Chess games

2.Bc4 can be a very tough nut to crack sometimes. Dead positions and such. I mean, it's incredibly unambitious for white and plays for a draw at best, but at the same time it doesn't give black too much play either, maybe in the endgame he wins if white isn't accurate.
Though I've actually found I'm starting to enjoy the endgame in general a lot more.

You're right about blitz; you could play 1000 games and still not improve simply because you're repeating the same mistakes and not learning (that's not to say you can't learn from blitz though). Long, stressful, nervy games with loads of thinking is the best way to improve XD.

I can't wait to try to join a team at Warwick, will be awesome to play in some OTB tournaments with long time controls etc. .

Emulating his kind of thought process takes practice, but it's a good guideline.

Yeah you feel black should have a nice endgame with the pleasant pawn structure (and often the bishop pair advantage if the light square bishop trades itself for a knight) but it's nowhere near as sharp as a standard Dragon or Najdorf, and hence, even if those positions are far better options for white, there's less opportunity to play aggressively. For me the simplicity of the endgame is rather nice. Some of the most enjoyable parts of chess involve nursing a reasonable endgame advantage to a totally won position. (Being on the receiving end of such a squeeze is less fun). Still, my theory needs a lot of brushing up...I've looked at some of the key endgame situations but forgotten everything, of course.

Try well over 2000 games in my case. Warwick also go to the London Chess Classic for the open section (I opted out last year, I can't remember what stopped me from going lol) which would be an experience.

I've only recently started liking the quiet positions more because of Silman's lessons which taught me a bit about strangling your opponent by completing destroying his counterplay and then only playing unopposed (in the style of Capablanca etc.). Really starting to like that style of play as opposed to tactical races and very open games.
And yeah I'm growing fond of the challenge of Carlsen-style grinding a slightly better endgame to a win, the endgame is so much richer than I thought it was.

Wow Warwick chess seems to be really involved in stuff (makes me feel slightly better about missing Cambridge lol), I'll probably go to the LCC if I can.

Everyone please take your time to mourn over the loss of OP
She got banned from TSR

I've been through a lot of them now. Very interesting stuff, though to be honest I found myself clicking the hint basically all the time.
Pfft, Carlsen grinds slightly worse endgames to a win.

Yeah they're a good society; from what I've heard Cambridge and Imperial aren't bad either though.

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Anyone got some advice on good ways to improve?

How good are you already?

Not particularly. Was around 1100 on chess.com last time I went on (though that was admittedly a while ago). Would like to improve though.

Well improving your tactics is a fairly simple affair I think. It is simply about pattern recognition, it's about constant repetition of the same themes. Puzzles on chess.com (you have to pay to do lots of them though) or lichess, or chess tempo (these might be the best bet - free, and less harsh if you don't find the absolute best continuation) for instance are really good for this, although they can be misleading with regards to your actual chess ability, as in a real chess game you might not know when exactly to look for tactics. Otherwise, any chess coach will say that nothing is better for your ability than playing long (i.e. 90 minutes to 2 hours for each player) games, and really thinking about your moves.

I've also found looking at great games, often through youtube channels like Kingscrusher's where a strong player will analyse them, to be insightful, though how much it's bled into my own, rather weak, as a function of time played, game is questionable. As Irrational Root has said Chess Network has some really good stuff as well (his beginner to chess master series he's doing at the mo has some really nice stuff, but can be a bit slow and rudimentary at points).

Cheers. I'll look up chess tempo, network and Kingcrusher.

Yeah I do tend to play short-timed games when I play online - damn impatience.

Same; I rarely follow the advice, though I know I should. I don't think it's a black or white (no pun intended) thing though - playing proper long games is probably best, but playing, say, 15|10 instead of 3|0 gives you so much more time to think. And then playing 45|45 gives you so much more time to think than that, and so on (up to the standard classical time control, 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30|30 for the remainder, IIRC). I think blitz - that is, around the 3 minute to 10 minute mark - is the absolute limit for improving your chess at all. Bullet is so fast that it ceases to feel like chess half the time and you will mainly pick up on cheeky time burning tricks and fast mouse movement.

Check out this solid advertisement for 2. Bc4 An average centipawn loss of 0 for me.

https://www.chess.com/live/game/1706692071

How do you play chess?