In an earlier post I talked about how I was playing a lot of online chess during the lockdown but that I still wasn’t getting any better. I’m a terrible chess player, and remain so. But every now and then I do have a good game. Here’s the brilliant checkmate I scored against Sven, the 1100 ELO avatar on Chess.com.
A great game by me? No. I have to be honest, Sven played very poorly this time out. Sometimes he does that. But I had no blunders or mistakes and totally dominated. I may have to move up to Nelson someday. But he’s a bully and usually beats me very quickly. I need to get better first.
Alex Good 
Nice job! Are Sven and Nelson real people?
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Nah, they’re just avatars for AIs. But they have different styles to go with their skill levels. Sven (fictional character) is from Slovakia. I like playing against him. Nelson is from South Africa and he has a thing for bringing his queen out right away which is really annoying. There are YouTube videos, lots of them, that are just tutorials on how to beat him but I haven’t been able to put together a good consistent strategy yet. I’m really so bad at chess.
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I used to be OK at it back in the day, but haven’t played for years and life’s too short to start again now.
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I think to be good at it you have to have a brain that can see a whole bunch of moves in advance, and can see the whole board. I tend to get locked in to whatever I’m doing and always get ambushed by some move on a part of the board I wasn’t even looking at.
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Yes I never could do more than 5 moves in advance in my head. There’s so much to learn with chess, all the gambits and variants, and I never did. Don’t think you have Netflix but if you get the chance The Queens Gambit is an excellent series starring Ana Taylor Joy. No one gets their kit off so it’s safe, it was my series of the year.
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Five moves in advance is way ahead of me. I’ve heard of The Queen’s Gambit. I don’t have Netflix but maybe it will come out on DVD.
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I do think you’ll like it. Can’t find it on DVD but the book is just as good. Don’t think I could do 5 moves now!
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Didn’t know there was a book. I can look for that.
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