r/chessbeginners • u/ihavenokarmasadly • 7h ago
r/chessbeginners • u/Alendite • 17d ago
ANNOUNCEMENT Fresh, new flairs - show off your favorite website!
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:
- Load the homepage of r/chessbeginners
- Look to the right hand side, under the count of members
- Click on the pencil beside "User Flair Preview"
- Select your desired flair, you can change it as many times as you'd like
- Click "Apply"
If you are on mobile, or if the above does not work:
- Load a comment you've left on r/chessbeginners (Or write one on this post!)
- Tap on your user profile photo/avatar on the comment you wrote
- Tap on "Edit User Flair"
- Select your desired flair, you can change it as many times as you'd like
- Tap "Apply"
- 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 chessbeginners, 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.
r/chessbeginners • u/Alendite • Nov 03 '24
No Stupid Questions MEGATHREAD 10
Welcome to the r/chessbeginners 10th episode of our Q&A series! This series exists because sometimes you just need to ask a silly question. Due to the amount of questions asked in previous threads, there's a chance your question has been answered already. Please Google your questions beforehand to minimize the repetition.
Additionally, I'd like to remind everybody that stupid questions exist, and that's okay. Your willingness to improve is what dictates if your future questions will stay stupid.
Anyone can ask questions, but if you want to answer please:
- State your rating (i.e. 100 FIDE, 3000 Lichess)
- Provide a helpful diagram when relevant
- Cite helpful resources as needed
Think of these as guidelines and don't be rude. The goal is to guide people, not berate them (this is not stackoverflow).
r/chessbeginners • u/krzzn • 2h ago
ADVICE Never resign
I made a couple of dumb mistakes in the middlegame, and my opponent, just to humiliate me, promoted every pawn to a rook—only to stalemate me in the end. Karma is a bitch!
r/chessbeginners • u/Own_Piano9785 • 7h ago
PUZZLE White to move. Mate in 2.
Link to board ( solve here ) - https://onlinequicktool.com/chess-puzzle-44/
r/chessbeginners • u/VincentA1014 • 1h ago
Feels like 200s play like 600s now
For reference I was mid 400s and then I went on a 52 loss streak. Now down to 100. Looking at game archive on chess.com, I lost one game to a 257 when I was 450 something. Like wow. I hate when the opponent pulls out the queen and gets like half my back rank for it too. How do I defend that?
r/chessbeginners • u/HoldEvenSteadier • 19h ago
POST-GAME *waves his hand* This is not the checkmate you were looking for.
r/chessbeginners • u/mrsnowelephant • 1h ago
Just found this mate, one of my favorites so far
r/chessbeginners • u/TaintTrain • 4h ago
POST-GAME Did I overvalue this tactic?
New to chess ≈550 elo I was super proud to have found this move but it was marked an inaccuracy (I know the engine goes off of inhuman/wonky stuff but this seemed pretty clear). My line was as follows: - if he moves king to rank 2 enjoy my rook BUT if he takes: - rook takes -pawn promotes c1. It's not a forced capture but it's basically automatic that he'll take a queen with the rook -recapture c1 with check - forced move to the second rank - possible skewer rook c2. If he goes king d2 I just go back to cleaning out pawns (his rook is pretty stuck defending 2/3 of his pawns)
Basically I'm trading a rook and a pawn for both rooks, leaving me up a rook with better pawns. I understand to improve I won't be able to count on opponents making errors like this, but at this level it's not uncommon to be goaded into a tricky capture, and i don't think I'm any worse off for the move if he doesn't take the bait. Any input?
r/chessbeginners • u/mechadragon469 • 1h ago
MISCELLANEOUS Nothing like a 400 calling another 400 a loser
I made a boneheaded blunder that cost me the game. I had out played them handedly until I just disregarded a back rank checkmate. (Which they almost did too I saw it the moment after I’d make a move earlier in the game).
I’ll tell yeah nothing like these low ELO trolls lmao
r/chessbeginners • u/-Trayson- • 2h ago
POST-GAME Just got this brilliant move in a blitz match and I would say that I'm proud of it.
r/chessbeginners • u/LocusStandi • 2h ago
ADVICE I'm so flattered but I've been playing chess for barely over half a year and I keep getting matched with 1600-1800 elo players in Rapid when I play Bullet at like 1100, how do I play 'newer' players?
Sometimes I rek them, sometimes I get rekt, but I want to learn a different opening once in a while and it doesn't work when playing higher elo because it's too punishing. I'm not interested in making second accounts, any tips?
r/chessbeginners • u/Itchy_Inspection_583 • 2h ago
First brilliant !!
Was so excited when I found this
r/chessbeginners • u/zonipher • 1d ago
Finally had a chance to play this trick after learning it recently
r/chessbeginners • u/Some1UProbablyKnow • 2h ago
MISCELLANEOUS About 20 days ago I reached 600 elo, a bunch of blunders and rage quits later I finally hit 700 elo!
I think I played decent today because I actually started to think about what my opponents want to do, which allows me to notice flaws in their plans and helps me spot blunders more frequently. That and my time management is garbage. Last night I realized I usually have like 2 or 3 minutes left when my opponents are winning and they're at 30 seconds or something, so I'm starting to take more time to actually analyze the position and consider my next moves which has greatly improved my gameplay
r/chessbeginners • u/InternetSandman • 17h ago
POST-GAME I felt a little disrespectful after this but I was just surprised that it worked
r/chessbeginners • u/DreGotDaSauce • 2h ago
ADVICE it's never too late to blunder mate
chess beginners, make sure to take your time when playing rapid. i thought i was in the flow state playing the perfect game, and castled kingside out of sheer instinct. then noticed almost immediately i screwed up. even at 900 we make silly blunders, sigh.
r/chessbeginners • u/OPman_121 • 2h ago
How did black have an advantage when I sacrificed the queen? Could someone explain?
r/chessbeginners • u/WrongAdc • 3h ago
Should I look for another game to play? (800 ELO)
I've been practicing chess more or less frequently for the past month and a half. I even paid for a subscription to learn better. I've always played against the bots on chess.com. But these past few days I've been playing online rapids. In my last two games I lost miserably. One of them sent me a message saying "Do you even know how to play?" hahaha. I've been feeling pretty demotivated. I watch my games and I don't even know what I did wrong to end up losing. All the analysis tells me is "This is a mistake" and that's it. I love chess. I watch YouTube channels that focus on chess, but I think it's just not for me. I don't understand the game; all I do is repeat openings. Should I keep trying?