The Official GRB Chess Thread

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Gashouse
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by Gashouse »

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:
January 13 21, 2:19 pm
Nice. I'll try and figure out how to request a game. Do you prefer 1, 3, 5, 14 day timeframes? And, I can try to figure out how to make it unrated since you're so much higher than I am as well if you want?
I know we already started, but to answer your questions, I usually do the 3 days/move or longer. I don't have a preference on if it's rated or not as I'm not all that concerned about my rating one way or another. My son plays his cousin through my account, too.

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thrill
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by thrill »

I have discovered I am on a different app and will get the one you guys are on, because we most definitely need to drum up at least 8 or so players and do a GRB chess tourney.

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Gas house is beating up on me but I will say it would be fun to have a year round grb chess club going.

Especially in the offseason it would give people a little extra curricular activity.

Gashouse
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

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Good game aw! You took advantage of my mistakes well. The app has a nice analysis feature that I use after every game to try to understand where my missteps were and what I should have done differently

AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Definitely a fun game! I really enjoy the analysis feature where it gives different lines. For me at least it's useful since it'll show the full line of alternate moves and go 5-10 moves ahead assuming best play by the opponent and what the 'score' is all along the way. Scrolling through and watching the score, it's pretty easy to see when there's a forced line to win a piece and then explore the position more.

Also, there are certain moves during a game I'll actually spend time and try to figure out what the best line is and it's interesting to go back and see if the computer agrees. It rarely does.

Looking back on our game, I was certain the goal was to get your knight, then try to chase off the bishop with the king to gobble up those two pawns, but the computer line was to let you queen while attacking your king with my queen and using my pawns as reinforcement. It was still a losing posiiton, but that was interesting.

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Jocephus
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

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AWvsCBsteeeerike3
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

https://vole.wtf/kilobytes-gambit/

The chess program at the website above is apparently just 1024 bytes of javascript code and they've appropriately named it the kilobyte gambit.

There are no draws, you can repeat moves into perpetuity. But, everything else is pretty much the same as typical chess except you can only promote pawns to queens. There's no prompts. Just a nintendo looking game and when someone loses, they won't be able to make a move.

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Jocephus
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by Jocephus »

not sure if its appealing to anyone here but chess is a gaming section/category on twitch

https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Chess

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Jocephus
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by Jocephus »

Chess Champion Plays "Bongcloud Attack", Which Is Very Funny
https://kotaku.com/chess-champion-plays ... 1846490914
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen is a chess grandmaster, the current world champion, as well as world #1 in rapid and blitz chess as well. He is very good at chess, but in this match against fellow grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, he opens by playing one of the worst possible sequences of moves in the entire game.

The opening, consisting of the moves e4 e5 followed by Ke2, has been nicknamed the “Bongcloud Attack” because it’s assumed only someone high as [expletive] would even attempt it. Even its Wikipedia page lists it as a “meme opening”, because not only does it leave the King exposed and blocks both the queen and bishop, but it also burns through moves when having to recover from it.

Nakamura has made it a bit of a thing, though, using it previously and even winning some competitive matches with it, and so here’s Carlsen busting it out against him in a dead rubber encounter during Carlsen’s own tournament (that would eventually end in a draw).
I don’t know enough about chess to truly appreciate the move. I just like how funny it is to everyone who does.

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Donnie Ebert
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Re: The Official GRB Chess Thread

Post by Donnie Ebert »

The World Chess Championship In 5 Charts

Image

I'm not very good at chess, but I enjoy playing and I obliquely follow things like the World Chess Championship that ended last Friday. This one was pretty fascinating compared to following the last one in 2018 with Carlsen vs Caruana, where the first 14 games were all draws before they went to rapid chess to decide it. In the championship this year Ian Nepomniachtchi blundered several times (three or four times in eleven games...can you even imagine!?!?) and Magnus Carlsen won four out of eleven games to hold on to the title, including game 6, an instant classic which was the longest game ever played in championship history (136 moves, 7 hours and 47 minutes).

I think what helps gain my interest these days is being able to see analysis of the games (later or even in real-time) with the help of chess engines like Stockfish, where you can see the odds change with each move (usually incrementally, occasionally dramatically). My kids and I were watching the last game live with a chess set out to follow along, and to see the odds change with one innocent-looking pawn move was pretty exciting and similar to watching a more familiar live sport (the kids also like to watch the win probability on Baseball Savant in real time, so this was right up their alley), especially in the baseball offseason of 2021/2022, The Winter of Our Discontent.

Here's the live reaction during Game 11 from the experts (who have the benefit of chess engines in front of them and no GOAT Magnus Carlsen across the table) of the blunder that lead to Carlsen's win in the last game:

Nepo Blunders with pawn g3

Even though I hardly could follow the lines being discussed, it was fun to follow along to the sequence of games and the commentary, and, much like a playoff series, I was itching on the days off for the next day to come around.

Now my kids are amped to go to the World Chess Hall of Fame in the Central West End when we get a chance. Nerds.

I will now go lose to my elementary age child and watch him have Magnus's reaction when I make an obvious mistake.

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