as part of my learning process.  

In fact, if you look at some of the ChessMood articles one of the recommendations is to lose 100 games as quickly as possible!  Like this one: https://chessmood.com/blog/stop-blunders-in-chess

If I were you, I would just dive in and start playing.

What rating level are you at?  If you fancy a game against a low-level player you can find me on Chess.com playing as “ShouldveStuckToPoker”.

Good luck!!

After ninja question

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I have finished the tactics course and Avetik says that if we have solved more than half of the puzzles we have to watch the videos and solve the puzzles again. 

I noticed that after each video there is a quiz with the colors changed. My question is, is it okay to get those quizzes right and skip the video except when we don't get it right. I want to do things well.

Replies

Hi Guillermo!

Of course it is fine, the goal is to make you understand the patterns, to recognize them in a game. If you do the puzzles right then it means that you understand the concept behing them. When you start to have trouble and do not find the correct solution, then you must watch the video, work on this type of tactic and make it yours! 🙂

That is the idea. Also if you do the quizz on the main page (withouth knowing the tactic type) and write the number of the puzzle that you got wrong, then at the end of the first round of puzzles, you will have lots of data to work on. Then you will analyze the missed positions and realize which type of tactics you are missing, meaning that you did not fully understand the concept.👍

There are many books on tactics, many sources, but we spent many months preparing the positions for the course, lots of debates and positions analyzed to find the best teaching value. If you manage to work well and understand the positions of this course only, you will have a very good base for speeding up your progress… 
Good luck and may the Chessmood Force Be With You! 😁

Interesting line in GP 2..d6

Hi Chessmood Team!

Recently I read a newsletter of Alex Colovic about the grand prix and he had a very interesting line against our chessmood line 

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.f4 Nc6 4.Nf3 
And here he recommends a6!? as a prophylaxis against Bc4 as it will be met with b5

 While if we play a4 after 4..a6 Black will respond with the powerful Bg4! and now we can't go for our trademark Bb5 line due to the pawn of a6.

Against 5.g3 black will respond with the normal g6-Bg7 setup 

The best move for white is 5.d4 but after cxd4 Nxd4 Nc6 and we have transposed to a line of najdorf (e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 a6 f4 Nc6)  which is not in the courses 

 More details of the line 👇

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6PJAgBp9vE

Regards

Vedant

Replies

Hi Vedant, 

We just talked about this with the team yesterday.

In this case, we cannot go with Bc4, it's better to go g3 and go for our closed Sicilian setup with Bg2. The best line for Black against the Closed Sicilian usually involves Rb8 and b5, a5. But with the line that you are suggesting we would be a tempo up since they already played a6. Of course this is not the same GP attack but we also must know this structure very good 😊 

Monthly Games

Madison (Loftis50)

Can you tell me how does the monthly games work. Also, set-up for sparring partner

Replies

Hi Madison!

Regarding the games of the month, you just need to post the game or games that you liked the most during that month in the following thread:

https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/the-best-games-of-may-2024-and-the-prizes

It will change every month. Then we check all the games and select the best games of the month. We announce the winners and GM Gabuzyan does a webinar explaining them to our pro members. You can see this stream or the past ones in events.

As for the sparring partner there is a thread to post your name, rating and explanations in order to find one. (Just like you did) You can also check the other people looking for a partner too and contact them directly. Also on our channel in Discord you can try finding a partner.

https://chessmood.com/forum/main-channel/studysparring-partner-1362

SAME daily puzzles???

Something felt familiar while I was answering today's (8 May 2023) daily puzzle so I went digging into the archive of daily puzzles and I was shocked to find that the exact same puzzle was posted on 21 Nov 2022. Whoever tried to pull this trick clearly forgot that chess players have a good memory!

Replies

Yeah. Sometimes when they dont have a new one they repeat. Its happened multiple times before.

Lol it happened today too!

😜😂

Nevermind, you'll get free moodcoins

👍Yes, we are rotating the puzzles at the moment. You can solve them again, there is nothing wrong to remember an idea. We are working on the courses but we will update the daily puzzles in the future. Thanks for your understanding.😅

The London System is bad, right?

I've just read some articles on chess.com (written by a chess.com staff member) claiming that the “London system is the best opening in chess, blah blah blah”.

I would like some clarification: GM Avitek says the London is not ideal for chess improvement, right?

Replies

It is a system based opening where the first 10ish moves are played on autopilot. This isn’t good as they don’t think for themselves, and they reach the same positions over and over.

How do you deal with trashtalkers?

So in late march, I started a 3 day correspondence game which went pretty meh, until about move 25, after which i won an exchange and he typed in chat: “elo cheater?” and offered a draw which i refused and replied, “go report if you think” (not really the best response, looking back). I've blocked him by now and he still keeps sending me draw offers (constantly, i've been refusing them) and i think i have a winning endgame. 
In the future, please give me tips on how to deal with them😁. I'm begging you.
P.S. I'm planning to post this game on the best games of May (or april if it finishes early), should i remove his name on the pgn? or should i also post the link and his username? 🤔

Replies

just report him

Disable chat. It does mean you miss out on interesting conversations sometimes but I have had one too many people throw tantrums because they couldn't beat me. Not worth it. Too much risk of still being mad for my next game and tilting.

Interesting. I’ve played on Chesscom for over 2 years now (not counting the 6month break when I explored Lichess), and I believe I have never had someone be toxic to me. 

I would probably just ignore them. You did nothing wrong (right???) and so you can’t get in any trouble. They are just wasting their time.

One time I was playing someone otb (I will not mention who) and he kept telling me to hurry up, how awful my moves were, and saying that I wasn't playing “real” chess (Lol wut does that even mean?). Trashtalkers only trash talk bcuz they can't win without it Lol. Just report them. Don't let it bother you 😁

On lichess.org or Chess.com, I suggest you to report them or disable chat and tell them I've disabled chat but if it is OTB then report to the arbiter or tell your opponent that you will tell the arbiter. I've tried it before and it worked really well. 

I find a little mistake

🤫

Here, actually both Qxb7 and Ne2 is great, but if you play Nf2 website say its a mistake. Can you correct this? :)

Replies

Thank you :) 

Fixed!

Question about Tactical Ninja

In this course (but the question may also apply to other courses) you give the advice not to do more than one section per day.

Do you also have a lower limit i.e the least you should do in one day ? For me a section takes several days. Is this Ok or bad ?

Replies

In the study plans, it is recommended atleast 20 minutes if you don't have enough time.
https://chessmood.com/chess-study-plans/for-advanced-players?scrollTo=#section-a-few-more-recommendations
It's fine to take some sections several days if you don't have enough time. But 1 section a day is recommended for fast growth.

New article: How I crossed 3100 and got into the top ten on chess.com

Have you ever wondered how to play chess in extremely challenging life situations and break through those plateaus? 
It's a tough question, and many players only worsen their feelings of despair by experiencing losses in chess.
 

In today's article, GM Gabuzyan shares his personal story of how he overcame adversity, broke the 3100 rating barrier, and achieved a top-10 ranking on Chess.com during the toughest year of his life.
 

Click here to read the article:
https://chessmood.com/blog/gabuzyan-3100-top-ten

Feel free to share your thoughts below. 

Replies

+

Now, you should aim to become a world champion!

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Continue to do meditation!

+

Amazing work!

Good things and bad things happen all the time, and bad things happen to good people. Not easy when you're there on the receiving end. I've found success in life is often being able to insure or lesson the effect of bad things (like prophylaxis in chess), while preparing our ‘cards’ so we can take advantage of the fortunate things that come our way. While we can't always control what happens to us, we can control how we prepare and react and focus on what we can control and do something about. Easy to say as an outsider though.

Sorry to hear about the divorce (I thought the Twitter thing was just humour, not based in reality). I hope it was not acrimonious however difficult it must have been. If it was related to the time and pressures of being a chess professional and working at a start-up they must have known what they were signing up to. My suggestion - get a partner with a horse - they regularly want to go visit the horse and ride and that leaves plenty of time for chess :)

Take care,

David

aim for the stars and go for 3200+
(but first drink some water <3)

There is first time for everything. 3 200 rating barier will be broken, soon!!  👊👊👊

I think rating number is meaningless.
There may be rating inflation or rating deflation.

Achieving top 5 ranking on chess.com may be a possible target but I wonder how do you get it.

There are a lot of GM's and usually they do not get to the top 10.
What make you special relative to other GM's(maybe part of them play also when they do not want to play but I am sure significant part of them play only when they want to play).

I think that basically the advantage of strong players is knowledge and the question is what you know that they do not know
and I wonder if there are things that you can learn and most GM's cannot learn that helped you to become number 10 in blitz.

There are things that I believe most GM know and I cannot learn.
For example  I do not know and probably cannot learn to visualize chess positions like a GM.

Even memorizing one chess position like a GM is hard for me.

I can learn to construct a chess position that I saw and put the pieces on the right squares if I try to construct it few times from memory but even after doing it I do not see the position like a GM.


I would like to memorize the positions of tactic ninja chess quiz like a GM.

I remember for example the position in quiz number 1 of chess tactics ninja that I tried to memorize in the following way(I could put it after some tries in my long term memory to be able to construct it without looking at the diagram even after not looking at the position for a few days but I do not remember it like a GM).

I remember in the following way(I write my thoughts at the time of constructing the position on the board) 

There is a black queen at e2 that likes to do Qf3+ and there is a white king at h1 
I remember white pawns at h2 f2 e3
I remember white rook at d1 and white queen at d5 that protect f3 so there is no Qf3 mate in the root position
I remember that the queen at d5 has 2 pieces near it(white bishop that protect h2 so it is at e5 and white rook at c5.
I remember a black rook at g6 that help Qf3 to be a mate.
There is a black rook at b4 that is going to play Rd4 so Qxd4 is not possible because of Qf3

There is a black king and 3 black pawns near the rook at g6 so it was Kh7 pawns h6 pawn g7 pawn f7.

My memory is based on connection between pieces and I do not see the full picture and if people ask me what is in square X then I cannot reply at the same speed that I can reply if I look at the board.

I would like to be able to visualize all the positions in the chess tactics ninja quiz in the level that I have the ability not only to construct the position on the board but also reply to questions in the same speed that I reply to them if I see the board but it seems that I cannot do it.



 

+

  I am sincerely sorry for your rough year . I m impressed your were able to come back from your lowest point and turn it to success especially as it was not linear ! You are a model for all the students who follow your live streams . I feel I am learning something every time I have the chance to watch the streams . Eventually , I hope to be able to use all that knowledge successfully to thank you and  all the chessmood team for helping me in my chess  journey . Not easy to change habits at  57 yrs old but I m patient , resilient and determined ! 

Way to go Champion GM. Fighting back is inspiring. Your story is something you can be proud of. Thanks for sharing coach!

plus “+”.

What happened after GM Avetik read your story?
Especially "I sat down in front of the laptop, and in a few hours, I crossed 2900. The mood that day was fantastic and was multiplied after this successful session. I didn't analyze how that happened, I just enjoyed it all. I continued the routine for the next few days, any second I had the crazy feeling, "I want to play chess", I did so, and sometimes this even occurred during my working time in the ChessMood office. (I know my boss is reading this, so sorry.) "😜

Great job Hovhannes!!

Sorry to hear about family and health troubles but glad to see you were able to come back from your lowest peak with stunning performance!! Co Gro mate!!

+++++++

Bravo coach! 
Being able to come back is really inspiring for me, and now I want to cross my next objective like you did. 
I truly hope 2024 will be a better year for you and you can achieve your objectives. 

You are amazing bro, never forget it 💙

Unbelievable, what a great success, my warmest congratulations. That makes my heart beat even faster with every training blitz game with you. May all the best return next to the chessboard too. And: +

WITHOUT ANY DOUBTS +

Definetly! +++

Hi coach, inspiring story! Thank you for your honesty and openness!

I would first say  my very best wishes for good health and second keep going to 3150, 3200++

You're an inspiration and definitely the player I try to copy!

If I were in your place before ChessMood, 5 chairs and 3 mice would have happened (you can probably guess what happened to them ;) But ChessMood taught me that breaking chairs would make me go broke but not fix my rating. Thank you ChessMood! I hope to help more people find this amazing website! 

P.S. Totally go for 3200 as your next goal! It's completely worth it! +

😀

+

😁

++++++++++ Go until you reach 90000000000000000000000000000000000!!!!

New article: The Risks of Playing Chess When You Don't Want to

Is it a familiar situation?

- You LOVED chess and then HATED it on the same day?  
- Once a month, you lose 100 rating points in a few days? 
- You enter into a negative loop and play horrible chess? 

If you said “No”, congratulations! You’re better than 99,999%. 

And if you said “Yes”, today’s article will help you to get there. 

You’ll also learn some funny stuff like:

✅ How they recruited a Chess Grandmaster into NBA 
✅ What you should do instead of breaking your phone at angry moments, etc.

The article is just out from the bakery and is published on our Blog 👇
https://chessmood.com/blog/risks-of-playing-chess-when-you-dont-want

Replies

Hi GM Avetik . It s so humble of you to share those not so glorious moments ! Everybody here has the chance to learn from you and with you ! I did those mistakes too, especially in short time control , bullet being the worse ( I stopped bullet after joining here ) . Thank you for your honesty , humanity and wisdom . Always a pleasure to read whatever you write on !

Maybe can try playing in 2 different profile which you don't care as much for losing rating :D Good luck.

is his included to learnig chess? how do i nhow fo sure i want to play\study chess?

very intresting artikele!

Tactics Book structured like Tactic Ninja

Can anyone recommend a tactic book that is structured similarly like tactic ninja? By structure of tactic ninja i mean:
- Introduction of the Motif
- Definition of the Tactic Motif
- Examples of the Motif
- Test
People also keep talking about Winning Chess Tactics by Seirawan. Is it good?
I'm not talking about books with 1000+ examples and their answers without any explanation, I already got those trying to find this type of book.

Replies

Have you looked at Chess Tactics from Scratch by Weteschnik and published by Quality Chess?  I haven't read it but heard it has very good explanations and examples.

Look up “Chess Steps” by  Rob Brunia & Cor Van Wijgerden. 😀

NEW ARTICLE: Be Willing to Ask

Replies

I want to ask if it is good to study openings by myself with engine and database.

I am rated 2140 on lichess.

In opening courses, the instructor tells you a move to play and maybe you want to play another.

So preparing by myself I think is better. What do you think?

aha, nice article Avetik 🙃

2 Questions in Caro kann

In the main lines, 12.Ne7 line after Ne5 Bf5 Bxf5 Nxf5 g4 Ne7 f4 what if black plays b5❓

And in the 7.Qb6 line after Qxb6 axb6 h3 Bh5 Na3 e6 Nb5 Kd7, here can you help me how to proceed in this position ❓🤔

Replies

Can somebody help me?

Send a screenshot I will help you. I am a Caro Kann player.

The second part I get that position constantly I tried different things nothing looks good to me! I play Bc7 and take the doubled pawn it’s a fine game but kinda boring end game . 
I saw someone play nbd2 early and its a totally different position from the course 

Hello

To your 1st question:

After 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Nf6 6. Bf4 Bg4 7. Qb3 Qd7 8. Nd2 e6 9. Ngf3 Bd6 10. Bxd6 Qxd6 11. O-O O-O 12. Rae1 Ne7 13. Ne5 Bf5 14. Bxf5 Nxf5 15. g4 Ne7 16. f4 b5

Many moves look interesting like g5 and Qd1. However on further analysis i think Re3 is a bit better, getting another piece into the attack. One possible line may go 17.Re3 Rab8 18.Qd1 b4 19.g3 Nd7 20.Rh3 g6 21.c4!? The position is very sharp where i think practically white is better. Next c5 will come closing the center and Qg4-h4 attacking black's king. Black's counterplay is very artificial and despite the 0.0 by engine i would say its quite good for white.

To your 2nd question

After 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nc6 5. c3 Nf6 6. Bf4 Bg4 7. Qb3 Qb6 8. Qxb6 axb6 9. h3 Bh5 10. Na3 e6 11. Nb5 Kd7. Here you can consider playing a4 with the intention to bolster the knight on b5, support a4 with b3 and then improve with Kd2 f3 g4 h4  (forcing Bxd3 Kxd3) Rag1 Be5 and a well timed h5. 

Hope i was able to help you out. 

-Debayan

Middlegame roadmap

When the course it will open ?

Replies

No specific date was announced but it is planned to be released this year according to the email list.

Chess Mood managers please follow up. Today's tactics are wrong!

In today's problem, May 6, 2024, we have two equal ways: The first way: c7 Kd7 Ne7 Rxe7 c8= The second way: c7 Kd7 Kb7 Re8 Ne7= I went the second way, but he didn't accept my move and said it was wrong but right! please check it!

Replies

I agree!!! 

Thanks for telling us.😅

..h5 or ..h6 ?

I recently played this game https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/108696649263?tab=analysis&move=18 and have a question regarding the pictured position. White is clearly intending to play h5 to attack and trap my bishop, so the logical response is to move my own h-pawn. But how far?

The engine prefers ..h6 slightly more then ..h5. Why is that? Is ..h6 always better in similar positions? I seem to run into this dilemma in other positions too, and would like to finally be confident about understanding the ramifications of each option.

My thought is that ..h6 is the more standard and principled move, but it could also allows White a hook to open the kingside by playing g5. The move of ..h5 keeps the position closed, but more cramped for Black if White pushes g5 in response. Any thoughts on the pros and cons of the two moves would be greatly appreciated.

It should be noted that in this particular position, the engine gives ..Nc6 as perfectly playable, because my Bishop still has access to the c2 square. But for sake of analysis let's say this resource is unavailable.

Thanks   ~Jake

Replies

Normally, the difference isn’t large, but there are some factors to consider.

h5 type moves are usually  very weakening. It is wise not to do this around the king. However, let’s say you are worse on 1 flank of the board. These h5 types of moves can either help close up the position, which in turn makes it harder for the opponent to convert his dominance into something more tangible, or it will open the position at the cost of the opponent getting a weak pawn (h4  fype pawns.)

h6 moves are more solid and safe. However they are very passive and can turn into good hooks.

In your position I would probably play h5. Since it is an endgame, the open kingside position won’t be trouble some. Also, since e4 move won’t be much of a danger after g5 Ng8 or d7, because of Bb4. So if they play g5 then try to discourage e4, get your knight to f5, and open up the position to get at the weak h4 pawn.

If after h5 they take, that is not a problem, simply target the h4 pawn.

If they protect g4 pawn, you don’t really have to do anything as this standoff will mostly favor you. You will be pressuring form it, they defending.

This was all a bit complex but keep the main ideas in your head.

There is usually not much difference, it is not like after one you are dead lost.

I hope this helps!

h6 is more passive and allows then the space gaining that they want. It is not my type of move although there is less downsides.

I don't think that there is a huge amount in it, either way.  Of the 2 options, my preference is for h6 because I like having the bishop where it is on that long diagonal from g6 to b1 - potential defence for advancing pieces further down the line and restricting for black.  A little simplistic, perhaps, but that's how it looks to me.

Engame, only 1 move to draw

Hello everyone, 

In this position, there's only one move to draw for White, the others lose. It's f4 but I don't understand it. Could anybody shed some light on this?

Thank you!!

Replies

Okay so I did some analysis and playing around and here is what I found:

First, Whites king is actually pretty badly placed. The king on g4 simply cannot accomplish much while the Black king just wants to play Kb5-c4-d3.

Because of the previous statement, White needs to find a way to create counterplay (mainly a kingside pawn majority). This is actually again not easy to do. The main idea here seems to be playing f4 and f5 as the only way to create it on time.

Here are some variations:

1. h4? (This idea is common, to run the pawn to h6 and create some weaknesses) Kb5 (Most principled, Black just continues with the plan outlined earlier) 2. h5 Kc4 3. h6 gxh6! (This seems to be Blacks main defense. Although the kingside is ruined, to match with the king and take advantage of it takes too much time.

1.Kg3? (Trying to stop Blacks king from marching into our camp.) Kb5 2. Kf2 Kc4 3. Ke2 Kc3 (Here if we are forced to make a move with the king we lose as Black will play Kd3. However, not only do we have to move first (which usually means we will run out of pawn moves first), but Black also has waiting moves with the king (Kc2-c3)! So this ends up clearly lost.)

1. f4! (The idea of this move is to play f5 and get a kingside own majority. However this allows Black to obtain a passed d-pawn so I was very skeptical.) Kb5 2. f5 e5 (most natural; here White has to find a series of only moves to hold the draw which I will do my best to explain.) 3. dxe5! (It seems dangerous to give Black the (future) passed d-pawn, but we must creat our counterplay instantly. As it turns out, we are in time to play g4-g5 and f6.) fxe5 4. Kf3! (We need to open up the path of our g-pawn, and moving our king closer to the queening square of the Black pawn (d1) will give us the best chances to either stop it, or force Black to use more tempo to advance it (as is the case here).) d4 5. exd4! (Not an easy move to see at first, the problem is that our own e3 pawn will get in our way. After g4 d3, we have to spend an additional tempo to stop the pawn that will lose us the game. In the main line, we do not have to spend an additional tempo. And if we don’t play e4 (which is the tempo move I am talking about) Black will play e4 themselves and easily win the endgame after stopping our pawn.) exd4 6. g4! (We start pushing our g-pawn instantly. Making a move with our king will simply prove to be a tempo loss.) Kc4 7. g5! (Again we have to create a queen as fast as possible and we will not stop Blacks d pawn.) d3 8.f6 (The rest is very simple, here both pawns queen at the same time and the resulting endgame is a draw (although practically white has a slight edge as the king is closer to the h-pawns).)

I hope this helps and sheds some light on this position. If you have any questions about the variations or such don’t hesitate to ask.

Just play through the variations on a board (online or  not) and get the feel for the position. Once you understand the moves, you will be able to incorporate the ideas into your own games and in similar position will know what to do!

Again I hope this helps, and if you have any questions then please ask.

Caro Kann Exchange doubt

Hello Everyone,

This forum is to discuss about a new move that I came across.

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Bd3 Nf6 5. c3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Bg4 7. Qb3 Qc8 8. Nd2 e6 9. Ngf3 Nh5!?

I was surprised by the move and was completely confused what to play and went on to lose the game. After checking in the engine I found that the best move was Be3. I do not understand what is the idea of the move. Isn't it making the bishop more passive. I need help to know what would be the most practical choice against 9.. Nh5 and what is the plan of Be3.

Thanks in advance!

Replies

Hi Pranav,

I believe I also faced the Nh5 move and replied 10.Be3 in order to keep the bishop pair. In my opinion our idea is to play after h3 and get a bishop pair advantage as that knight takes the square from the Bishop, not allowing later to play Bh5.

Losing streak from time to time

Hello guys,

 i play in lichess and i win and some time lose as usual, but some times i lose streak maybe for a week i keep losing then i get back and win, is there anyone like me, and does it mean should i take a break from chess when it happens? 

It happens for me from time to time

Ahmed

Replies

Hi Ahmed.

I think there will be many players like you - chess is a game of small margins and one mistake can cost you the game so, statistically, it's easy to go on a losing streak.  The important thing is to avoid tilt - because this will contribute to your losing streak if you let it.  How many games do you play per session?

If you haven't already read it, this article may be useful:

https://chessmood.com/blog/5-crucial-steps-to-stop-bad-results-in-chess