madwullie Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 20 minutes ago, GordonS said: I liked chess at primary school and I set up a competition in P7, basically so I could win it. I've never got over losing to a ned in the semi final. We never had a chess club at primary or secondary and it wouldn't have occurred to me that they existed for a board game. I'd never have thought there were clubs or strategies for opening moves in chess any more than for Battleships or Guess Who. I'd have absolutely loved a chess club when I was a kid and I'm sure it would have led to me playing throughout my life. I could make a point here about opportunity and underprivilege, but this isn't the place. I used to play my dad regularly. He was pretty good and would never let me beat him, so when I finally did, twice in one night when I was about 13, it was like a coming of age. We never played much after that because he's an arsehole. Apart from that the only chess I played was against a friend of a friend when we were about 17 who claimed to be good. He said he'd got a draw against Gerry someone, a grandmaster from Scotland. He played me and a pal at the same time and he was creaming me until he put his queen and king on a skewer for my rook. After that I clawed my way back and beat him. He took it badly and challenged me to a best of five at his house. I won the first three and it finished 3-2. As I was cycling home he followed me in his car for a bit for no apparent reason, and I think he was seriously contemplating running me over. Since then I can only recall playing 3 adults - my wife, a pal and a colleague, all terrible at chess. I play my kids but neither of them are a challenge. I bought a wee portable chess computer about 1995 and I played that for a bit, but I found I would become obsessed with it. I regularly couldn't sleep for thinking about moves. I'd play it from time to time but it's not like a human. Even the bots on Chess.com, they're not realistic. It's like they're mostly perfect but take a dive every now and then to come down to the ranking. I'm glad this thread and competition has got me playing chess against people again, it's been brilliant during this lockdown. Fucking hell 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 (edited) Reading some of these posts, I'm not sure I want promoted into League A now... I've never played chess at a club or competitively. Had a board when I was a kid and played a few games against my dad. Most of my chess experience is from a flat I shared at uni about 10-12 years ago. Four of us in there and we had a board and got really into playing games in the flat. One guy was probably about intermediate level and the rest of us were beginners, falling for stupid checkmates in four to begin with and stuff. We got a lot better by just playing each other and then the guy that was better than us got fairly obsessed with playing Yahoo chess and moved well beyond any of us so we didn't want to play any more because he'd just obliterate us. I've been playing the bots on chess.com and I reckon I'm around 1200 or thereabouts. I'm beating the 1200 bots more often than I'm losing unassisted playing fairly quickfire. I've beaten 1300 bots unassisted but still lose more often than I win. I'm beating the 1300s comfortably with one or two hints or takebacks. I think the main thing for me is to cut out moments of madness where I get too excited by an aggressive move and don't pay attention to what's happening elsewhere. I've won 5 and lost 1 so far in League B but I think I was a little bit lucky in that I don't think I'll win all 5 of those return fixtures. I think I got a bit lucky against Keptie and suspect he'd beat me more often than I beat him, the game against Frank Grimes could easily have gone either way and I although I ended up beating NotThePars relatively comfortably, I think I remember him being one or two moves away from a forced checkmate that I only spotted very late and could eaisly have fallen for on another day. DeeTillEhDeh beat me pretty comprehensively and I'd be shocked if he doesn't stroll to the Division B title. Edited February 16, 2021 by Gordon EF 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 31 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said: Wait, you don't have a solid opening repertoire for Guess Who? After watching Mark Rober's video about it, I do now. God bless the internet. Quote As for the computers not playing like humans there's a lichess bot called maia which has analysed tens of millions of human vs human games and plays the move that a human of that rating would be most likely to play. So it might not notice a discovered attack but it won't blunder the Queen on move ten. I've l played it a few times and found it much more "natural" than playing against stockfish. Search for maia1, maia5 or maia9 on lichess and challenge it. Thanks, I'll definitely try that. I'm enjoying playing live 960 against similarly ranked folk, but sometimes you want to play a bot so you can be a bit more casual and risk more mistakes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 24 minutes ago, madwullie said: Fucking hell Needless to say I never played him again... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madwullie Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 4 minutes ago, GordonS said: Needless to say I never played him again... Some people are fucking weirdos. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 (edited) 18 minutes ago, GordonS said: Thanks, I'll definitely try that. I'm enjoying playing live 960 against similarly ranked folk, but sometimes you want to play a bot so you can be a bit more casual and risk more mistakes. I've found the bots to be fairly decent on chess.com but maybe I'm just not seeing their 'bottiness' yet. Definitely sometimes they'll just make an obvious blunder but tbh I think that's very human. I haven't found that they'll just play ruthless, flawless chess and then just derp a Bishop away on move 9 to even it up. The highest ranked human player I played on it was some guy I accidentally challenged who was around 1250. I just decided to play extremely aggressively and quickly and he made one or two major mistakes before giving his Queen away for free and I ended up smashing him. He asked for a re-match but tough luck kid, I'm keeping those points. Edited February 16, 2021 by Gordon EF 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NotThePars Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 Reading some of these posts, I'm not sure I want promoted into League A now... I've never played chess at a club or competitively. Had a board when I was a kid and played a few games against my dad. Most of my chess experience is from a flat I shared at uni about 10-12 years ago. Four of us in there and we had a board and got really into playing games in the flat. One guy was probably about intermediate level and the rest of us were beginners, falling for stupid checkmates in four to begin with and stuff. We got a lot better by just playing each other and then the guy that was better than us got fairly obsessed with playing Yahoo chess and moved well beyond any of us so we didn't want to play any more because he'd just obliterate us. I've been playing the bots on chess.com and I reckon I'm around 1200 or thereabouts. I'm beating the 1200 bots more often than I'm losing unassisted playing fairly quickfire. I've beaten 1300 bots unassisted but still lose more often than I win. I'm beating the 1300s comfortably with one or two hints or takebacks. I think the main thing for me is to cut out moments of madness where I get too excited by an aggressive move and don't pay attention to what's happening elsewhere. I've won 5 and lost 1 so far in League B but I think I was a little bit lucky in that I don't think I'll win all 5 of those return fixtures. I think I got a bit lucky against Keptie and suspect he'd beat me more often than I beat him, the game against Frank Grimes could easily have gone either way and I although I ended up beating NotThePars relatively comfortably, I think I remember him being one or two moves away from a forced checkmate that I only spotted very late and could eaisly have fallen for on another day. DeeTillEhDeh beat me pretty comprehensively and I'd be shocked if he doesn't stroll to the Division B title.I never even spotted that. I really have no clue what I’m doing beyond one or two moves ahead and the only thing I’ve gleaned from my rapid fire matches is try to be more unpredictable and aggressive. Gonna get fired into the lessons I think and watch some matches. I’ve got one more win than I expected tbf but have a ton to learn. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wee-Bey Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 I've hit a brick wall with the chess.com bots. Have beat everything up to 1600, but the 1700 ones are proper dicks. Been ahead against 2 of them before being repeat move stalemated. So have been going back and trying to do an unbeaten run from 1200 to 1600. Just gave that maia1 bot a game and it's an improvement on the chess.com ones anyway. I like how she takes a couple of minutes to move rather than the auto move, which tends to make me more likely to blunder on chess.com. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stellaboz Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 I got fed up of not beating Antonio and started playing a lot more 10 minute Rapid matches and having a lot of success just working the basics at the start and pushing for a Scholar's mate and taking it from there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 Just now, NotThePars said: I never even spotted that. I really have no clue what I’m doing beyond one or two moves ahead and the only thing I’ve gleaned from my rapid fire matches is try to be more unpredictable and aggressive. Gonna get fired into the lessons I think and watch some matches. I’ve got one more win than I expected tbf but have a ton to learn. Looking back at our game, I think I might have over-stated it. I watched your game against arab joe before I played you and I think you got a surprise mate by getting the Queen into the pawns in front of the King. There was just a moment in our game where you could have moved the Queen into a similar position but, tbf, you didn't wouldn't have had anything backing it up. I think I was just paranoid you'd do the same thing again. I did notice you were very aggressive in the previous game but you played what looked like a very passive opening against me which I kind of suspected was not your style so I just tried to put some early pressure on you thinking you'd make a defensive mis-step. Looking at that game, every move I played almost from move 3 onwards was very attacking. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 13 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said: I've hit a brick wall with the chess.com bots. Have beat everything up to 1600, but the 1700 ones are proper dicks. Been ahead against 2 of them before being repeat move stalemated. So have been going back and trying to do an unbeaten run from 1200 to 1600. Just gave that maia1 bot a game and it's an improvement on the chess.com ones anyway. I like how she takes a couple of minutes to move rather than the auto move, which tends to make me more likely to blunder on chess.com. Nelson the 1300 bot is mental. He's all attack and brings his Queen out at the first opportunity, which I'm sure is meat and drink to more experienced players but he still manages to cause me problems. Makes for fucking brilliant games though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigmouth Strikes Again Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 1 hour ago, Gordon EF said: Reading some of these posts, I'm not sure I want promoted into League A now... Yeah, I'm going down faster than Lorraine Kellys pants in the Tannadice dressing room. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 55 minutes ago, Gordon EF said: Nelson the 1300 bot is mental. He's all attack and brings his Queen out at the first opportunity, which I'm sure is meat and drink to more experienced players but he still manages to cause me problems. Makes for fucking brilliant games though. I beat Nelson consistently now that I've figured him out. You chase the queen everywhere, making him waste moves while you're developing, then you drive him back and he almost always coughs up a piece. If you make any mistakes he'll pounce on them but don't do anything silly and you'll grind him down. He's much easier to beat as white because you can be one move ahead in chasing the queen. So I lead with queen's pawn, he pushes king's pawn one to give the queen the diagonal, I go g3 to stop the queen from coming to h4, he goes bishop to b4 for check, I chase that with the C pawn, he runs away with the bishop and he's already behind. After that I'll usually push the king's pawn forward 2 to control the centre and then reinforce with pieces. He doesn't play like a real person, because nobody as otherwise good as him would have so many, and such bad, brain farts. And I don't think anyone who played like that would regularly be beating folk above 1,000. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 1 minute ago, GordonS said: I beat Nelson consistently now that I've figured him out. You chase the queen everywhere, making him waste moves while you're developing, then you drive him back and he almost always coughs up a piece. If you make any mistakes he'll pounce on them but don't do anything silly and you'll grind him down. He's much easier to beat as white because you can be one move ahead in chasing the queen. So I lead with queen's pawn, he pushes king's pawn one to give the queen the diagonal, I go g3 to stop the queen from coming to h4, he goes bishop to b4 for check, I chase that with the C pawn, he runs away with the bishop and he's already behind. After that I'll usually push the king's pawn forward 2 to control the centre and then reinforce with pieces. He doesn't play like a real person, because nobody as otherwise good as him would have so many, and such bad, brain farts. And I don't think anyone who played like that would regularly be beating folk above 1,000. I humped him on assisted mode where I didn't use any hints or takebacks by doing exactly that and I was a bit annoyed I hadn't just taken him unassisted to get my three crowns. To be fair, I took a couple of cracks at him last night just before bed and I was playing some utterly wild moves myself. Was far too tired not to get drawn into making ludicrous attacking moves and he picked me off. I've been moving up through the bots right from the easiest ones, including the streamers. I've only started taking on the 1300s in the last couple of days. I was almost doing laps around my living room when I checkmated Jade in 12 moves. I think that's made me far too cocky against the others. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aim Here Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 3 hours ago, GordonS said: Apart from that the only chess I played was against a friend of a friend when we were about 17 who claimed to be good. He said he'd got a draw against Gerry someone, a grandmaster from Scotland. He played me and a pal at the same time and he was creaming me until he put his queen and king on a skewer for my rook. After that I clawed my way back and beat him. He took it badly and challenged me to a best of five at his house. I won the first three and it finished 3-2. As I was cycling home he followed me in his car for a bit for no apparent reason, and I think he was seriously contemplating running me over. There have only been 5 FIDE grandmasters from Scotland, and none of them are named 'Gerry' (Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Colin McNab, Paul Motwani, Jonathan Rowson and John Shaw), and only one 'Gerald' (a German). Maybe it was a lesser 'master' title, like International Master or something or time and/or chinese whispers garbled the names. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 6 minutes ago, Aim Here said: There have only been 5 FIDE grandmasters from Scotland, and none of them are named 'Gerry' (Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Colin McNab, Paul Motwani, Jonathan Rowson and John Shaw), and only one 'Gerald' (a German). Maybe it was a lesser 'master' title, like International Master or something or time and/or chinese whispers garbled the names. Aye, he could have told me anything and I'd have been none the wiser. I might have got the name wrong but it definitely wasn't one of those 5. I seem to recall that he did the chess puzzles in The Herald. This would have been in the 90s. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 4 hours ago, Frank Grimes said: @Loki you are GCarlos9 aren’t you? Your cup opponent is @adampar FYI Eednud pulled out the cup Yeah that’s me. I tried to add an invite but there isn’t an adampar on chess. @adampar what is your username? Mine is GCarlos9 add me and set up a 960 game. If not I’m claiming a default victory against the ringer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wee-Bey Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 2 hours ago, Gordon EF said: Nelson the 1300 bot is mental. He's all attack and brings his Queen out at the first opportunity, which I'm sure is meat and drink to more experienced players but he still manages to cause me problems. Makes for fucking brilliant games though. David at 1400 and Pierre at 1500 are similar to Nelson. Like @GordonS said, queens pawn openings and steady development are the keys to beating them. It seems like each level has one crazy, one classical and one mixture of the two styles. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon EF Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said: David at 1400 and Pierre at 1500 are similar to Nelson. Like @GordonS said, queens pawn openings and steady development are the keys to beating them. It seems like each level has one crazy, one classical and one mixture of the two styles. Aye, that's what I thought. It's good to get you playing against different styles. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 That’s me added Adampar and challenged him for the cup game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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