Chess - anyone here keen ?

I used to play chess at school in the mid-late 1970s. My maths teacher at the time started a school chess club and a few of us joined as it got us out of doing home economics. I do still like to play but I much prefer Backgammon, unfortunately the wife doesn't enjoy board games so I don't play as often as I would like. 

Yes. I love a game. With wine sounds nice. Have been playing for years now.   Have a few chess games on the iPad, but can not for the life of me get beyond level 3 or 4. When it comes to strategic placement from the start towards the middle game I always struggle to get it just so. Many times I have studied the complexities to get me further, but it never comes together. Perhaps with another human instead of a computer I might reach a further level.  

Like DBS-AL, I got into chess while at senior school, and played for the school team.  I've loved the logic, tactical play and complexity of the thing. I remember following the Fischer/Spassky world championship in the early seventies which seems to capture the media's attention at the time as being a super-power v superpower contest.  With friends we spent sometime studying some of their games hoping to learn something.  I spent a while learning and trying to master a few standard openings and defence games.  When I left sixth form I lost contact with the friends who also liked chess.  Wife and other friends weren't interested. I discovered the early computer chess games and later chess programmes and while I dabbled and tried to re-learn what I knew as a teenager somehow the magic never returned.  Playing a machine just isn't the same or as good as playing person.  Maybe one day I'll have another go, but it won't be against a computer.        

I used to love playing chess and was a school champion.  Played every day without fail for many years through my teens and twenties  but I haven't played a game in probably a decade now.  I taught my sons how to play when they were young but they don't really have much interest sadly. 

I played when I was younger (up to about 10), then pretty much gave up until my younger daughter, 11, showed an interest. We both got the ChessKid app which means we can play against each other via wifi which is quite fun...

TOBYJUG posted:

Yes. I love a game. With wine sounds nice. Have been playing for years now.   Have a few chess games on the iPad, but can not for the life of me get beyond level 3 or 4. When it comes to strategic placement from the start towards the middle game I always struggle to get it just so. Many times I have studied the complexities to get me further, but it never comes together. Perhaps with another human instead of a computer I might reach a further level.  

A great site you should investigate Toby is Lei chess.Its free to join and you can play against the computer,do tactical training and of cause play against other people on line.

Computer chess is a good training resource but computers always seem very materialistic in their programming,while a human player might sacrifice a piece or pawn to get a better position.

Yeah its a great game - but one you have to really study and play alot for it to sink in

Nobody made a joke about Andrew Lloyd-Webber yet?

I used to be school chess champion, after winning 3 years in a row, it was decided by the school I could only enter for a fourth year if I agreed to playing without the use of a queen.

Only managed the semi-final, with this restriction.

Not played seriously  since leaving school, nearly 40 years ago....

at least I ended on a high....

I used to be in the school chess team too, can't say I was really that good, but I did rather fancy one of the girls in the team squad which I suspect was more my motivation....

Used to play regularly in both school and later a club until 20years ago, these days I only enjoy the main events involving Magnus on "Chessbomb.com" 

There was someone on this Forum who had a 2300 rating (a German?). That's pretty strong. 

There are plenty of sites to play rapid chess. It's good for the adrenaline buzz. The young can get quite addicted. Much more fun than computers who work on brute force and often find the hard way to do things.

Regular time limit chess is hard work and needs constant effort.

Snubbing posted:

Used to play regularly in both school and later a club until 20years ago, these days I only enjoy the main events involving Magnus on "Chessbomb.com" 

Yeah I dip into chessbomb when a big tournament is on .Its amazing when they mark the moves with Stockfish the computer engine where blue is optimal and red is a blunder- the majority are optimal  as you would expect from the G.M 's

Great to see Garry Kasporov return to playing at the top level again.

His performance has been respectable at the St Louis blitz championship,but was getting into severe time problems

My father taught me the game of chess, in infancy school chess was played in recreation time. I like the thinking which went in chess, I would imagine the 'cold war' was fought in the same manner.  I myself was not very good in chess, my rare victories usually involved in sacrificing a valuable piece (the red herring), hopefully drawing the player into the trap and then check mate.

I was an avid chess player from age 9 until my mid 20's. I stopped playing when my computer had an ELO 2x mine. It just became pointless as I could never win. Now my iPhone has an ELO > 3,000 which is higher than any human in history.

Now I play chess on my phone but I have changed the rules. I only play white, I take back multiple moves once it is apparent the computer has gained significant advantage, and I take the computers "best move" into consideration [I try to figure out why it thinks a move is better than my plan]. These games often take weeks to finish as I'm backtracking so often. Even with this approach... I've only won 1 or 2 games in the past 5 or so years.

Maybe playing against other people would be more fun.

Tabby cat posted:

Any keen players on the forum ?

I learned the game from my father when I was 10 and played occasionally with friends.It was threw a work colleague who was on a correspondence chess site and challenged me to a game that really got me into chess alot more.This was 10 years ago and now go to my local chess club and follow Grand master tournaments on YouTube.Also play live game's on the internet - chess.com is a great site for this.

What I love about the game it's always difearant and the way the pieces move.Compared to computer games when everything is a virtual world.Chess for me has a calm simple majesty about it but goes so deep when you get complex positions on the board.I like the fact you have to use your imagination to visualise positions during a games.Have a good understanding of openings now and tactical shots but am still very slowly improving.

Always nice having a game with a mate with the audio on and a nice bottle of wine - the simple things in life !

I play on Gameknot - great site with loads of playing options. Strongly recommend it. But it is very addictive. Beware ...

Learned it as a child from a neighbor. However haven't played for years. A pity....

ynwa250505 posted:

Tabby cat posted:

Any keen players on the forum ?

I learned the game from my father when I was 10 and played occasionally with friends.It was threw a work colleague who was on a correspondence chess site and challenged me to a game that really got me into chess alot more.This was 10 years ago and now go to my local chess club and follow Grand master tournaments on YouTube.Also play live game's on the internet - chess.com is a great site for this.

What I love about the game it's always difearant and the way the pieces move.Compared to computer games when everything is a virtual world.Chess for me has a calm simple majesty about it but goes so deep when you get complex positions on the board.I like the fact you have to use your imagination to visualise positions during a games.Have a good understanding of openings now and tactical shots but am still very slowly improving.

Always nice having a game with a mate with the audio on and a nice bottle of wine - the simple things in life !

I play on Gameknot - great site with loads of playing options. Strongly recommend it. But it is very addictive. Beware ...

Ynwa,

I am also on gameknot agree great site.I really love their chess tactics excercises and currently 1820 -some of them are so fiendishly tricky but doing them pretty regularly has sharpened my game.

Do you play live games on chess.com ?

Chess 24 is a great channel on YouTube.