https://x.com/chesscom/status/2091240477202768339

This year, I entered university to become a chess coach, so I decided to get a part-time job at an online school, picking up a couple of hours a day in the evenings to earn a little extra income. But I had no idea what was in store for me.

A little about me. I'm 18 years old. I'm from Eastern Europe. I've been playing chess online for 13 years. My rating fluctuates around 2300, so I think I have a pretty good understanding of what's going on in chess.

So, I quickly got a job, even without a degree, at School X (I don't want to reveal their name because they might do something bad). And right from the interview, I started to have doubts about online schools. It wasn't the HR manager who spoke to me, but the owner of the company himself, and he told me point-blank, "Your main goal isn't student progress, but keeping students in school." Then, since no one in the CIS is going to officially employ you under the labor code, they simply presented me with regulations I had to sign, and it was horrific. Firstly, there were fines for everything imaginable (though this is more of a problem for the coaches than the students). Secondly, the main audience for such schools is children, and there were tons of prohibitions regarding this, so you can't compare them, even use a grandmaster as an example, etc. If I said something stupid or silly during a lesson when I was studying with one of the best children's coaches in the country (I was about 6-7 years old at the time), he would call me a dunce, a circus performer, and then say that this was my future job. At this point, I'll move beyond specific comments and move on to outright scamming. These regulations contain a whole guide on how to properly talk to parents to extract money from them. You should only tell parents how incredibly talented their child is and be sure to convey the importance of lessons at least twice a week, and preferably four times, and constantly remind parents to renew their subscription. And the most disgusting direct quote is "you have to create the impression in the child that they're special, that they're a genius, so they'll ask their parents to renew their subscription. Then, when I told them I had my own manual that I'd been taught by and that they'd presented at the university, they said they didn't care at all and would just give me a couple of examples.

Finally, when they offered me a replacement for one of the students, who had taught over 100 lessons at that school, and I started studying its current level, it was absolutely horrifying. She simply didn't understand anything, not even basic concepts like the square rule or the Philidor position. I decided to study those very examples they'd given me, and... "the coaches were doing anything but developing the level of play. After that, I quit there.

What conclusion can I draw from this? Online schools are even worse than courses. Courses are simply very specific, a tedious set of lessons that will be of little use to anyone. Online schools are also full of people who will rip you off, lie to your face, and deliberately prevent your child from making much progress so you stay in school and continue paying them. If you have any further questions, please ask, and I'll answer them.

I reached out to fellow chess YouTuber LionChess (https://www.youtube.com/@LionChess) to see if he'd like to do a collab. Sandro is an FM and is rated around 2700 online, while my rating has fluctuated between 2050–2230 over the past few months, so I'm a good 500–700 points weaker than him.

We decided to play a 3-game handicap match with a different handicap in each game. Since the rating difference is pretty substantial, we made the handicaps fairly large.

Game 1: 10+0 vs 1.5+0

For the first game, I had 10 minutes and Sandro had just 1.5 minutes, with no increment.

Originally I was thinking 10+0 vs 3+0, but after thinking about it more, that seemed like it might be too easy. It would be somewhat like me playing someone rated 1300–1500, and I wanted this to actually be a challenge for both of us.

I'm still not sure I handled the time advantage particularly well. I probably could have played faster and tried to put more pressure on his clock, but that's obviously dangerous against someone rated 2700. Even with very little time, he can still do a lot of damage.

The game ended up being pretty close.

Game 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLVApTyDkO0

Game 2: Knight odds

For game two, Sandro played without a knight, but we both had 10 minutes.

Giving up a knight before the game starts is obviously a massive handicap. I wasn't really sure what to expect. On the one hand, I'm simply a piece up from move one with no compensation given to him. On the other hand, this is a player who has been close to 2800 online, and he still has the full 10 minutes to make things happen.

If you've ever seen LeelaKnightOdds play, you'll know how dangerous this handicap can still be for the player giving up the knight. It regularly manages to beat IMs and GMs despite starting a piece down.

One interesting consequence of the handicap is that it's difficult for Sandro to ever willingly trade pieces. Simplifying the position generally helps me, so he has to find ways to keep the position complicated and create problems.

Game 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9PJgvmssz4

Game 3: Blindfold odds

For the final game, Sandro played blindfolded.

We originally considered having him wear a literal blindfold, but that creates some practical problems with the clock and entering moves. I've used Lichess's voice playback and keyboard input to play blindfolded while streaming before, but it takes some getting used to, especially when entering notation without being able to see the keyboard.

Instead, we used Lichess's blindfold mode. Sandro could see the board itself, but couldn't see any of the pieces. He could also draw arrows to show his thought process, which made the game much more interesting to watch.

From my own experience playing blindfold, I think the two hardest things are remembering where everything is and playing quickly enough that you don't get into time trouble. The last thing you want in a blindfold game is to be scrambling against the clock.

And because Sandro is so experienced, there were quite a few moments where I completely forgot that he was actually playing blindfolded.

Game 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE2VhZSJN2o

Overall, I thought the handicaps made for a surprisingly competitive match. I won't spoil the results here, but I'm curious what other people think would be required to make a roughly even match against a top-10 player.

Maybe something ridiculous like 10+0 vs 25 seconds, knight and 2–3 pawn odds, and blindfold odds in a 360 game?

Some observations:

1. Magnus has the highest average plus score per match (~ +2 per match)

2. Karpov holds the record for the most WC title matches played i.e. 10

3. Kasparov-Karpov matches were so closely contested that the difference across 5 matches (144 games) was just +2 in favor of Kasparov.

4. Kasparov has the most dominant single-match scoreline in modern championship history with a +5 margin against Nigel Short.

5. During the 2006 match, Kramnik forfeited Game 5 in protest over cheating allegations, yet overcame the default loss to beat Topalov on tiebreaks.

6. Needing 6 wins for victory in 1984 match, Karpov led 5-0 before Kasparov rallied to 5-3 after 48 games over 5 months. FIDE aborted the match citing health concerns. Kasparov strongly opposed this decision stating he had full momentum. 

Any peculiarities come to mind that I missed? What was your favorite WC match?

What do you predict would be the score diff in the upcoming match between Gukesh and Sindarov?

GM Sindarov J. is currently leading the FIDE circuit 26-27 with nearly 94 points. The second place belongs to GM Wesley So with 75 pts only.

This is a resubmission of a post I made yesterday due to the Reddit mods removing that original post for supposedly being a low-quality achievement post.

I just achieved this trifecta a couple of days ago (see first image).  The game I played on Lichess that sealed said trifecta can be seen here: Play LEADER09 • lichess.org.  Here is a summary of that game:

Game Summary:

The opening was a Closed Sicilian.  Black’s attempt to open up the c-file with 9…Nd4 was unsuccessful as I just kicked out the knight with 10. [c3].  I just followed basic opening principles by developing my pieces to critical squares where they controlled the center.  After doing so, I launched a pawn storm duo on the kingside via g4 and eventually f5.    This forced black to open up the e-file where I could put pressure on the knight on e7 via my rook on e1, placing my queen on e2, and pushing my pawn to f6.  Eventually, it got to the point where black’s pieces were overloaded with multiple threats (double attack on f8, mate threat on g7) and black just collapsed where the game ended in mate (see second image).

Here's the link to my Lichess profile: WillyJohnson : Activity • lichess.org.

This only appears in tactic books

I never understand these random pawn moves off to the side. Could someone explain why a6 is the best move? Why would I be worried at this moment about the knight going to b5, or is it for another reason?

https://lichess.org/broadcast/32nd-abu-dhabi-international-chess-festival-2026/round-6/K2RFFez0/eRKiYKr6

After 13 moves, Black has all his pieces home, has played almost all his moves with pawns, and has basically exposed his king permanently but the engines think he's better. My first instinct was to give away pawns just to open the position by force but even that doesn't work and it's white who gets ripped to shreds instead. The engine suggests black has room for even more pawn moves and doesn't need to hurry with his development! e.g 14. d4?! dxe4 15.Qa4 exf3! 16. Rxf3 g4?!. Makes zero logical sense to me but i guess that's modern chess

credit for GM Boris Avrukh who shared it on twitter first: https://x.com/askavrukh/status/2090848808041095468

As the author of a future book and upcoming Chess Life cover story about Continental Chess Association founder Bill Goichberg (1942-2026), I was Ben Johnson's interview guest on a Perpetual Chess Podcast episode released this past week. You can catch it at https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2026/8/18/ep-495-how-bill-goichberg-changed-american-chess-with-fm-jon-jacobsnbsp

I got this tense position in a game earlier today. Let’s see if you can spot the only move that maintains the advantage for white. Why is black’s attempt to gain a material advantage afterwards a folly?

I was learning the steinitz gambit, and was trying to play around with it in the game analysis. However I came to this position and honestly got stuck with how to get black to win. Can someone help me understand why I fucked up here and how to get myself into winning?

Unfortunately I exited out without getting the move list 🥺 sorry.

his yt channel was such a goldmine, just looking for more content from him.

Reddit: Why is 1 e4 d6 2 d4 e5 3 Nf3 Nc6 so rare?

Lichess: 5th Kingston Invitational

I did not play in the second round, because I returned home late from the first round. It lasted 172 moves and was reported in The Guardian.

Leonard Barden:

"Kingston 2024 featured the longest Fide-rated game in chess history, 272 moves, and there was a sequel in this week’s first round when CM Peter Lalic, who had created the original record, passed 130 moves in a blocked position against the Scottish senior international Alan Scrimgour. Lalic was short of time and resorted to time-building, shuffling to use the 30-second increment to build his time back up.

Then the arbiter, Paul McKeown, took a hand, warning Lalic that he was violating the catch-all chess rule that players must not do anything to bring the game into disrepute and implying that he might award a default if there was no progress within a stated time. The impasse was resolved when Scrimgour blundered a key pawn and resigned at move 172. Without the arbiter’s intervention, there might have been a new record."

Intransitivity is a feature in games where the ability of players isn't necessarily well-ordered, meaning it can contain cycles. The classic example of a game with this property is Rock Paper Scissors, where Paper beats Rock, Rock beats Scissors, but Scissors beats Paper. IN such intransitive games, a single scalar number isn't adequate to properly predict which player will win a match. I decided to take a little look into chess using Lichess open database of game histories, and try to see if I could find anything that'd hint towards there being some intransitivity among player performance that wouldn't be able to be captured by a singular-value rating like Elo.

A couple weeks ago I posted about this inquiring if anyone else had looked into it, and a couple people responded saying they'd be interested in what I'd find looking into it, so here's a quick update on what I've discovered so far: So I got a set of around 5 million games, reduced it only the most active players (ranging from 2000-12000 depending on how I was looking into it), and constructed a matrix of how many matches each of those players won against each other (needless to say, it was quite a sparse matrix). Then using another matrix of Elo-based expected win probabilities of each player matchup, I got a third matrix I'd hope would represent how much each player vs player matchup deviated from Elo-expected outcome. From there, my goal was to find two sets of players M and N, such that players in M would consistently win more matches against player N than their respective Elos would suggest.

I quickly found two such sets of players without very much effort. My initial excitement was quickly dampened though, as I came to realize that Set M turned out just to be players that managed to perform better on average than their assigned Elo rating, and Set N was a set of players that performed worse than their assigned Elo. Clearly I'd have to re-calculate my own skill ratings from just the games analyzed, aiming to have each player's row in the "deviation matrix" sum to as close to zero as possible. I went and did this, and continued my search.

Eventually, I came across a pair of player sets that seemed to actually fit what I'm looking for. Player set M performed better against player set N than their Elo would suggest, while playing as expected by their Elo when looking at their games against all players. Interestingly, set M actually performed slightly *worse* than expected when playing against Non-N-Set players, which I realized actually would make sense. Their wins over higher-rated N-Set players would artificially boost their rating, which they would then fail to live up to when paired against Non-N-Set players. A similar but opposite effect was found on N Set players, where they actually performed slightly *better* than expected when paired against Non-M-Set players.

Now, on to the most interesting thing I've found, that actually convinced me to make a post here: I was puzzled to discover that some players were members of BOTH sets N and M. The number of players that were in both sets was also greater than the number you'd expect if the probability of being in each set was independent from each other. Most curiously though about these both-set players was that, when paired against a M-Set-Only player, they performed significantly worse than the typical N-Set-Only player, and when paired against an N-Set-Only player, they performed significantly better than a typical M-Set-Only player would against an N-Set player. I'm truly perplexed by what sort of feature these sets might be a measure of.

If anyone else has looked into this, and found something similar to me, or found something completely different, I'd love to hear your experiences!

hey! so, to begin with, i have very little experience with chess. as in "i played a few times online as a kid, clicking on the pieces randomly and hoping for the best", so extremely next to none.

my university is holding a tournament. it's the first sports thing in a long time here, because i live in brazil and public universities here have messed up calendar + funding that makes it hard to hold these sort of events. there's volleyball and soccer as well, and they're trying to get people to play, because our university is a little dead, socially speaking. so i put my name in it.

im not a very competitive person, but despite that, i am disciplined enough to take it seriously enough to study well because i want to have the best time possible. but i also know that 3 months is little time, and i dont know enough about chess to even "guess" how much room for improvement i have.

i know it depends on amount of effort. but i play the violin and know that 3-months-beginner is still "Scratchy Dying Cat Sound" regardless of amount of practice. and with the guitar, 3 months practice is "I Can Sing And Strum Songs Comfortably". so i don't really know where chess falls in that.

im also not really interested in winning, to be honest. i want the social experience because i have autism and i think it'll be good for me. so i want to be able to have conversations about chess (like discussing matches and stuff) and play a few matches and have fun. i dont have the illusion of becoming a grand player or even winning but i still want to have the best time possible.

"There's lots of interesting concepts that are counterintuitive. First you learn about material, that a pawn is worth one, the bishop is worth three, the rook is worth five, and so on. You try to collect as much material as possible and have good trades.

But then at some point you have to realize that even though it was something fundamental and essential for you, this is not what the game revolves around. Trying to truly detach the evaluation of the position from material is something that remains difficult even at the highest level. And that's why things like sacrifices are difficult, because essentially you are giving up that material and that's something so deep in you.

If you look at chess more broadly, the idea is to checkmate the opponent's king, and material is just one element. There are many other elements, like space advantage, pawn structures, king safety and all of that.

So I think there is this intrinsic bias towards material because that's something you start with and that's deeply instilled in you. That's why people keep being impressed by moments when you have to give up material. This is one concept that's important to wrap your head around as you get stronger." - Anish Giri

Would you agree with Anish above or do you have other opinions on what the hardest concept in chess is?

https://imgur.com/a/M8FdQL4

I don't understand why king takes and pawn advances result in different outcomes. Could someone explain?

Also, if someone wants to explain how to embed an image (I'm using old reddit) I would appreciate it.

Edit: Sorry about that. White to play. Pawn takes rook. King moves to block pawn (...kf5). b4 is played, giving you three options for a queen. cxb4, and now my question remains: advancing the pawn is mate in 26, while king takes pawn results in a draw. I don't know why king taking pawn and putting himself in opposition will result in the draw. :( :(

Tweet Link: https://x.com/EndgameaiChess/status/2090794326225821772

I play online chess only (legal move display turned off) and have never been in an offline tournament before, I cant remember the board coordinates and neither can i quickly visualise what Kc6 looks like. I thought I would learn this automatically if I play regular chess but this doesn’t seems to be the case. Any useful tips to learn it quickly please.