First Comment!!! Woot!!!

XD kidding.

hello

anyone here?

i am now

hellooooooooooooo

hi

how's it going?

pretty good, i thought it was dead in here

still is kinda dead... oh well

yeah, so you play chess online

yes

where

i play on the ICC

i'm too cheap for an account there

so FICS and chesscube

used to play on gameknot too, but that was just too much time

it was expensive, but it was worth it

I have played on FICS

ok that's good

not chesscube

are u rated

chesscube is nice, they did a good job, but not that many strong players

yes, USCF 2100

nice, I'm don't think I am that good

I usually end up getting distracted and make one big blunder

do you play OTB at all?

yes

rated?

haven't had too much time though especially with 2 young kids

yeah i bet

not rated

i probably would rate around -2100

the only real OTB chess I've been doing in the last year and a half is at a club near my house

lol

just Wed. nights there

haha

i've been watching Dan Heisman videos on ICC. They are very good

ok

i have a ton of books also, but haven't had a chance to dig into them much

I did read Bobby Fischer teaches chess way back and that was an excellent beginner book

oh ok, any favorites from what you have read?

logical chess move by move is one of my favs

i like stuff by silman

yes i read Reassess Your Chess a while ago

i think there is a book called every move explained by nunn which I liked

I usually find the best way to improve is to just play

yes, that will get you a long way

especially if you analyze the games afterwards

that is something I never do, how do you go about it?

best bet would be to just go over the game and see where you went wrong

(win or lose)

if you have database software, it's nice to look up the opening

find some of the common ideas and plans

i usually find that online

although now you could also just post a question on this site

yeah, that works

it's also nice, after you've gone over the game on your own, to get help from a stronger player

or use a chess engine to find blunders

i was using stockfish

that's perfect

just don't use stockfish until after you've gone over the game without the engine

you learn more that way IMO

what is e4 e5 Nf3 d6

actually that would probably be a good question on this site too, "How do I analyze my game after playing?"

i have had that played against me a lot for some reason

e4 e5 Nf3 d6 is the phildor defense

i always just continue with Nc3 as white

but never knew what it was

that's a good move

you can also play d4 if you want to try to get a large center

for a while i was playing the ruy lopez every chance I got. Now I just try to stick to the fundamentals first and not think to much about what opening

I have however found out that the Smith Mora Gambit is very effective in neutralizing the Scilian

what is your ICC rating?

it depends on the time frame

i am very bad at speed chess

but if it is like 15 minutes, i have been as high as 1500, but its gone down

ok

then yeah, just develop normally

and play chess

Morra gambit is a ton of fun - Quality Chess has a book coming out this summer on the Morra

I usually give a challenge when I take my time and look at the whole board. I have lost a major piece so many times because I failed to see my opponents attacking piece on the other side of the board

Do you have a favorite GM?

haha not really

i am partial to Carlsen only because I am partial Norwegian

oh nice

he plays really really well

he probably will be in the championship next year

i mean obviously, he's a GM, but he also plays so well positionally

his games are worth studying if you want to learn positional chess

Who do you think will win between Boris and Anand?

Anand should win easily if he doesn't screw it up

isn't it like a few days away

yeah

What are your thoughts on Fischer?

great chess player, lousy person i guess

yeah don't know what happened with him, he just went crazy

i did read in the book "The Immortal Game" that a lot of chess players go crazy

i saw your post about f3 being the worst move

oh yes

as a beginner, do I just continue with e5 or is there something else I should do as black against f3

don't get me wrong, a4 and h4 are really lousy too

i know, i usually just stick to e4, e5, d4, d5 or c5

yes, e5 should be fine for black

there's nothing that is absolutely crushing immediately

but black is better instantly with any normal move

sometimes those unorthodox moves such as f3 can actually throw me off because I think the other player has something up their sleeves

e5 clears the path for the queen to come to h4 with check which can be useful

sometimes there are tricks, just go slow and look for traps and you should be ok

unless your opponent has a huge lead in development, you won't really get into trouble early on

the more I play, the more I see how valuable it is to be ahead in material and have more pawns

i never like to give up pawns

for some reason

what would you say is a good opening repitoire for white and black?

depends on what you want to do

if you want to improve, stick with e4 as white

and play e5 and d5 as black

what about after the e4 e5 move?

either the ruy lopez or the italian game

both are equally good

hence probably why i played the ruy lopez