Chess games

Original post by IrrationalRoot

I think he is 112 officially: http://www.oxfordfusion.com/oca/GetPlayerResults.cfm?pID=7723. There are a lot of different levels, you're right. It's probably to do with different strengths etc. So (not trying to brag here) in my game I played the opening and majority of the middlegame in virtually perfect accordance with the computer, suggesting I'm much better than the 1400-1500 FIDE level, but then the fact that I struggled to nicely convert the crushing positional advantage shows that I'm still not quite, say, 1700-1800 (I'd imagine such players would be able to finish a game more cleanly).

I was a bit worried that playing online is unproductive compared to OTB; that seems the be the general consensus. I don't really know why though, considering that you could take the same approach to online games as OTB games. But yeah I've found that OTB is both much more enjoyable and productive. I'd like to play more than every other day (lol) but for now I think it's good.

Hmm I guess the analogue for me is that my openings are average to mediocre (I tend not to think enough in them), my endgames (well, mainly the more common rook and pawn - for some reason I find myself playing much more accurately in minor piece endings) are pretty poor, while I play quite well in the middlegame. Additionally my strategic understanding is rather dependent on opening - although this may be less true for long games, I suppose. Certainly I floundered around on Saturday for instance when playing lines I hadn't seen before, i.e. I'm not good at planning unless I have a basic idea in place of what sort of thing I should generally be aiming for. But maybe I would be better with more time to think. Certainly yesterday's game was move-by-move thinking a lot of the time, but in such positions that isn't too much of a negative, and I always was considering things like square control and piece placement.

Well on the computer it's a lot easier to detach yourself from the process more. Moving the pieces yourself gives extra weight to your decisions. I don't feel that stupid when I blunder a pawn or whatever just moving a cursor on a screen, but if I do it OTB it is a much more visceral feeling lol. So I take more care and pay more attention.

Reply 1102

@IrrationalRoot Those FIDE masters blunder a lot eh.

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Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

@IrrationalRoot Those FIDE masters blunder a lot eh.

a blunder can be a trap you know 13??

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Original post by john2054

a blunder can be a trap you know 13??

Of course...but not in the context I am referring to

Reply 1105

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

Of course...but not in the context I am referring to

how do you know? how do you know what is in a master's mind when he makes a move?

Reply 1106

Original post by john2054

how do you know? how do you know what is in a master's mind when he makes a move?

lol perhaps I should not have made this comment on a public forum (it was in reference to something very specific).

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Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

lol perhaps I should not have made this comment on a public forum (it was in reference to something very specific).

okay dokey. i just got accepted for a personal loan you know?

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Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

@IrrationalRoot Those FIDE masters blunder a lot eh.

Ikr, I can't believe I won. It wasn't due to good play on my part that's for sure lol. Amazingly enough I did manage to remember almost the whole game; the computer actually thinks my dodgy opening was completely accurate until I started to doubt myself and try to lock up the queenside. Then there were a couple of shaky moves with the masters clearly not on the same page with their hack attack XD. Then they started to make a lot of mistakes and allowed e5, which allowed me to win the game with some decent moves (and some more blunders from them lol).
Also they used so much time... when they resigned they had 10 seconds left.

Here's as far as I could remember: https://en.lichess.org/Nj0HnVSz#0
After this there was some shuffling from both sides for a few moves, then I got in f4 and infiltrated with the queen, at which point one of the masters said 'this is won now' which might've been a joke, I'm not sure lol. Soon won a bishop with a skewer and they resigned.

But I have to make it clear that if I played one of them in a serious game I would certainly get walloped.

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@13 1 20 8 42

We missed a lot of things in our game: https://en.lichess.org/Ldzner8O
Including 19.Bc4 trapping the queen lol. Hopefully our next game will be less blunderful XD.

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Original post by IrrationalRoot

@13 1 20 8 42

We missed a lot of things in our game: https://en.lichess.org/Ldzner8O
Including 19.Bc4 trapping the queen lol. Hopefully our next game will be less blunderful XD.

I'd had a few pints, what can I say..
b4 would have killed me instead of c3 lol

Reply 1111

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

I'd had a few pints, what can I say..
b4 would have killed me instead of c3 lol

13 if you or anyone else is up for another friendly, let me know okay?

John.

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Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

I'd had a few pints, what can I say..
b4 would have killed me instead of c3 lol

Ffs, online blitz battle between Carlsen and Nakamura is the exact same time as chess clubnight next week, which means I have to choose between the two. On top of that, I have a supervision from 12-1 and the Anish Giri thing is 12-3. I can't believe how these times have worked out. If it was a lecture I'd easily be able to skip it (I'm skipping almost all of them now anyway lol) but it had to be a supervision.
Idk what to do :frown:

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Original post by IrrationalRoot

Ffs, online blitz battle between Carlsen and Nakamura is the exact same time as chess clubnight next week, which means I have to choose between the two. On top of that, I have a supervision from 12-1 and the Anish Giri thing is 12-3. I can't believe how these times have worked out. If it was a lecture I'd easily be able to skip it (I'm skipping almost all of them now anyway lol) but it had to be a supervision.
Idk what to do :frown:

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y r you skipping lectures? do you want to fail your first year??

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Original post by john2054

y r you skipping lectures? do you want to fail your first year??

to be fair I skipped essentially the entirety of two modules' lectures, along with the vast majority of lectures in several others, especially in term 2, and got 86% in my first year, and he is doing the same course as me so... the thing about the course is that the lecture notes available tend to be comprehensive and of good quality, so in most modules you do not really need more than them, along with past papers, to do well in exams. In addition a few modules are basically revision of A-level material, and one can do well in them with little preparation.

Original post by IrrationalRoot

Ffs, online blitz battle between Carlsen and Nakamura is the exact same time as chess clubnight next week, which means I have to choose between the two. On top of that, I have a supervision from 12-1 and the Anish Giri thing is 12-3. I can't believe how these times have worked out. If it was a lecture I'd easily be able to skip it (I'm skipping almost all of them now anyway lol) but it had to be a supervision.
Idk what to do :frown:

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You don't have to go to your supervision tbh. I mean, it might annoy your supervisor, but not much will come of it. One guy in my supervision group barely turned up at all and hardly got reprimanded in any official sense as far as I heard. I didn't realise that the Carlsen thing was on at that time; damn, to see it I have to miss pool and chess. But those are weekly, and the battle is not, so I might just stay home and watch it..

Reply 1115

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

to be fair I skipped essentially the entirety of two modules' lectures, along with the vast majority of lectures in several others, especially in term 2, and got 86% in my first year, and he is doing the same course as me so... the thing about the course is that the lecture notes available tend to be comprehensive and of good quality, so in most modules you do not really need more than them, along with past papers, to do well in exams. In addition a few modules are basically revision of A-level material, and one can do well in them with little preparation.

You don't have to go to your supervision tbh. I mean, it might annoy your supervisor, but not much will come of it. One guy in my supervision group barely turned up at all and hardly got reprimanded in any official sense as far as I heard. I didn't realise that the Carlsen thing was on at that time; damn, to see it I have to miss pool and chess. But those are weekly, and the battle is not, so I might just stay home and watch it..

I really want to skip the supervision but my supervisor is already terrible as is (I lose so many clarity marks for absolutely ridiculously reasons; once I lost 3 marks for showing my working), so annoying him wouldn't be a good idea. Also I have no idea what reason I'd give when he asks where I'd been. Also I want to get that analysis assignment back (but I've probably dropped like 7 marks again for absurd 'clarity' issues). I've basically given up on trying to get good marks on the assignments though.

But yeah playing against Anish Giri is a once in a lifetime opportunity; really not something I want to miss. I'm wondering if maybe I can join after my supervision finishes (at 1) so that I might be in time for the simul?

I'm gonna stay home for the match too; it's annoying that I have to miss one of the few opportunities I get to play OTB but I can't miss such a great match.

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Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

to be fair I skipped essentially the entirety of two modules' lectures, along with the vast majority of lectures in several others, especially in term 2, and got 86% in my first year, and he is doing the same course as me so... the thing about the course is that the lecture notes available tend to be comprehensive and of good quality, so in most modules you do not really need more than them, along with past papers, to do well in exams. In addition a few modules are basically revision of A-level material, and one can do well in them with little preparation.

You don't have to go to your supervision tbh. I mean, it might annoy your supervisor, but not much will come of it. One guy in my supervision group barely turned up at all and hardly got reprimanded in any official sense as far as I heard. I didn't realise that the Carlsen thing was on at that time; damn, to see it I have to miss pool and chess. But those are weekly, and the battle is not, so I might just stay home and watch it..

Please don't follow this bad advice. We pay a lot now for tuition fees, actually a hell of a lot more now, than when i first started. And do you really think that we tell our undergraduates not to attend lectures, because they can scab the notes on the sly? Come on m8, please come on!

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 1117

Original post by john2054

Please don't follow this bad advice. We pay a lot now for tuition fees, actually a hell of a lot more now, than when i first started. And do you really think that we tell our undergraduates not to attend lectures, because they can scab the notes on the sly? Come on m8, please come on!

I am sure it is terrible advice in general, i.e. for many courses. However, in this particular course, a great deal of the lectures are pretty useless. I think lectures in general are a pretty bad and outdated method of teaching which universities use purely because they can, it being, of course, rather cost-efficient, rather than due to any particular merits. In lots of courses you will still need to go to them to avoid missing something important, but in this specific case, you will rarely miss something important. Yes, you are paying a lot (although "paying" is misleading; it's highly possibly you won't end up paying it back, hell if you got a low paying enough job you could never pay any of it back), but that is not just for the lectures anyway.

Reply 1118

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

I am sure it is terrible advice in general, i.e. for many courses. However, in this particular course, a great deal of the lectures are pretty useless. I think lectures in general are a pretty bad and outdated method of teaching which universities use purely because they can, it being, of course, rather cost-efficient, rather than due to any particular merits. In lots of courses you will still need to go to them to avoid missing something important, but in this specific case, you will rarely miss something important. Yes, you are paying a lot (although "paying" is misleading; it's highly possibly you won't end up paying it back, hell if you got a low paying enough job you could never pay any of it back), but that is not just for the lectures anyway.

Granted, but on my degree, we also had seminar groups,videos and live workshops to spice things up a bit. We even went out on a day trip. True, things could be done differently, and i don't dispute the fact that some of your work can be done from home, but my university certainly clamped down on people who missed more than three lectures. And they were getting quite strict by the end. I don't remember what uni you attend, but it is pretty disgusting really if they let people get away with skipping more than this, given that some of ourselves forced ourselves in to class, rain and snow!!!

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