English Chess Forum

Yay, another decrease! Hopefully it'll go up in January .

I don't think I'll be able to keep going back and responding to every post individually :(. However, I do appreciate everyone's advice. Congrats to Richard James' attendance of all 100 Richmond Rapidplays so far :). Thanks for the info about chesskids.com.. That openings guide looks pretty basic, bu...

Oh, OK, thanks Paul. Sorry, I had misunderstood and wasn't having a go, in case that's what it sounded like :). I'll need to do some reading on openings then, I think (as soon as I find a decent book, though I'll also look at chessgames.com as Roger suggested). With the Sicilian, most opponents I've...

Thanks all. I'll have to read through posts again (and probably again) as there's a lot of info in them. Roger: thanks for that. I've been to chessgames.com before. I was after a more wordy description of things, though. I doubt anyone would be too impressed if I found a load of games with the Itali...

Hi Geoff, I had some time to read through your first post of yesterday during some downtime at work. First of all, I'm no longer a student; I've been employed as a software engineer since January :). Also, while PhD studentships don't pay a great deal, I certainly wasn't struggling. There's a lot of...

I'm not doomed! I've been doing tactics problems and will continue to do so . Also, I've been told not to study openings so haven't really spent any time on them. The advice here is good, but it seems like it can be contradictory sometimes!

Thanks Christopher . I'll probably just avoid reading Geoff's post first of all, so I can try to find the answers myself. At least Geoff's answers will be there so I can check afterwards. Working leaves me not much time when I get home, unfortunately, as I kinda just want to do not a whole lot.

Still haven't had a chance to look at and digest all of the info here, but I'll get round to it eventually. It's not like the forum is going anywhere, right? :). Thanks all for the help. I know endgames are a problem of mine and haven't had much time to devote to study. However, I have ordered Silma...

Thanks everyone for the invaluable comments as usual :). Congrats to Chris on his 4.5/6 yesterday too :). I've not had too much time to look at everything yet as I've only just got in from work and want to do some other things right now. I'll probably look at this during the week, or over the weeken...

I played the 100th Richmond Rapidplay today and finished on 3/6 :D. I haven't perfected my game yet, but I feel like I'm playing better. Here are my wins from the day. I've spotted mistakes, so I'll need to make sure I don't do that again. Enjoy (well, I'm sure they're not the most exciting games, b...

Is there a typo on the website? It says "A complete team is required to register, you may not enter as an individual.", but the link to enter says "Team or Individual".

Lol, thanks. I wouldn't go that far. Two wins came against very weak opponents (mate in 15 and 9 moves), but they're juniors so if they keep playing I imagine they'd get better quite quickly. As for the third, well, I really could have lost on time, having about a minute or two left by the time I de...

Two straight wins for me at Golders Green yesterday (and three for the event overall) .

I certainly like the plots and game info.

I've gone down . Oh well, at least it was only 2 points. Some of my good results aren't in yet. Hopefully I can get to 50ish for the August list.