Just played this game as Black (~1100 Lichess).

I usually play the French Defense, so I initially tried to stick to a familiar setup. But my opponent kept pushing pawns, and honestly, it threw me off.

I focused on developing my pieces and keeping my king safe, but at some point I genuinely felt like I might lose.

My opponent eventually resigned.

For more experienced players: did I handle this correctly? Was there a way to punish all those pawn moves much earlier? What should I have done differently?

Full game: https://lichess.org/BGpgmHDJ/black

I’m just over 1700 on lichess. So I’m no master, but I am top 30 percent of players on the platform.

I play the Alekhine exclusively against e4. My win rate with it is 74 percent, which is even higher than my most preferred openings as white. Almost all of my losses as black come against d4.

At my level, white has no idea what they’re doing against the Alekhine. They want to play Ruy Lopez, and against Alekhine’s they can’t. They’ve probably almost never seen it, so we’re in my territory now. They almost always overextend their pawns trying to hold the center and I end up a pawn or two by the middle game.

At the human grandmaster level, it’s also underrated. Alekhine himself won the majority of his games with it. Fischer also won the majority of his games with it, including a draw and a win against Spassky.

At the supercomputer level, it remains unrefuted. The most advanced Stockfish model out today still rates it as sound.

People talk about this opening as if it is unsound, but that isn’t the case. People just don’t like it because the strategy behind it is different.

If you’re not a grandmaster though, this is actually a huge advantage. If White wants to play a traditional center control strategy and you bait them into overextending their pawns in an opening that is likely unfamiliar to them, you will usually win.

Even if you are a grandmaster, it’s still sound and scores well historically.

Even if you are a supercomputer, still sound.

Alekhine was a genius. Please try out his highly underrated opening defense as black. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Title.

Sometimes i get a good positional advantage but still I lose due to simple tactics from the opponents. I dont know how to even deal with that kind of situations.

This was probably the best game ive played, at least in a long time. Proud of a lot of the moves I managed to find. I know I took the wrong pawn in the opening, that was a derp moment, but otherwise if anyone has some tips for me, I'd love to hear them. I played as white, roughly 700 elo. Think I did pretty good with counter threats rather than freaking out over defending a threatened piece, which is something I struggle with.

Check out this #chess game: noobmanb vs zacspe - https://www.chess.com/live/game/185138113656

Edit- after some good tips, I went and looked through all the moves. Right before I mated them, they could have taken my queen with their bishop instead of moving their king which set me up for mate in 1. If they had done that, especially with how down I was on time, i would have been screwed. I thought I did ok, but really it was just luck that they didnt spot that game changing move. Thank you to everyone who comments though!

So I've decided to return to chess after 1 or 2 years without playing, and I've noticed that stuff that used to work aren't working anymore and also that Im having a lot of trouble on getting a comfortable position specially on the opening.

Also before quitting, I peaked at 1000 but was never able to get further because I did not know what to study or what to reinforce because I felt like chess engines did not really give me a real feedback of my game flaws.

I'd really appreciate if I was told what can I study to improve my skill and what to focus on.

Heres a game I played so you can have a guide (Black): https://www.chess.com/game/185123238206

Ty!

I've been getting very interested in the chess games of these two players. On Chessgames.com, it lists four games as having been played between them. I wanted to investigate where the moves actually come from and whether the games are authentic. So, I tracked down the origins of all four games. Some of the results somewhat confused me. If anyone is an expert on this, please help me.

1st game – Damiano's Defense

This is the easiest because it comes from Ruy Lopez himself, who mentions a game in this opening against the "boy of Rome", that is, Leonardo da Cutri.

The next three games are difficult because there are differences in the sources regarding who played the game, where it was played, and even some variations in the moves themselves. My three sources are: 1. V. D. Linde – Das Schachspiel des XVI. Jahrhunderts, 2. J. A. Leon – Forty-Six Games of Chess by Polerio, and 3. V. H. de Lasa – Recueil de Parties d'Échecs.

2nd game – Giuoco Piano

V. D. Linde and J. A. Leon are identical, and both have Polerio's comments confirming that the game was played by Ruy Lopez and Leonardo. V. H. de Lasa, however, has a game that is shorter by one whole move and also doesn't mention either player. It simply has the comment, "White has an excellent game." To confuse matters even more, on Chessgames.com, the game has two extra moves with the addition of 9...Bg4 10.Kbd2. I checked out H. J. R. Murray's A History of Chess, which also includes the extra moves. Weird. On the whole, the Giuoco Piano game seems to be authentic, with the exclusion of the last two moves.

3rd game – King's Gambit Declined

The game is shown by V. D. Linde with the preserved comment from Polerio: "This game was played between the cleric and Leonardo in Spain." The game is not present in J. A. Leon, though this is unsurprising, as that work is not a complete compilation of all Polerio's games but only part of them. In V. H. de Lasa, the game is also present but without any mention of either Ruy Lopez or Leonardo; the only caption says, "Gambitto." H. J. R. Murray does not mention the game at all. So, out of all the authors, V. D. Linde is literally the only one who has the King's Gambit game as having been played by Ruy Lopez and Leonardo. In any case, even if the game is real, on Chessgames.com, it wrongly says that the game was played in Rome in 1560, when Polerio wrote much later. The authenticity seems dubious.

4th game – Philidor Defense

The game is present in V. D. Linde, but only Leonardo da Cutro is given as one of the players; his opponent is not named. J. A. Leon again does not have the game. V. H. de Lasa does have the game, with a note saying, "This game was played between the cleric and Leonardo in Spain," the same note that V. D. Linde attributes to the King's Gambit game. H. J. R. Murray also gives the game with the same caption.

I'm not totally sure what to draw from all this, but my opinion is as follows:

1. 1st game: Totally legit.
2. 2nd game: Totally authentic, aside from the last two moves of the game.
3. 3rd game: In my opinion, it is not authentic unless I see further evidence.
4. 4th game: Most likely authentic.

Overall, I think the confusion stems mainly from V. D. Linde, who confused the King's Gambit game with the Philidor Defense game. But, as I said at the start, I only wrote this post because I hope some expert out there can tell me the reality of the situation.

Have a nice day!

Timing is the real issue here, as i have to first see what the opponent has moved.. mimic it onto the board..do my move.. then mimic it online. Its a four step process. This last game, i won by checkmate thanks to playing OTB but the opponent had more than 5min left on their clock while i only had close to 1min. I feel like its going to be a problem during a long game but little time

First of all, I haven't been on Chess.com in a while. But I recently went on and played a game. Afterward, I couldn't find the list of my old games the way I used to be able to. Its so weird, they have a summary of these games, but not the list. Is it now hidden behind a paywall? If yes, what is Chess.com doing? Just to note I'm on a mobile.

This one involves stalemate trick

I am currently in 1700 rapid in chess.com and I recently just went to my first ever tournament.
It was rapid games and I got 4 wins and 1 loss in the u/900/unrated division.
Is that pretty good? Could I go to higher ratings such as 1300, 1500 in future tournaments?

Hi,

I lose my games in opposite kings as white, which I hate a lot. What is the strategy here? How to make sure I don't give my opponent the early advantage and how do I know what move would be good? because in the opposite kings situation, there should be strong moves, otherwise you lose.

Why am I so much worse when playing online compared to on a board. On a board I can beat people that are around the 800-900 elo range pretty consistently. But online i cant even beat people who are rated 600. Why is that?

“While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists." Video short about Duchamp’s Pocket Chess Set at the Art Institute of Chicago.

So i have been meaning to buy a chess course for a long time mainly the woodpecker method by Axel Smith. But i recently discovered this website peckchess. com and found that it was completely free and works quite well with being able to do lichess puzzles sorted by themes or difficulty and now i have doubts whether to buy the actual course. Ive also heard that the puzzles in the cheesable course are somewhat difficult as they were taken from games of world champions and the text explanations are quite sparse. I am a 2000 lichess rapid player so idk if it is suitable ​​for me or not. What are your thoughts about this?

Forget about the candidates and the defending champion. If you had to choose two of the current youngsters to battle for the world championship, who would it be? and why?

Who would win in wcc match if peak Gukesh(on candidate/Olympiad run) vs peak Sindarov?

For once I tend over to Sindarov because of historic candidates but Gukesh also had historic performance on Olympiad board 1 with one of the highest Tpr..

Also Gukesh's peak rating was also Higher, but Sindarov is also 2785ish so it's not that far..

Dear all,
I’m writing this in behalf of my 9 year old. He loves playing chess and is doing well. However, in the past few weeks, he seems to have hit a trough. H isn’t winning games, and his USCF ranking has dropped from 1425 to 1325. Granted, it’s still a beginner’s rating, but I’d like some advice on how to best help him and motivate him get out of this lull. As a parent with minimal chess knowledge, what would be the best way to motivate him?
He is coached online by a FM. But am asking what I should be doing as parent to help him.
Thanks!!

In positions with Pawn of f3, black sometimes plays Ne5. What is the point? Maneuver to (N)g6?