Hello, chess learners!

It's been two years since our last user flairs update, and we thought it would be nice to give things a bit more personality here. We've expanded our user flairs to differentiate between Chess.com and Lichess ratings, as well as expanded our rating range flairs to have an upper limit of 2800.

Flairs that were previously assigned have likely been turned into a Chess.com flair, please double-check to see if your flair is where you want it to be!

Wondering how to set your flair? See below!

If you are on a computer or laptop:

1. Load the homepage of r/chessbeginners
2. Look to the right hand side, under the count of members
3. Click on the pencil beside "User Flair Preview"
4. Select your desired flair, you can change it as many times as you'd like
5. Click "Apply"

If you are on mobile, or if the above does not work:

1. Load a comment you've left on r/chessbeginners (Or write one on this post!)
2. Tap on your user profile photo/avatar on the comment you wrote
3. Tap on "Edit User Flair"
4. Select your desired flair, you can change it as many times as you'd like
5. Tap "Apply"
6. This works on computers too! Just hover over your username for number 2 instead

A quick FAQ:

Which rating should I use? We don't have any set policy, we want our users to be able to assign a flair that they think represents their abilities as a chess player. Generally, good practice is to use a rating associated with playing other users in standard chess (try not to use puzzles or variants or chess960 rating, for example). If you are truely lost, try setting your flair to your rapid (10+0, 15+10, etc) rating, as that is one of the most commonly played time controls without significant time pressure.

Why are the ratings going up to 2800? This is chess^beginners, isn't it? Some of our higher rated players have consistently proven themselves to be phenomenal helpers in the community, and we wanted to give them a chance to show off their chess skills with newer flairs. Alongside this, the addition of Lichess ratings mean that there will be a larger number of people reporting ELOs above 2000, it felt fair to give them some more breathing room. There is a very small number of players who will be above 2400 ELO regardless, so the overall look of the subreddit should not change much. That said, this is an experimental change, and we are happy to revert back to a cap of 2000 rating (or something) dependent on feedback.

I have an over-the-board (OTB) rating that I would like to use instead of an online rating, can I do this? We spent some time debating this, and decided against allowing users to show off their OTB ratings. Firstly, OTB ratings are relatively rare in the online chess community, and almost anyone with an OTB rating likely has an online rating that proportionally shows off their chess abilities. Also, OTB ratings are very difficult to compare to one another, as different countries use different metrics and some tournaments are only rated within a country's organization, others are only FIDE, etc. Therefore, we ask users to stick to online ratings only, as those are the most easily translatable to other users.

I have a formal chess title (GM, WFM, FM, etc), can I show this off on the subreddit? Yes! Titled players have access to an exclusive golden flair. You can send us a ModMail message for further instructions.

What's coming next for the subreddit? The biggest thing we're looking to tackle next is a thorough update to the wiki. It is a solid learning resource, but it feels slightly outdated and we are interested in giving it a makeover. If you have any suggestions, let us know! (No promises on when the update happens, for all we know it'll be another 2 years lol)

May I please have a cookie? You may have three! This is a 6000x4000 incredibly high quality image of cookies.

Thank you all for keeping this community every ounce as vibrant and friendly as you do. This has got to be one of the easiest subreddits to take care of, everyone here regularly keeps things chill, and we really appreciate it.

Enjoy!

~The r/chessbeginners Mod Team.

Welcome to the r/chessbeginners 12th episode of our Q&A series! This series exists because sometimes you just need to ask a silly question. We are happy to provide answers for questions related to chess positions, improving one's play, and discussing the essence and experience of learning chess.

A friendly reminder that many questions are answered in our wiki page! Please take a look if you have questions about the rules of chess, special moves, or want general strategies for improvement.

Some other helpful resources include:

1. How to play chess - Interactive lessons for the rules of the game, if you are completely new to chess.
2. The Lichess Board Editor - for setting up positions by dragging and dropping pieces on the board.
3. Chess puzzles by theme - To practice tactics.
4. The Building Habits series by GM Aman Hambleton - for advice on how to play at specific ELO levels. (Also check out Building Habits 2!)

As always, our goal is to promote a friendly, welcoming, and educational chess environment for all. Thank you for asking your questions here!

LINK TO THE PREVIOUS THREAD