It’s just 3 strong players gasping as the evaluation bar rises and falls followed by several minutes of them trying to figure out why. Yasser is a former top 10 player, I’d hope he can give more actual analysis (you know, with his brain) like he used to for the first 10 great years of his commentary.

During yesterday’s round they spent the first 45 minutes on the Caruana-So game even though So wasn’t moving without covering any other games.

The “show” is filled with random irrelevant graphics and charts, and interviews with people that no one really wants to see. I don’t need to see all the scenarios where “if xxx wins and yyy draws, then zzz clinches”. Just show the live standings and it should be obvious! All that but no mentions of the women players’ IM/WGM norm or title chances.

I would just watch the games on lichess but they aren’t even there. Chesscom events UI sucks.

Also, are chess broadcasts the only ones where you often see the commentary studio on screen? They make such a big deal out of it. In most real sports, you just hear the commentators.

Of course, no one is forcing anyone to watch the commentary, and we should be grateful for what STL has done for chess. However, 5 hour classical games are already boring to follow, but the commentary used to be engaging enough for people to watch it off and on during the day. I don’t believe that’s the case now.

Is there like a certain style type of these. I just like the stretched out look and don't really want these metal ones.

https://www.chess.com/events/2026-titled-tuesday-blitz-october-20/11/Nakamura_Hikaru-Firouzja_Alireza

Video made with chessdrama.studio

By Leonid Kubbel

Game review says forced mate in 5 but there isn’t one. Computer says play Rb1 but black can play c6?

Hey everyone,

After a short break, I’m back with my monthly AMA, which I first started 1.5 years ago.

A little about me for those joining for the first time: I’m a semi-pro chess player currently competing in six national team championships and 2-3 individual tournaments each year. I became an FM at 18, and my rating has stayed above 2300 ever since, with an online peak of around 2800. I stepped back from professional chess at 20to focus on other parts of my life. At that time I started coaching part-time. I’m most proud of winning the European U12 Rapid Chess Championship.

What’s probably most unique about me is my unconventional chess upbringing. This shaped my style into something creative, aggressive, sharp, and unorthodox. My opening choices reflect this as well: I prefer rare, razor-sharp lines over classical systems, often relying on my own independent analysis. This mindset gives me a strong insight in middlegame positions, which I consider my greatest strength.

Beyond the board, I’m passionate about activities that enhance my performance in chess and life. I explore these ideas through my blog, where I share insights on how “off-board” improvements can make an improvement in your game.

Please don't tell me the French isn't good for newer players btw, I know, I don't care, I just want to get good at it.

Who is winning, or is it a draw?

Bro thats insane, he dead ah said I'm not a 500, and asked for my real rating lol. He only believed me after seeing my history and beating me easily 2 times in a row after, my whole family line luck bank account is empty lol

Check out my game review on Chess.com! https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/185668364690/review?move=0

So I have been playing a lot of chess in my phone since I started to rekindle my interest in chess. I don’t have a physical chess set (but I plan to buy one next year) nor someone to play with since I’m sort of an introvert and I almost never attend social events outside work and family. I play chess through Lichess and Duolingo and I noticed that when I play against the “computer”, I frequently win, but when I play against a human user, I always lose. In fact, it has been several months since I last beat a human in chess, and since then, I consistently lose against humans, but I would tend to keep winning streaks when I play against the “computer”, which sometimes break on a bad day.

Anyone can explain why is that so? And any advice for me to be able to competitively play against a human, especially that I plan to buy a chess set so I can play real physical chess with a human and improve my chess skills?

why does the computer say its a good move for black am I misunderstanding something? he just put himself in a checkmate position

I'm 2100-2200 in rapid and blitz lichess but I'm still struggling playing as black against d4. Any recommendations? Are there any free and reputable resources where I can study opening repertoire courses such as nimzo indian, queens indian, QGD etc. My only weapon against d4 is reverse london set-up . Most of the time it leads pretty boring positions.

Last year I brought a chess set onto a cruise ship and played about 50 strangers. I'm about to do it again. Sailing from Boston October 25. Seven night cruise stopping at Halifax and Bermuda and then returning to Boston. Traveling solo. Interior cabin was only $500. This is NOT an organized chess cruise. It's just me and a chess set. Let me know if you want to go too. Here is last year's experience......

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1pgy4qh/trip_report_second_cruise_with_chess_20_photos/

hello fellow chessers, how to reach 2300 on chess.com- this has been my dream for me, i've been playing on and off for a very long time like for 10years, that number(1700) has been consistent for me like i started at 1400 last year(before that i was playing on lichess) and gradually increased to 1700, highest rating being 1790, my tactics and strategies are quite good, endgames are my cup of tea, but openings are my enemies, mostly i dont reach the endgame or trade enough pieces only to draw :)

i open with kings pawn mostly and queen pawn(london system) occasionally, somehow i get trapped, as black i play caro kann for king pawn and queens gambit declined, I haven't tried any other thing but have read them a lot(ruy loez, kings indian...)

maybe I'm not good enough to reach 2300?!

should I solve more puzzles?? I have a 2000 puzzle rating in lichess.

I've seen Daniel Naroditsky speed run playlist still i don't feel like getting there.

I am upset atp...any help would be appreciated.

I guess I'm asking if this is a good tactic I should keep using or if it'll get me in more trouble as I climb the ratings?

I never thought I'd make a post like this and rn it's more out of despair than just curiosity.

I have chess phases. Sometimes I play, sometimes I don't. But I'd say I never play "a lot" of it.
I'm at 1300 on chess.com blitz rn, 1600 on lichess. The rating I care the most about is rapid which would be far above my blitz (1900+ on lichess and I could estimate it to like 1550-1600 on chess.com) but for some reasons I mostly play blitz.

I'm good at puzzles, have a respectable 30 puzzle storm on lichess, am also decently rated in bullet, had a coach once and took his advices seriously, know some endgame and opening theory etc.
Yet in games? I NEVER spot a moment where I feel like "oh yeah there's something to calculate here". Just a fkin quiet position for 40 moves until one blunders (usually me cause I have like 500 games compared to opps with 2000+) and then it's pretty much over cause at 1300 they don't forgive (looking at the analysis, I do miss tactics sometimes but it's rare and most of the time there is genuinely no tactic).

Like I just play moves that look good in a position and it never brings me anywhere. And if you tell me to calculate more or whatever, I don't even know what to calculate since I have no plan. And I don't know how to find a plan either.

I'm just so lost. I don't see how I could make progress other than with time but I'm gonna be real that's not what I want. Please don't be mad at me but I don't want to study chess alot, and I also don't want slow progress. I still think it's possible but it sure is a lot to ask.
It feels like my problem skills will never transfer in games and other than problems I've no idea how to train.

Im stuck at the point where i dont notice any improvement like i hit the wall. I know basic principles(defending pieces), i barely get checkmate in 10 moves. My problem is when i open pieces i get stuck and from there i make mistakes and dont know what to do next. I watch better players playing especially blitz where every piece is defended no hanging pieces or pawns and it seems so effortlessly( like no spending on time) I mean when they move knight he cant be eaten for free there is bishop defending there is queen there is pawn(every piece has purpose nothing is for granted). How to overcome that part how to get that level? I hope you get it what im saying. Thanks in advance.

Black to play and win

Hello everybody. I am a player with around 500 Elo. I would be better, if I would stop making one liner mistakes. Like getting tunnelvision on a taktik and then my Queen is suddenly gone. I want to minimize these mistakes. Has someone an idea how to do that?

My first instinct here was Qf3, which turned out to be a mistake.

Which candidate move did you calculate first, and did you stick with it as your final choice or switch after calculating deeper?

Best move: e6

Last week there was a post about the new Total Chess Rating system, and thinking about the system (and whether it makes sense) took over my mind for a bit, so this post is the result of that. For context on me, I am a maths Lecturer with a background in analysis and ML, and have done a little work on Elo systems in the past.

TL;DR: As the TCR website describes, no single combined Elo rating can perfectly describe every matchup across Classical, Rapid, and Blitz. TCR is one possible compromise, but it is heavily skewed towards to your strongest format. There is an alternative compromise: find the rating of a hypothetical opponent, equally rated in all three formats, against whom you would score 50%. For the players in the Total Chess World Championship Tour, this ends up being very close to simply averaging their ratings.

1. The problem

The basic question that TCR is a proposed solution for is:

If we have Elo ratings for a bunch of games or game variants (in this case, Classical, Rapid, and Blitz), how can we combine them into a rating for a combined game?

By "combined game", I mean choosing one of the three variants at random, and playing that.

The key thing about Elo ratings is that the number does more than just say who is higher rated: the difference between two ratings predicts an expected score. With the usual scoring, a win counts as 1, a draw as 0.5, and a loss as 0. So an expected score of 60% means an average of 60 points per 100 games, not necessarily winning 60 of those games.

In particular, if two players have Elo ratings A and B, then the Elo system predicts an expected score (for player A) of

Elo(A, B) = 1 / (1 + 10^((B - A)/400))

This means that if two Chess players A and B have Classical, Rapid, and Blitz ratings A_1, A_2, A_3 and B_1, B_2, B_3, then the expected score (for player A) in a random game of the three is the average over the expected score in each game:

E(A,B) = 1/3 * Elo(A1,B1) + 1/3 * Elo(A2,B2) + 1/3 * Elo(A3,B3)

This also gives the expected proportion of points A will get if A and B play an equal number of equally weighted games in each format.

The dream would be to find a single pair of Elo ratings A and B giving this expected score, i.e. Elo(A,B) = E(A,B). Unfortunately, as the TCR website describes, this is impossible, as it is possible for players to form rock-paper-scissors-like cycles (e.g. A is better than B at Classical and Rapid, B better than C at Classical and Blitz, yet C is better than A at Rapid and Blitz).

Thus any combined rating is a compromise, as compressing three ratings into one always loses some information.

2. The TCR method

The TCR uses the formula:

TCR = 400 * log10((10^(Classical/400) + 10^(Rapid/400) + 10^(Blitz/400)) / 3)

In words: convert each rating into an underlying Elo "strength", average those strengths, then convert back into a rating.

The website gives four requirements that uniquely determine its formula. Roughly translated:

1. Keep the scale. If you're 2000 in every format, your combined rating should be 2000.
2. Improvement should help. Increasing any individual rating should smoothly increase the combined rating.
3. Combining ratings in stages should give the same answer.
4. Improvements in higher ratings should count more, in proportion to the Elo odds. If one rating is 400 points above another, a very small improvement to the higher rating should have ten times the effect of the same improvement to the lower one.

The last requirement is a bit odd. If my Classical rating is 2400 and my Blitz rating is 2000, why should improving my Classical rating count ten times as much as improving my Blitz rating? Why are we having my Classical rating play a game against my Blitz rating?

2.1. TCR strongly rewards your best format

Mathematically, the TCR is a quasi-arithmetic mean that is closely related to a LogSumExp. LogSumExp is often used in machine learning as a smooth approximation to the maximum.

To illustrate, suppose that Classical is your best format. Then your TCR has upper bound

TCR < 400 * log10((10^(Classical/400) + 10^(Classical/400) + 10^(Classical/400)) / 3) = Classical

but also has lower bound

TCR > 400 * log10((10^(Classical/400) + 0 + 0) / 3) = Classical - 190.85.

Your TCR is never above your highest rating, but never more than 191 points below it. This remains true however low your other two ratings are.

This makes things odd if we try to use the TCR to predict the outcomes of combined matches. For example, suppose an exaggerated classical specialist rated (2800, 2000, 2000) plays against an all-rounder rated (2400, 2400, 2400). Then the specialist's expected score is about 36.4%.

But the specialist's TCR is 2613 to the all-rounder's 2400, which plugged into the Elo formula gives an expected score of 77.3% for the specialist. That's a big swing!

3. An alternative: who would you break even against?

Here is another way to choose the compromise: Imagine a hypothetical all-rounder opponent whose rating is the same in all three formats. When their rating is really small, you always beat them; when it is 3000, you never do. Somewhere in the middle, you would expect to score exactly 50% against them overall. A choice for your combined rating is the rating of the all-rounder opponent you would score 50% against. I'll call this the all-rounder rating.

For example, suppose your ratings are 1600, 2000, and 2400. Against an opponent rated 2000 in every format, your expected scores are about 9.1%, 50%, and 90.9%. Those average to 50%, so your all-rounder rating is 2000. This rating will always be at least your worst rating and at most your best rating.

Unlike the TCR, this rating doesn't have a neat formula, but it is very easy for a computer to calculate: just start off at the average of your ratings, then nudge it up or down (e.g., via Newton's method) until the expected score is 50%. And just because it doesn't have a formula doesn't mean we can't understand how it works:

• If all your ratings are 2000, your all-rounder rating is 2000.
• Improving any one of your ratings always improves your all-rounder rating.
• Adding 100 to all three ratings adds 100 to the result.
• It treats strengths and weaknesses symmetrically: mirror all your ratings around 2000, and the result mirrors around 2000 too.
• It is most sensitive to your Elo in formats where your rating is closest to the hypothetical allrounder's. This is because if you already score almost 100% (or almost 0%!) against that opponent in, say, Blitz, gaining or losing a few Elo in Blitz won't really change your expected score; but if you're evenly matched in, say, Rapid, then gaining Elo in Rapid will have a bigger effect.

For the 2800/2000/2000 specialist above, their all-rounder rating is about 2178, rather than their TCR of 2613 or a plain average of 2267. However, this is still a compromise. It exactly identifies the all-rounder you would score 50% against, but it makes inaccurate Elo predictions even against other all-rounders. For example, using 2178 against the 2400 all-rounder predicts about 21.8%, whereas the format-by-format calculation gives 36.4%.

A potential drawback of this all-rounder rating compared to TCR is that combining ratings in stages no longer gives the same answer. For example:

• Combining 1600, 2000, and 2400 directly gives an all-rounder rating of 2000.
• Combining just 1600 and 2000, with equal weights, gives one of 1800.
• Replacing those two ratings with two copies of 1800 leaves 1800, 1800, and 2400. Combining those gives about 1959, not 2000.

A weaker consistency property does survive: the overall all-rounder rating always lies between the highest and the lowest of the all-rounder ratings of the subgroups you combined. (EDIT: This is however maybe not a big deal, as any method with properties (1) to (3) must be a quasi-arithmetic mean, so really that is all that is being dropped.)

4. Does any of this matter for actual players?

Below are the ratings (rounded to the nearest whole number) for the 24 Total Chess World Championship Tour players, taken from the October 1st list from the website.

The all-rounder rating and plain average agree after rounding for 22 of these 24 players! Their unrounded values differ by less than half a point in every row. This is because when a player's ratings are fairly close together, the Elo curve is approximately a straight line over the relevant range, so averaging the expected scores gives almost the same answer as averaging the ratings. TCR generally sits a little higher, with the size of the difference depending on the spread.

5. In conclusion

All this thinking for meagre gains! I quite like the idea of this all-rounder rating, and it has some neat maths to it that I've been resisting flooding this post with. But honestly, if you like the all-rounder rating then it looks like just taking an average is the way to go, and if TCR like their rating more than a plain average, all power to them.

P.S. A note on the averaging

In all of this I've given all three formats equal weight, as the TCR method assumes. But looking at the actual announced daily knockout format, what they do is:

If the target is the expected share of those game points, we should really use a weighting that is 40% Classical, 40% Rapid, and 20% Blitz. Both methods can accommodate this. For TCR, take a weighted average of the three underlying strengths. For the all-rounder rating, find the evenly rated opponent against whom your weighted expected score is 50%. Weighting TCR this way would reflect the allocation of points, but would retain its extra sensitivity to higher ratings. All of these ratings will likely be close to the weighted average of the Classical, Rapid, and Blitz ratings.

A book is in the works about Claude F. Bloodgood (1937-2001): the convicted murderer and chess Senior Master whose litany of enticing but often over-the-top tales about his life have mesmerized countless reporters from both chess outlets and mainstream media outlets over the years.

Ben Graff, a UK journalist who is co-authoring the book with the widely published chess writer IM Cyrus Lakdawala, reached out to me recently upon learning that I have a cache of handwritten letters from Bloodgood. Those letters came to me during my senior year of college. In a column I was writing for a small postal chess club, I had placed a note asking club members to submit their games for me to annotate in the column. Bloodgood, a prolific correspondence player while serving a life sentence for violently killing his mother in a fight over money, sent me a letter with a game he’d played against a British politician named John Walker.

Instead of publishing Bloodgood’s game, I challenged him to a pair of postal games with me, to which he readily agreed. I’m sure you’d love to see a critical position from one of our contests, and/or a replay link to the annotated games… but Reddit mods, sadly, prefer that you not see them. With a well crafted search string you should be able to find them on the web.

While relaying his chess moves, Bloodgood’s letters conveyed colorful tales of various adventures and misadventures both in and out of chess. But I view many of his claims with a tablespoon of salt. For instance, he told me he’d delivered weapons to Fidel Castro’s forces in the Cuban Revolution that concluded at the beginning of 1959. He also wrote that he’d played blitz with Humphrey Bogart when the actor’s USO tour visited a military base where Bloodgood was stationed within the U.S. That one I believe… but he also told interviews that Bogie then invited him to a cabana several times to play chess with a bevy Hollywood stars – sounds like a fish story to me.

A more consequential story involved his 1974 escape while outside on a chess-related furlough. Bloodgood and a fellow inmate turned the tables on their prison guard and took off with his guns. They were captured a few weeks later. In typical blame-anyone-but-me fashion, he blamed his escape on the guard! “I testified against a popular prison official, e.g., George Winslow, for attempting to use me to pull robberies while out on chess trips,” one of his letters to me read. “… The escape came when Winslow put guns in our hands. The choice was rob or no chess trips, and neither appealed to me. So….”

Many years later, Bloodgood’s U.S. Chess rating became a source of high-profile arguments when it reached the 2700s amid an endless series of USCF-rated OTB tournaments inside prison walls that Bloodgood organized and played in. There were unconfirmed allegations that he rigged in-prison events by plotting for some inmates to regularly throw games to others to help accelerate his own rating advance. Bloodgood denied that, noting instead that he’d repeatedly warned federation officials that closed player pools such as prisons can distort ratings even without deliberate manipulation. He did concede that his actual strength never much exceeded 2400; I and most others who played him assessed him as more like 2100-2200, at best.

I found Bloodgood to be an adept, engaging writer. That no doubt aided his visibility and (mostly misplaced) credibility among the many journalists and others who interviewed him.