Two-Piece Check, and One of Them is the King!

I saw this and could not believe it: It was probably Tom Cruise who suggested that they did it. Perhaps it was Hamish. It could have been my suggestion, but I can't be sure. This is something of a genius: You click on the chess code for the move, and the click gets translated into the actual moves of the pieces... This programmer is really good and whoever had this idea is really a genius. Finally something new to the side of chess, and something really interesting and useful. It is also good to see beautiful endings like this: one king, one horse, one pawn, and nothing that the adversary can do apart from crying... See:

Source: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-lonely-knight-checkmate

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Parallels and Square Games

I am calling Square Games games that have a rectangular court or board. I just noticed the importance of the straight line in both squash and chess. If the opponent has only a king and a powerless piece left, say a pawn, and you have a piece that goes on straight lines, so say a tower, it suffices that you take over a main straight line in front of the king and it won't be able to cross it, so say you put your tower on D and the king is on E when you do that. Now that it is stuck there, you go and eat all the pawns of theirs that remain, winning the game. In squash, I got tired of observing Danny Gil, my squash champion, hitting the ball in parallel with the wall. He said that was a very important part of the learning of the game. I now believe him more: I am trying to do the parallel as he did and I am noticing it is really really hard. Basically, you have to keep on hitting the ball exactly on the same line in parallel but really close, almost glued, to the side wall of the court. I could do at most three times so far, and, even so, they were not exactly equal lines. He could do several. Several times the same line, exactly the same. The skills in that case are obviously spatial orientation, concentration, and mental calculation of body strength to the least. There is still endurance, since you would have to position your body almost in the same way each time: The more times you hit the wall, the more tired you should get or the more you should lose your focus. 

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Kasparov and Technology

YouTube brings the wonder of technology to us: People, this is actual teaching of chess! I am sorry for the old-fashioned people, but this has to be the way to speed up learning in chess. My father had tons of books of strategy and I confess I at most flipped over them despite his insistence. I love playing games, sports and, in special, chess, squash, and volleyball, but I cannot stand studying the theory of chess, quite sincerely. This is pure revolution.

In five minutes watching one of the most interesting games of Kasparov, the one he played with Topalov in 1999, I have learned more than during all the games I have already played with even frequent simultaneous experts from very traditional chess clubs (Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande). Look, if there is a way to improve the quality of chess playing, it can only be via these means. 

Nothing can beat visual, and the remarks help quite a lot if we can see it all, I reckon. We still experience several difficulties, which make learning of the art boring, such as the tediousness of the board and pieces. 

I learned, for instance, that castling is not a big deal, since they both leave that for about the second fourth of the game. I learned that a daring move, such as putting both main pawns to the front, maximum stretch, is a good thing if you cover that with your horse and bishop. 

This frontally opposes what I have been telling you so far, which is basically what I have learned from my dear father, and he had studied all those books I talked about here. Shocking! Kasparov's spirit has simply killed my father in five minutes! Five minutes and the respect I had for him in terms of chess is quite shaken. Damn Kasparov! I wish I had never met you in my life, but, ops, I haven't! You, killer of teacher-dads! 

I would say my father played Safe Chess, like what you should do to have a better chance of winning if you are an amateur. Kasparov obviously plays Holy Chess. You know, there is Safe Driving and there is Holy Driving, I suppose. All Tom Cruise's doubles must be on the second category, I reckon. 

Basically, you are risking yourself in a never yet exploited terrain, so say a girl or a boy you are getting to know. You will then practice Safe Sex. You have been in a relationship, sure that they are your partner and you are their partner: You then have Holy Sex. The difference is the pleasure encountered: The former may never happen, but the latter will probably last forever and you can still repeat and get the same feeling of completeness with your experience each time. 

Holy Chess means skills, means depth, and means you will not be easily beaten, but, if you are beaten, then you know it is a process of pursuing depth and intimacy, so that eventually you will also pass that mark.  

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Virtual Chess

A few places exist where you can practice chess without getting out of home and not even having to stop being behind your computer. The best one is probably Games Colony. There, you can easily and quickly register and you will see the best interface as possible: colors, easiness of movements, change of screens, and all else seems to be perfectly harmonious and optimized. It is all very interesting and attractive. Real-time for real and we can play with real people. You can play for ranking and you can also make money playing if you are really good or if you have the time. 

Games Colony

You can also choose correspondence or real-time chess match with no fancy element, the traditional squashed sight of the board and moving pieces with a bit more difficulty. One good suggestion, in this case, where they have championship and all, is

Chess Here

And, if you like playing with the machine, I think they have not yet invented anything better than Chess 2001, which used to come with Windows: This must be a new version of the same product. I could not find any reference on the Internet for it.

Microsoft Chess

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Some Level of Advantage

Strategies that could get you some level of advantage:

• Try to delay the enemy's progress by making them go backward with pieces that have already advanced, so say they have a horse coming to your end. You then advance your army by kicking it back to the line it came from. You should try to always advance and to always get them to go backward in whatever you do. Each move that counts as an actual progression for you and as an actual regression for them, puts you in advantage;
• Rhythm matters in love, in dance, and also in chess: Chess is probably like a waltz, since you should never vary your rhythm. If it takes you longer on a move than on all previous moves, the adversary will know that, first of all, you must be in trouble. Only that fact will make them create confidence. The most successful players are the quickest in all their moves because the other person feels upset if taking longer and that makes them lose confidence;
• Good matches are clocked, so that time IS an issue. If you want to be really quick, you'd better study chess theory. That will take a lot of your time, but it will also pay a lot. The really good players must all have simulated a fair number of Gasparov's matches; and
• Black is usually associated with negative things and white is usually associated with positive things, so that a chess board that does not use these colors and I myself have already had one (made of marble, brown and white), should be fairer to all involved and we here probably talk more about Psychology. 

Bonus Token: Some people, like me, get distracted with fancy pieces and annoyed with plain ones. My marble pieces were way too heavy and way too ugly for me to get interested. The board was also way too heavy and I saw it as a weapon more than a game element. I also find those travel boards too small to allow us to have fun. I guess they haven't invented the ideal chess board yet, and that would probably be my creation were I not spending now fantastic 14 ys plus in full slavery in first world democracy, condemned without a court or accusation by the own authorities for law and order to a penalty that they are absolutely forbidden from imposing on anyone from Australia or Brazil. I imagine a board that can be both portable and static and adapts in a similar way the King Arthur's table was told to adapt (in my head that is a King Arthur's table, but I cannot tell for sure): We press buttons these days instead of going to funny places with our hands, but the consequences would be similar. The pieces should probably contain electronic chips so that we can both register the match (to control cheating and others) and put the pieces in place with less difficulty. They can also contain a chip to prove ownership and be personalized to an extreme, so say be made of precious stones, designed by a really good designer. We may also opt for Carbon fiber in the popular model, so that we have lightness and reasonable beauty allied to easiness of movements. We could still make board and pieces bind in a special way using electronics so that we do not split them. All could be controlled by a set of buttons that is even remotely operated. The board could come with a digital clock that beeps, say one located in the remote control.

The elements I would be considering then, when buying a chess set would be: heaviness of the material, aspect (would not get black on white if having a choice, would escape both if possible and choose neutral colors for the board but contrast), durability, safety, modernity, and personalization levels at least. 

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Points and Length of Castling do Mattert

Because I am a Logician/Mathematician, I actually look for rules that we can follow always, in any situation:

• If it is not possible to destroy their castling, force them to the long one, since the short one protects the king better;
• If the difference in points between you and your adversary is against you, you are probably going to lose, so try to keep it at most even if you cannot have more (the most valuable piece is the queen, 10 points, bishops and horses are worth three, castle is worth five, and pawns are worth one);
• The value of the pieces is not all that matters. The game value of the piece is a function of both its position in relation to the enemy's army and its value, so that even if you are decided to swap pieces, sometimes it is worth it having the adversary taking yours instead of taking theirs, as we probably said before; and
• It is said that whoever has the whites has a strategic advantage because they command the game or tell how it will go. It suffices, however, that the whites do not play their role of aggressor and you can dominate the game yourself. One stupid move is enough in those regards, so say they advance to the third instead of the fourth square with the king's pawn on the first move: They are now one move behind and who commands the game is you.

Bonus Token: I once lost a game because the female who was playing against me, and her name was Andreia, was with headphones in her ears and was singing and moving to the sound of the music as she played. I got distracted and irritated and I then could not play to my best. If it is allowed, therefore, you can use psychological factors to destabilize the enemy. It is filthy and unethical, but it may be that you are, for instance, playing for fun. I played with Andreia in a championship, an internal championship at the college, and that is when she did that. Nobody caught her and I lost. 

If it is a championship and you are caught, you can lose on the spot. 

A few wars have been won through very dirty means, such as spies, and, if this game is supposed to teach us something about real life, then we should obviously consider these things as part of the game and learn how to deal with them.



Men do a lot of resistance training, so that they get it all automated in their heads: From being pushed to an extreme, several times, we dissociate from the pain that usually comes to us during those moments and we can then remain totally cold and still play at our best. Several movies may serve as inspiration here, including Rocky Balboa with Sylvester Stallone (Rocky). 

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Shake that Pawn! (Some winning strategies)

These are strategies that have not been tested to exhaustion by me, but that may be winning ones in all sorts of context, like this is just a possibility:

• Always try to deter the enemy pawns by moving your own pawns to block the progress of those;
• Try not to lose any pawn (protective function, only piece that can be changed from lowest to highest in strategic value, and etc.);
• Try to mess up with the castling of the opponent. If possible, make it impossible. This is because the castling is the best strategy to protect the enemy's king and all we want is killing their king, so that the last thing we should wish for is that they actually do that; and
• The worst thing that can happen to you in a chess board if you are not a total beginner is the queen aligned with the king to your side of the board. The reason for that is quite simple: It suffices that the opponent puts a piece that can take the queen in front of it and you will have to sacrifice it. If you ever have this situation, make sure it is something really quick, and put a priority in taking them out of the same line. That is why the best protection to the king is actually the pieces up to three points of value. 

Bonus Token: Castling is based on what the king would actually be doing to protect himself in a situation of war. It all starts with running to inside of the castle, so that the castle comes out and the king gets in. We also put the soldiers to observe, to guard the castle and the king, so that the pawns are all doing surveillance. It is assumed that they would be able to see if someone came towards the king or the castle from where they are. 

We could obviously criticize this choice by saying that the king is cornering himself, since he is at the end of the board, but we would have more ways of being attacked, more directions, if the king were in the middle of the board, so that that would be a more critical situation for those who are doing surveillance, for instance. Many wars have been lost because people were stuck in valleys, for instance, and they could then be attacked from every possible side, including the top part. The more directions the enemy can use, the more fragile we are.

A good suggestion, of a new game, would be a modified chess, perhaps with a bigger board, where the castling is done wherever we want and the pieces involved in the castling can advance together sometimes. 

Chess is a poor strategy game for these days, but it was an excellent game to train for wars in the past, when the wars were quite simple.

These days, games such as Civilization or Monopoly or Flight with Invasions, simulators, obviously do a much better job.

It is still better than nothing for us to practice concentration, focus, and logical reasoning. It also helps with discipline and learning because it is based on repetition and memory on top of unexpected situations from a certain height of the game onward. 

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