Chess

:wavey: I like Chees. I'm no master or anything close to it, though, and haven't played the game in a long time. Probably anyone who wasn't a beginner could beat me.

 

I love chess. I have an onyx chess set I brought back from my India mission trip. What I have found is that is is hard to find someone to play in the average rural church setting. My son likes it though.

 

I'm no master by any means, and it's been years since I've played competitively. But my last ELO (locally, not nationally or internationally) was in the mid 1400s. 1440ish, I think.

I love the game, and would like to be competitive again. It's something you can do competitively even as you get older.

 

I've never been able to exceed a rating of 1450, try as I might, that's my ceiling.

 

The story goes there were two men playing chess. White move P-KP4. Black stared long and hard at the board for several minutes. Finally he declared, "Got you! Mate in 34 moves!"

 

There's a thing called "fool's mate", if I'm thinking correctly. You can get a checkmate in four moves. I had someone beat me and I beat someone using it. If they move one of the pawns...can't remember which, then you can't do it. But in four moves...check and mate.

 

I remember that four move check mate, it involves the pawn and then Queen and Bishop, but anyone who has played knows not to fall for that.

I am not a good chess player so I must ask, what is this ELO score?

 

ELO is a score assigned to a player that represents his relative ability. Someone with a higher ELO is expected to win. You lose points for losing and gain points for winning.

Essentially, people with the same ELO (for instance, 1200 vs 1200) both have a 50% chance to win (technically speaking, they're expected to draw, or score .5 points, but we'll keep it simple). In this case, the winner would gain 16 points, and the loser would lose 16 points (in most systems; some use a different base number other than 32).

However, as the ELO score spreads, the higher player is expected to win more (roughly 3% more chance of winning per 25 point difference up until there is more than a 225pt difference), and so will not gain as much if he wins (only 7 points at a 225pt difference). But will lose more if he loses (25 points at a 225pt spread). This is vice versa for the lower ranked person.

You start off at 1200 when you begin in most systems. Masters are in the neighborhood of 2400+. Essentially, anyone who maintains over a 1200 rating wins more than they lose, at least when it matters.

So, when I say my ELO was 1440ish, basically I am saying that I SHOULD beat anyone with an ELO of less than 1440.

Edited to add: The four move checkmate is (1) King's pawn forward two, (2) Queen diagonal out 2 spaces, (3) Bishop diagonal out to cover the next move which is (4) queen to king's bishop's pawn.

The easiest defense against it is to move the king's bishop's pawn forward one, or move king's knight to that same spot. There are many ways to defend that opening, but those two are the easiest without altering your own opening too much.

 

Both losing and winning with it was back in my HS days....I graduated in 1989... :tear:

 

Back in the last century my late cousin introduced me to the game of chess.

My cousin was a mental whiz. He was awarded a complete academic scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Needless to say, he would always beat me in less than twenty moves.

The only other person in my immediate family who knew how to play chess was my older brother. He loved to play against me any time that we had the opportunity--namely because he would also beat me.

I do remember the last chess game that he played with me. Why was it our last chess match you ask? It was our last chess game because I beat him! :laugh:

Everyone ought to have a brother like mine. :thumbs:

 

Haha. My dad was like that. I never did beat him. My mom said that the one time she did beat him he didn't want to play anymore.

 

You might want to count those moves again.

 

My dad used to cheat and claim a draw when I beat him. He would move the same piece 3 times in a row, then claim that the piece position allowed him to claim a draw. It was funny how the only times he would do that are when I was about to beat him.

I'd challenge any of you in this thread to a game, but I'm afraid you'd mop the floor with me, so maybe not so much. :smilewinkgrin:

 

Sweet!! I had never heard of that before. It's been years since I 've played, though...