If you don’t want to use offbeat lines in rated games, you could play unrated games against other people, rather than playing against bots.
I didn’t know you could play unrated games lol
That said it was offbeat openings that have flummoxed me because I have a tendency to overthink.
I personally don’t think it’s a good idea to train against the bots for a few reasons. The low rated bots don’t really mimic the play of low rated human opponents that well, so learning to beat them is of limited value compared to playing lower rated humans. The higher rated bots will just obliterate you and it’s hard to get that much instructive value from having the machine wreck you with tactics.
The other thing that I think is really bad about training against bots is that they move immediately. This misses an important part of chess skill development which is thinking on your opponents move.
As far as I can tell the best way to improve at chess as a beginner is do the opposite of what everyone wants to do - avoid opening theory, play slower games, analyze your own games after the fact without an engine. The typical beginner wants to learn opening traps, play blitz, and then run the engine Game Review right after to get an easy answer to their mistakes.
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I’d say go to openingtree and look up what openings are beating you the most and just find a good refutation
Taunting an opponent rated 150 points lower than you in an unrated game is the lowest form of chess trash talk.
Before (I just blundered a bishop)
After (talker missed mate in one to grab other bishop)
Wish he hung around to be furious at me but guess he could only be angry at himself
I imagine unrated games are a lot like play money poker. if you want to try out a new opening just keep playing against your normal opponents, even if your rating drops it will eventually go back up once you learn the opening or once you learn not to play the opening anymore.
I think this is accurate. Getting overly attached to a rating and being afraid to play games is not a recipe for chess fun.
Difference is that people are actually trying to win.
Also, people can see unrated games on your profile. Not like they’re hidden or anything.
Downside I’m noticing with unrated games is that if you choose any time longer than 10 minutes, you’ll never find an opponent. That’s definitely a disadvantage if you’re trying to explore new openings because you really need time to figure things out once you get to the middlegame. I’ve lost a few winning games due to my finger slipping off the screen today with the queen or on time.
Obsessing over your rating is a bit silly, seeing as how quickly it will fluctuate within ~200 points anyway.
Just use the game review to iron out opening errors - it’s what it’s there for.
This isn’t a pro sanctioned tip, but it helped me a lot decades (gulp) ago. In Chessmaster 8k when you played their bots, there was an option to see what opening line you were in move by move as you were playing the bot. So you could tell immediately when you’ve strayed in the opening, and depending on what you wanted, you could take back and play through the correct line without the extra overhead of concluding the game and opening up an analysis/opening explorer window. This really helped me get the feel for playing a bunch of openings correctly, at least for 7-10 moves, plus I got to see the official names of some of the crazy variations I may have stumbled into. I don’t know if contemporary offline engines have this feature these days or if you can turn it on against chess.com bots, but if there’s an emulated chessmaster 8k floating around, I’d gladly play with it again.
I agree, and this is something quite unusual about chess compared to other games and sports. The game that you see the best players playing on Twitch and a lot of the online tournaments (blitz basically, with some rare rapid) is a completely different training regimen and almost a completely different game than the one you should play to get better.
Wouldn’t it be weird if NFL quarterbacks played televised games with one hand tied behind their back, but all the training that led up to that was secretly done with two hands? Odd
Depends what you mean by avoid opening theory. I guess if you’re referring to avoiding memorizing a specific opening move by move, then sure. But fundamental rules such as controlling the center and developing your pieces are examples of opening theory too, just more generalized. Avoiding those would be bad imo
I have mixed feelings regarding the engine. It is very useful for finding moves that people like myself do not have the capacity to find yet but it also acts like a computer. So sometimes the best move according to Stockfish is incredibly unintuitive. I think you need to be able to see the difference. A simple example.
White to move
It’s obviously a shit situation for white with the queen pinned to the king. IMO, the move you’ll see most people play (especially beginners like me) is Bd2 even though it’s clearly not the best move as a pawn and knight already defend c3 square. However, Bd2 appears intuitive because it blocks a direct line of attack to the king. The post-game review on chess.com has Bg5 as the best move though. Here is the sequence of moves that comes after that in their engine:
13 Bg5 a6
14 Na3 Qd4
15 Rc1 e4
16 Bxf6 gxf6
17 h3 Be6
18 dxe4 Qxe4
19 Bxe2 Bxc3+
This sequence of moves is from a world that doesn’t exist. I don’t think grandmasters even take this line. It is completely useless information because nobody is waiting 7 moves after pinning a queen to take it.
Not only that, but you get nothing close to this line if you manually run the game through the analysis on chess.com. The top three lines are basically splitting hairs in terms of advantage (.09 points separate the top and 3rd best line) and the latest those lines wait to take the queen is move 14.
And the top engine move for white according to it? h3.
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Yes, this is what I mean exactly. People under around 1000, IMO, don’t benefit that much from intense study of opening theory (set ups and traps) and should be able to get by with just good opening principles. I should caveat that it’s perfectly reasonable to study opening theory just for the fun of it, I just think that for long term improvement it’s not the best use of time for people under 1000. But I feel bad for people that are stuck at 950 with 400 hours of YouTube opening trap videos under their belts. Just doing Puzzle Rush instead every day will get you over 1000 faster.
The Chess Dojo program I’m following doesn’t “allow” students to study opening theory until 1800 FIDE. A student of one of the main coaches just hit 2000 rapid on chess.com with zero theory under his belt.
I post on r/chessbeginners a bit, I had a comment the other day on playing the Sicilian as a beginner which sums up my thoughts on openings for beginners, top voted comment here.
One thing that is a pet hate of mine is when people are like OPENINGS DON’T MATTER FOR BEGINNERS, therefore it is forbidden to play the Sicilian, and direct beginners into 1. e4 e5 lines, where frequently they end up in closed and boring lines of the Italian or Ruy where they have no idea what to do. If openings don’t matter for beginners (which they don’t) then that cuts both ways. It means it’s fine to play offbeat stuff if it sticks to general principles like contesting the center.
TFW when you blunder early and your opponent resigns despite being up in the game
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I agree that this is a misapplication of the idea that opening theory doesn’t matter for beginners. There’s nothing wrong with playing the Sicilian as a beginner because c5 is actually a very principled response to e4. The point of “openings don’t matter for beginners” is that it’s a bad idea for a beginner to memorize best theory in all the Sicilian sidelines before developing more foundational skills like tactical awareness. But that doesn’t mean you can’t play c5.
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Nepo has played several hard to find engine-accuracy moves in a row to gain what should have been a decisive advantage and a two point lead with two to play, then several horrible rushed moves to achieve a losing position.
yes, his prep work with engines/early play I’d say the best of anyone in chess
after that not so much; sometimes it’s yikes like today what a choke.
who has the adv if it goes to rapid?