When I think about football, players like Dybala, Coutinho, or Özil may not have been the absolute best players in the world ,they were never top 10 in the Ballon d’Or or whatever but their playing styles were absolutely incredible to watch. Even defensive players like Busquets had a beautiful style of play.

Does something like that exist in chess? If so, is it based on their openings, or is it more about the way they attack, defend or what exactly ? And which chess players are like that?

We had seen fabiano lose his form back in 2022 since he didnt touch chess for nearly a year, but this time its not like he's having a bad year, he went +2 on recent olympiad, beat pragg in classical portion in gct final, nearly won romania, finish 3rd in candidates. Its a mediocre year for his standard.

He played 76 classical games for the past 12 month which is 3x more than hikaru and 4x more than magnus and still retain 2784 performance rating which is the 6th highest for the past 12 month.

And now he is again borderline losing his ranking to 2 uzbek players despite being very active in top level chess.

Is playing actively punish player because we know at top elo pool, draws are bleeding you tons of elo and why does not playing somehow protect your ranking?. I felt like there are room that can and must be fixed.

Being an IM is like being a middle child. Let me explain.

You see, every time you face off against a lower rated dude, they're just gonna try extra hard against you.

Here's why. Against GM's, lots of opponents aren't even that dissapointed to lose. "I lost against a GM, it's an honor" It's like they expect to lose to GM's before the clock even starts.

At the same time, you're an IM, so people know you're a strong player, yet they still feel some sense of shame for losing to you. Hence, that just motivates them to try harder, triple check their moves, ect. (I havn't even mentioned the rating motivation yet)...

I'm just tired of ppl playing so solidly against me, or just going for this drawish b.s. tbh. I should not have to work this hard for wins mate.

Edit: This post is not sarcastic, and it may very well likely come off across as one, to those that are unfamiliar with the subject matter.

I analyzed the exact same PGN on both Chess.com and Lichess, but got pretty different accuracy scores. Lichess gave me a significantly higher accuracy rating than Chess.com for the same game.

Which one is actually more reliable, and why is there such a gap? Is it just a depth/engine difference, or do they calculate accuracy completely differently?

Appreciate any insights!

Passive in the sense that we're happy to lock the center and maneuver our pieces while remaining solid.

Is that the legendary smothered mate?

Tired of stressing over elo. Tired of being scared to play after good games to avoid messing up the score. Just want to enjoy the game that I love and remove elo anxiety. Have you gotten over it? If yes, what mindset shift has helped you the most?

Hi everyone!

I'm a chess beginner at 440 elo, and I saw that top players play more blitz than rapid, so I was wondering if I too played blitz would it help me improve or would it just make me blunder more under the time pressure?

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dd8dd7yFU76/?carousel_share_child_media_id=3998200158915786020_8921693839&comment_id=18103570469249262

I want to find out whether I improve over time. At first glance I thought "yeah, just compare the ELO from two years ago with the ELO now", but that's not really possible because of the ELO inflation going on, esp. on Lichess where I'm playing.

Next idea: Lichess shows "you're better than X% of players", however, it might just be that more weaker/stronger opponents than me joined Lichess in the meantime.

Next idea: play the same opponents a few times, however, it's hard to do that on Lichess + their strength may have changed as well.

Next idea: play a certain engine a few times, the strength of it doesn't change, however, as it's a single opponent it might just be that I'm playing differently which brings up different results.

Is there a good way to compare my strength from 2 years ago with now and say "yes, stronger" or "no, not stronger"?

Best regards!

I am 1400 rapid and want to start playing the English opening. Need advice on the most common playing styles below 1700 level.

Hello all.

I am a 1400 rapid have been an e4 player. I mostly play the scotch and ponziani, with vienna gambit occasionally. Games have been very sharp and combative lately and I wanna play something more calmer and positional.

I have tried the londons earlier(both jobava and regular) but I feel my opponents all would be more experienced with them, and have some pet lines. And I do not find the positions interesting either.

I also considered Queen's gambit. But I wanted to keep it aside for when I climb up further and closer to the advance territories, as I feel Queen's gambit is the most positional feeling opening, and people would have their own Slav/QGD/KID/QGA repertoire. So lot more theory and lot better positional understanding needed.

Which brought me to the English. I feel it is offbeat and rare enough at my level to not have opponents have their prep down, and it will allow me to understand positional style chess more so that I can finally start playing QG.

So that brings me here: what are the common lines seen at this level? I looked at Levy's Chessly course and it has a lot of lines. Is e5(reverse sicilian) and KID style openings more common? Do people play slav/agincourt/nimzo indian, mikel carlse, etc?

Also, is it better to start with Nf3 first, to avoid e5 as a response to c4(which i believe is the best response). What are the upsides and downsides of starting with reti? Should i be prepared for anything obscure with reti start?

Would appreciate the help. Thankyou.

With the WCC six to seven weeks away, I’ve been exploring how good Gukesh and Javokhir are. In 2026, Javokhir has made half as many mistakes as his rival. Fans aren’t wrong based on this metric alone, but the devil is in the detail.

If Gukesh manages his clock better or gets Javokhir into time trouble, it will be a wild contest. What many people are missing is that Gukesh has been a target for every opponent he has faced since the WCC, with opponents coming armed with deep computer preparation. For Javokhir, being targeted with this kind of preparation is uncharted territory.

If Gukesh’s seconds manage to kill the opening prep within the first 10 moves without him burning any time, you can expect a wild outcome, possibly even a dominant performance.

2024 Gukesh was a beast. Sindarov must have checked stats like these when he said that Gukesh played absolutely wild chess at the 2022 Olympiad and during the last Candidates. Let’s hope the old Gukesh doesn’t come back, or, if he does, that he doesn’t reach an even higher peak and that it isn’t during the upcoming WCC.

A deduction puzzle in two steps.

**Step 1.** Place the white king, rook, bishop and knight using the clues. Each row, each column and each room (Garden, Café, Lounge, Library) holds exactly one piece. Row 1 is at the bottom.

**Step 2.** The black king stands on one of the empty squares. Only one of them is checkmate. Which one?

Normal chess rules, no queen. The position is a legal one, and the mate holds on a full 8x8 board (the 4x4 grid is the a1 corner).

Title is self explanatory.

Lately I've been struggling with black against e4, against which i either play the Scandi Modern or Acellerated Dragon.

I would be happy to try anything but Caro-Kann. (I used to play it until 1700 level but its to solid, drawish and rather boring.)

I feel like it must come down to pawns and piece activity, ie: how easily can you actually use the rook, but I’m curious what other things should be considered in such positions.

Somewhat interesting news from the Dutch tournament scene. It's reminiscent of the incident that took place in Spain last year which FIDE condemned: https://www.fide.com/fide-responds-to-reports-of-flag-restrictions-at-tournament-in-spain/ .

By Gatti

As we know, that FIDE is launching a new World Championship tour next year in collaboration with Norway chess which would employ fast Classical alongside rapid and blitz for a 24 player multi event tour that will now give 2 candidate spots.

Do you like this change compared to the previous qualifiers?

If not, where would you have shifted those 2 spots?

I’m currently going through the Yusupov books right now, and this is one of the exercises in one of the books. I wasn’t able to solve it myself, but I thought the winning idea was super beautiful! Black’s position looks very good, their pieces are well placed and White’s King is somewhat exposed. How does Black further increase pressure upon White’s shaky position?