Leo, how on earth are you so good at Chess?

[integral]

@Leo Gura Game 6 is your most impressive game by far, the computer played solid until it made one insane move 23...e5 and self-destructed (a move no human would ever make). Overall your good at positional chess and thats rare for someone who played for less then 1 month. 

[Dodo]

11 minutes ago, integral said:

@Leo Gura Game 6 is your most impressive game by far, the computer played solid until it made one insane move 23...e5 and self-destructed (a move no human would ever make). Overall your good at positional chess and thats rare for someone who played for less then 1 month. 

He played fischer random for less than a month. And ye computers alwaays play engine moves and if its lower rated it will still do engine moves and then blunder on purpose, as if to say "i can beat you but here you go". Thaats why i dont like playing vss computer,  not natural gameplay 

[Consept]

Highest rating ive had is 1750 but I only do 3 min games really. Never tried the fischer random but let me know when youre ready @Leo Gura Id be up for a couple games 

[LambdaDelta]

I've been solving lots of Sudoku lately and found that it also improves my chess. The similarity in grid structure helps ln pattern recognition, particularly the rapid eye movements for quickly assessing the position. I've drastically reduced getting my pieces forked and other blunders. Getting burned by filling in a single wrong number and ending up redoing several of them later on has taught me to consider my moves more carefully and also check whether I can actually execute my preferred strategy before the opponent can prevent it, or I'll fall short and have to look for an alternative. Plus eliminating untenable continuations is basically the same principle in both. 

AlphaZero games have quickly become some of my favorite along with Nezhmetdinov, Tal, and Morphy. Good things can be learned from its play, such as prioritizing piece mobility over material advantage, suffocating the opponent's movement, and controlling long diagonals with adjacent bishops. After all, you need as few as 2 pieces for a checkmate, the rest are expendable. 

 

 

Next up is learning notation, which is a must for visualizing. I can calculate decently well, but quickly get lost without pointers like arrows, and have to start over. 

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, LambdaDelta said:

Good things can be learned from its play, such as prioritizing piece mobility over material advantage, suffocating the opponent's movement, and controlling long diagonals with adjacent bishops.

Very good.

[integral]

4 hours ago, LambdaDelta said:

I've been solving lots of Sudoku lately and found that it also improves my chess. The similarity in grid structure helps ln pattern recognition, particularly the rapid eye movements for quickly assessing the position. I've drastically reduced getting my pieces forked and other blunders.

On Chess.com you can play XXL chess. And the result is similar to what you're describing where when you play a couple of games it expands you vision when you switch back to regular chess.

Edited yesterday at 01:38 AM by integral

[trenton]

@Leo Gura good job improving at chess.

Have you considered playing games against yourself? I had some really cool games that way. I keep getting draws because my opponent is an equally powerful human who knows exactly what I'm thinking.

While doing this you can map out exactly how you think and then look for improvements in how you calculate and plan.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

Have you considered playing games against yourself?

Interesting idea. I have not tried. Seems too solipsistic. I have more fun against a bot.

[Buck Edwards]

Chess is so boring. No offense 

Edited yesterday at 04:22 AM by Buck Edwards

[Carl-Richard]

18 minutes ago, Buck Edwards said:

Chess is so boring. No offense 

What games do you play? 🤔

[Buck Edwards]

3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What games do you play? 🤔

Pool. 

[EternalForest]

On 1/3/2025 at 8:01 PM, Leo Gura said:

I expect that real elo rating is harder to maintain than beating a bot.

I am slowly working my way up to 2000-rated bots.

3 weeks ago I was struggling against 1500 rated bots. Now 1700 is pretty comfortable. Once I can beat 2000-rated bots then I will be ready to play some humans.

When the bot uprising comes, they will eat me last.

Yeah, real experienced players are way harder, at least on the lower levels. I can breeze through most of the free bots on chess.com but my ELO playing real players is 400 at best, which doesn't make much sense.

[TheEnigma]

On 1/3/2025 at 8:01 PM, Leo Gura said:

I expect that real elo rating is harder to maintain than beating a bot.

I am slowly working my way up to 2000-rated bots.

3 weeks ago I was struggling against 1500 rated bots. Now 1700 is pretty comfortable. Once I can beat 2000-rated bots then I will be ready to play some humans.

When the bot uprising comes, they will eat me last.

1400s OTB should be able to defeat 2000 rated bots. bot ratings are just for a bit of fun. They're just trying to make lower level players feel good.

[TheEnigma]

On 04/01/2025 at 2:50 PM, Leo Gura said:

So it looks like I'm right about average.

Don't look at online ratings. That is meaningless as there's so many casual players on there. Look at USCF ratings. The average tournament player is about 1500 OTB. On chess.com that should be about 1700-1800 rapid depending on the individual's ability for faster games than classical. More than 800 million people in this world know how to play chess. But maybe only a million to couple of million of those are average tournament player strength (for USA). If you are beating 1600 bots on chess.com you are well above an average casual chess player in this world. You'd be like a club player level. But one of the weaker ones in a serious club. Maybe class f USCF 800-1000 otb. Hope this helps 🙂

Edited yesterday at 07:44 AM by TheEnigma

[TheEnigma]

On 1/4/2025 at 9:09 PM, Leo Gura said:

Do any of you guys know how to contact Levy from GothamChess? It would be fun to see him analyze one of my games.

Pay him on twitch? Send him a superchat.

[jacknine119]

@Leo Gura But Leo, do you have great genetics? Why did you become world class person?

[Buck Edwards]

Anyway I'm not very talented at chess. And I have an IQ of two digit. *feels inferior and flees.*

 

[LambdaDelta]

7 hours ago, integral said:

On Chess.com you can play XXL chess

Thanks for the tip!

[AION]

Lichess rating system is not the same as chess rating system. Lichess rates players higher than they are. If you want to get better at chess you need a road map. There are road maps how to get better. Don’t just throw hours and hours playing without dedicated learning. 

Edited 22 hours ago by AION

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, jacknine119 said:

@Leo Gura But Leo, do you have great genetics? Why did you become world class person?

I'm not.