Chess and the site in general

For discussion pertaining to Chess, Net-Chess, or general interests.
Post Reply
iamachessstudent
Posts: 380
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 1:35 pm

Chess and the site in general

Post by iamachessstudent » Tue Nov 27, 2012 1:03 pm

Hey all :)

I have been following all the posts and rants and things going on in the forum for a month now...and to be honest, Im worried...
Chess is suppose to be a competitive art, not fighitng, arguing , fights with the admin no matter if correct or not...I know for myself its pretty messed up to see post after post of everything BUT CHESS in a CHESS FORUM?!! WTF

I have met great people on here, and love , totally LOVE the games with trhem! Win lose or draw, we talk, we enjoy we barb and its the BEST feeling ever :) you all know who u are : )
but I have been, honestly, looking for other sites becasue of the turmoil and discontent in this forum and among players as well...
We dont have to all love the other, get along and have dinner together BUT Chess is a RESPECTFUL game/art so lets SHOW that respect in our games and in forums!
I try and speak and talk to all my opponents, and there are some language barriers and some ppl dont like to talk and thats fine, but i give every1 a chance..and I want to ENJOY the site, the games and the people at this site!

LEts try and look at all this through another perspective, newcomers to this site, they read the forum and id be scared to death! we talk bout weather hockey, political, and other crap thats is SO FAR from CHESS its really kinda sad.1
I know i have tried before to anotate games and share with the forum, but i received NO encouragement or participation, but let someone post a lil funny cartoon or a sport or even and WOW look at all the people that respond and ya im a tad bitter but so what?! I just let it go and dont do any posts anymore, becsause this forum and people dont want to discuss chess...I do have a nice group of 5-8 that message me and encourage but the majority pffft no care at all...

anyhow, bottom line i guess lets HA B FUN enjoy the others posts and barabs NOT get too personal or nasty...it really degreades the site and chases off ppl like me that want a CHESS site, not a Jersey fricking shore fiasco

Hope you all are enjoying your holidays and GOOD CHESS to all of you :)

Joshua

energy
Posts: 167
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 1999 7:05 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Chess and the site in general

Post by energy » Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:57 pm

Image
Nils

--
Consider donating some computer time to science!
Read more here: http://folding.stanford.edu

jumpnmustang
Posts: 42
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2003 3:43 pm

Re: Chess and the site in general

Post by jumpnmustang » Sun Dec 02, 2012 7:46 pm

I hope I am generally pleasant to play. For those of you that remember playing me.:-) I can only pay attention to certain posts cause it hurts my dyslexia to read a lot of craziness. I have noticed some things have been a little off lately. I think some of ya just need to let more things go rather than stick on them for months at a time. Believe it or not, it's unnecessary stress that leads to a lot of medical problems. Even problems you wouldn't expect to come from stress can be linked to stress. And the actually training of controlling or eliminating this stress helps you in all aspects of your life.

I know you are thinking, "What the hell is he talking about?!" Well, I have been here a while. I like you crazy people and I am a nurse. So it only makes me feel better to give a few people some free health and wellness advice from time to time. And showing compassion, respect, and tolerance even in times when you think you are being treated unfairly can be more productive than having a destructive attitude. And it can also benefit your general health in the long run. Remember.. Things you do to yourself now can effect your long term health later.

On the bright side (And because the subject I am replying to says chess and site in general in the title), is there anyone here who uses books and would like to announce certain lines they would like to learn? Or if there is a thread already on this subject can you raise it again? I am thinking maybe if there is a thread to find mutually beneficial training like this. I will give an example of what I mean:

I would like to have specific training and practice with several opening lines where I follow basic planning and advice and then have open options of discussing the positions that come out of the opening and subsequent endgame. A few of the openings I want to work on is the French Def where I am white and play any line from the two knights attack, or the Alekhine exchange lines, Ruy Lopez Alapin (wormald/worall) attack. As black some possibilities for me are the Sicilian Kan, and Benko Gambit pretty much every line. Of course that is not all of the ideas I want to do, but I want to keep it within a few for control. If we lets say had a common thread where we can arrange matches? Would this be something to pursue or is it a waste of time you think? I am trying to be pointed, but also make room for others to learn what they want. So I am thinking a thread or several threads where people can show interest and openly challenge. My thoughts are that we can do all the research we want just like regular correspondence. And I will expect basic computer analysis on the opening. So it is okay to place a tactical check on only opening moves which will be defined as up to and no further than who ever first connects their rooks. I will suggest that you use it as a tool to understand your position not make the move for you. If anyone needs clarification on this please ask because you don't learn anything from having an engine play for you and you can use it to your learning benefit. I have no problem with teaching someone or a few people how to do this if it gives me training partners in the end. I am approximately rated 1950-1980 USCF and I do have a small goal of breaking 2000 only because it's a goal I have had for 20 years. I would like to raise my goal after that to 2300 if possible. A few years ago I was about 1600 and never felt I had caught up to my strength in uschess, I feel like I am very accurate in my current rating which is the 1850-2050 range. I believe it is possible to be accurate in ratings within 200 points if you are active. (4-5 rated tournaments a year at least). I am telling strength for benefits of knowing who exactly I am and what I intend. It's not to weed out me only playing stronger or weaker opposition, it's a way for me to play all levels but to find common interest. IE: If I want to play a variation for white, I want to play someone who plays that variation for black. And on down the line. Strength is for evening out competition. It is just as unreasonable to only get interest from weaker players as it is to get it only from stronger players or players of equal strength. I am not here to teach or be taught. It's is a mutual discussion and debating is fine as long as it is constructive. (IE: Try to leave personal ego in your head and only submit disagreement in an attempt to prove or refute analysis.)

It's mostly a thought right now and I am open to ideas of how this should go and how to pass this around so people know about it. Maybe it's best to have a direct form where we link it to a thread and people can submit their desired opening and the list auto generated from a website where it lists the people that are accepting challenges based on an opening theme. (I have done this before when I was training for html 4.0 20 years ago hahah. Might be feasible to do it again for this purpose if the interest is high. Unless Greg wants to do it because he feels it would be a good addition..) Not really interested in a thematic tournament, mostly a controlled environment where you can negotiate who plays who based on interest of learning. The goal as I stated before is to understand the opening, be open to discuss the middle and endgame. Plans, tactics, strategies can be discussed including missed opportunities within the played game. The reason for the suggestion is a lot of people I know WANT to do something like this but they generally do not want to be on the losing side of an opening they would never play in real competition. So my suggestion is to give an opportunity to be in an opening they would play in real competition to give them the feel, and at the same time have someone to discuss with. Maybe if there is a particular game that is of special interest it can be posted to show others also in the spirit of learning.

This could be too much work for the gains so let me know what you all think.

Cheers,

Jesse

energy
Posts: 167
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 1999 7:05 pm
Location: Oslo, Norway
Contact:

Re: Chess and the site in general

Post by energy » Thu Dec 06, 2012 6:23 pm

jumpnmustang wrote: On the bright side (And because the subject I am replying to says chess and site in general in the title), is there anyone here who uses books and would like to announce certain lines they would like to learn? Or if there is a thread already on this subject can you raise it again? I am thinking maybe if there is a thread to find mutually beneficial training like this.
Yes, it probably would be useful to have a sub forum for thematic tournaments and related ideas.
jumpnmustang wrote: I would like to have specific training and practice with several opening lines where I follow basic planning and advice and then have open options of discussing the positions that come out of the opening and subsequent endgame. A few of the openings I want to work on is the French Def where I am white and play any line from the two knights attack, or the Alekhine exchange lines, Ruy Lopez Alapin (wormald/worall) attack. As black some possibilities for me are the Sicilian Kan, and Benko Gambit pretty much every line. Of course that is not all of the ideas I want to do, but I want to keep it within a few for control. If we lets say had a common thread where we can arrange matches? Would this be something to pursue or is it a waste of time you think?
The problem with these kind of things is to find enough players wanting to play the same openings. For example, of the openings mentioned, only Benko really interest me. Personally, a lot of the time I'd prefer to play only one side, which is not so easy to set up on this site. In the Benko case, I'd want to play only the white side.
jumpnmustang wrote:I am approximately rated 1950-1980 USCF and I do have a small goal of breaking 2000 only because it's a goal I have had for 20 years. I would like to raise my goal after that to 2300 if possible. A few years ago I was about 1600 and never felt I had caught up to my strength in uschess, I feel like I am very accurate in my current rating which is the 1850-2050 range. I believe it is possible to be accurate in ratings within 200 points if you are active. (4-5 rated tournaments a year at least). I am telling strength for benefits of knowing who exactly I am and what I intend. It's not to weed out me only playing stronger or weaker opposition, it's a way for me to play all levels but to find common interest. IE: If I want to play a variation for white, I want to play someone who plays that variation for black. And on down the line. Strength is for evening out competition. It is just as unreasonable to only get interest from weaker players as it is to get it only from stronger players or players of equal strength. I am not here to teach or be taught. It's is a mutual discussion and debating is fine as long as it is constructive. (IE: Try to leave personal ego in your head and only submit disagreement in an attempt to prove or refute analysis.)
I think to increase your playing strength, you need lots of OTB practice. Also, you learn a lot more from playing people on and above your own level, usually not those much below you. Although in thematics that can be compensated a little by the weaker player doing more preparation work. But it's very likely that even fewer people have time for that...
jumpnmustang wrote:It's mostly a thought right now and I am open to ideas of how this should go and how to pass this around so people know about it. Maybe it's best to have a direct form where we link it to a thread and people can submit their desired opening and the list auto generated from a website where it lists the people that are accepting challenges based on an opening theme. (I have done this before when I was training for html 4.0 20 years ago hahah. Might be feasible to do it again for this purpose if the interest is high.
Mluka has done something similar with his ladders site. I'm sure it's a lot of work, probably with little praise..

(Thanks, Mluka!)
jumpnmustang wrote:Unless Greg wants to do it because he feels it would be a good addition..) Not really interested in a thematic tournament, mostly a controlled environment where you can negotiate who plays who based on interest of learning. The goal as I stated before is to understand the opening, be open to discuss the middle and endgame. Plans, tactics, strategies can be discussed including missed opportunities within the played game. The reason for the suggestion is a lot of people I know WANT to do something like this but they generally do not want to be on the losing side of an opening they would never play in real competition. So my suggestion is to give an opportunity to be in an opening they would play in real competition to give them the feel, and at the same time have someone to discuss with. Maybe if there is a particular game that is of special interest it can be posted to show others also in the spirit of learning.
It sounds like a big job, so I'm not sure Greg would have the time or inclination to do it, but the suggestions forum is for these kind of things.
jumpnmustang wrote: This could be too much work for the gains so let me know what you all think.
I think "the Mluka way" is the only realistic chance for this to happen, and I wish you good luck if you try. I have my own idea that will also probably never happen until/unless I do it myself.
Nils

--
Consider donating some computer time to science!
Read more here: http://folding.stanford.edu

Post Reply