I missed a smothered mate and then blundered check mate

... because most people even up to 1200 don't know their endgames. They are used to opponents resigning quite early if they are behind.

I blundered the queen early and my pieces got picked off one by one. In the end I was cornered but the opponent for some reason did not see the obvious checkmate Qg7 and instead moved the knight (to be honest, it seems extremely obvious now in this screenshot but I also did not see it in the game lol). Then it was my time to shine, Rf1 and the opponent is forced to take it, resulting in a draw.

As long as you can find the initial move you can pat yourself on the back.

There are a plethora of ways White can sacrifice their flesh to save their bone here, as well as for Black to punish them, but I'll leave you with one core variation to gawk at.

1...Be1! 2.Kh2 Rf1 (threatening Qg1#) 3. Qd4 Qxd4 4.Rxd4 Bg3+!! 5.Kxg3 Rxa1

I’m just starting out my Chess journey and was really curious on this one.

I'm looking to coach a few kindergarten-12th grade students free over the next few weeks to help them improve If you or they are willing to practice between lessons, leave a comment with your rating and what you'd like to improve. I am 1900+ uscf

I'll contact interested people by DM with the lesson details.

A little kid challenged me to play chess. I accepted the challenge. I wanna beat kids! I mean at chess. Anyway, he defeated me once and I beat him twice. I took a picture from one of our games. When I asked about his rating, he said around 1600-ish.

Kids these days are scary...🗿

Besides playing as much as possible of course! Any tips or comments on whether I'm delusional will also be appreciated lol - my elo currently stands at a mere 400 on Chess.com...

I think he wanted to trade knights which is what he took. But oh man

It's my first game with 0 mistake according to Lichess

I’m so proud and happy

Let's look at why a move the engine evaluates as perfectly fine can be complete strategic disaster for a human player.
(Black to move)

Engines today can easily tell you the absolute best move, and give you perfect evaluation in almost any position.

Let's look at this classic position from a Vasily Smyslov game.

The Engine's Verdict:

• The absolute best move is ...Bd7 (Evaluation: +0.3 for White).
• The second-best move is ...Bc4 (Evaluation: +0.6 for White).

If you play ...Bc4 and run a Game Review on Chess.com, it will likely give you a green "Good Move" icon. Why? Because the evaluation only dropped by 0.3. From the engine's perspective, it's a perfectly acceptable secondary option.

The Human Reality:
Here is what the engine doesn't tell you: playing ...Bc4 is a grave strategic error for a human.

By playing ...Bc4, Black willingly gives up the defender of the critical d5 square. Stockfish evaluates this at +0.6 because it can play perfectly and meticulously defend the resulting weakness perfectly for the rest of the game.

But you are not Stockfish. When Smyslov's opponent played this in the actual game, things spiraled out of control. A human who gives up the d5 square like this is going to get positionally crushed by their skilled opponent.

The resulting position:

Post giving up the light squared bishop with 1...Bc4, 2. Bxc4-Qxc4, white went for the next defender of the d5 square, the f6-knight. And played 3.Bg5 with clear intention of exchanging the f6-knight.
And the resulting position was a good knight (on c3) vs a bad bishop (on f6), with the knight getting an unchallenged outpost on d5.

The Takeaway:

Engine powered game reviews are programmed mathematically. It sees a minor evaluation drop and says, "Good move!" It does not factor in how difficult the position just became for a human to play. Don't just look at the green checkmarks. Look at the strategic changes on the board.
Did you just give up the defender of a key square? Did you allow a knight outpost? If a move is mathematically fine but strategically impossible for you to defend, it's a bad move for you.

Note: The positional breakdown of this game is based on Jeremy Silman's classic analysis in his book, The Amateur's Mind.

After escaping the 700 purgatory two months ago, making the jump from 800 to 900 felt a lot easier

Just hit 1300 today, now I'm logging off for the day to not tank any points😁😁😁

I've been playing on Chess.com for about a year and have played around 7,500 games. My current ratings are 1558 Bullet, 1323 Rapid, and 1299 Blitz(Also my peak ratings are 1307 Blitz, 1338 Rapid, 1724 Bullet). I mainly want to improve my Rapid rating and eventually reach 1600–1800. With Black, against 1.e4 I almost always play the Scandinavian Defense, and against 1.d4 I usually just play a simple setup . With White, I mostly play either the Scotch Game or the Italian Game. I don't really have a structured study routine , I mostly play games and analyze some of them afterward. What should I focus on to improve? Should I spend more time on tactics, endgames, opening theory, or game analysis? Are my opening choices good enough for long-term improvement, or would you recommend switching to something else? Any advice, study plan, or resources for someone around the 1300 Rapid level would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone (Don't mind my bs name) I am completely new or to be exact I got interested in chess 3 days ago because half of my classmates in my school know how to play chess, and I got curious on what is so interesting abt chess, because man, seeing them laughing to each others blunder, mistakes and js genuinely having fun also makes me wanna play chess too. So, I decided to play chess too, not only because I saw my classmates and friends having fun, but also to be able to do a fast decision, pattern recognition, and tactical mind because I believe that the skills that I'll be able to pick up in chess will be able to help me irl and also to have an interesting hobby other than doom scrolling on tt. So please help me guys... I want to build a solid foundation. If you had to design the perfect 30-to-60-minute daily training session for a beginner, what specific exercises or habits should I focus on? (e.g., puzzles, playing formats, analyzing games, or videos). Thanks!