Began writing Nov 2024

My Introduction, then Reintroduction, to my All-Time Favorite Game

So, here's the full story because this is my goddamn website

A couple of years ago, I spent some time in mental health/rehab treatment facilities. While there, I reconnected with an old love I hadn't seen in 10 years. Relax y'all, I'm talking about chess

I fell in love with the game as a teenager, when I learned how to play from one of the counselors that worked at Pacific Park - around the corner from where I lived (and right across the street from my elementary school, Thomas Edison) - in Glendale, California circa the summer of 1992 or 1993. In the summertime when I was out of school, I would go to the park every day for hours of a combination of playing hoops and one of several games the counselors had in their little room, including but not limited to chess, ping pong, checkers and caroms (oh shit, remember that? That was my game!)

I remember these two old gentlemen would come to the park almost every day and play chess with me beneath the shade of the trees. There I learned they were both military veterans who were retired and living in Glendale with their families. They also used to kick my muthafucking ass at chess. Every day! Without fail! But they were always very encouraging and told me it was the best way to learn. And I used to learn the most, I think, when I watched their evenly matched games against one another. Every game is a learning experience, they taught me, and they always made sure I knew they thought I was sharp. I mean, I was like 14. I got really good at playing defense because they were so good and eventually, I could hold my own against them. And even though I honestly don't remember if I ever beat either of them (I doubt it because I think I would have never forgotten if I did), the seed was planted and my deep love and respect for the game and its brilliance the better I got at it was born

But then, it just disappeared from my life. Like ya know, eventually, I had to go back to school, and I never saw the old guys again. The counselor who taught me how to play would play with me, but they rotated the counselors at all their Glendale parks daily, so he wasn't at Pacific every day. And the counselors in general were only at the park every day in the summer when the kids were out of school (although during the school year they would be there on Saturdays if the weather permitted). And as it turned out, not a lot of kids in my neighborhood knew how to play chess. We didn't have a chess club (probably because of my previous line) because I would have joined for sure. That summer, I don't remember playing a single fellow teenager. I think playing against all those adults in my introduction was a positive for me. Fortunately, chess is one of those "like riding a bike" kinda things in that you never forget how to play once you learn. But, as with anything, getting really good at it takes a lot of practice, and those opportunities were just not aplenty in my teenage years

Then maybe 20 years after that fateful summer, my daughter would get introduced to the game via the chess club offered at her school. She and I played at home a couple of times, but she wasn't that into chess to want to play it outside of school much. And I wasn't trying to beat my daughter in chess like those old guys did me. She was about half the age I was when I learned how to play. So, while I could say I did technically play the game with her, it had still been a couple of decades since I had played competitively. So, it once again disappeared from my life

Until in 2022, about 10 years after I last played with my daughter, I found myself in a treatment center that provided plenty of free time, a chess board, and several other short-term residents who also knew how to play and loved the game. I learned several card games while in treatment too (including an addictive game called Golf (yes, it's a card game), and there was A LOT of spades being played. When one of the guys who was a frequent player in their spades group left, one of the elder residents invited me in and taught me how to play. They used to have tournaments on Saturdays during free time after art class. But I didn't play anything there more than I played chess. I think it was the way everything went down while I was there too

The way it worked at the treatment center was everyone started at the beginning (duh, right?). It was a dual treatment center in that it was part rehab, and the other part was the mental health focused portion of WHY we turned drugs and alcohol through therapy (where I surprisingly found my mother, sending me further into a spiral of hatred for that woman I can never recover from; but that's a different story for a different day). Knowing I wouldn't be able to partake in my edibles for several weeks, I got high as fuck, eating all of the edibles I had left at home, while packing and waiting for my Uber ride to the center. Come to find out, that was pretty much how all of us thought, so everyone is usually pretty fucked up when they get there. Because of this, everyone starts off in what they call 'detox'. Oh, and one huge part of their system was that people in detox were strictly forbidden from going over to the main side without an administrator escort

My drugs of choice (or D.O.C's, that's that rehab talk right there) were marijuana and alcohol. So my time in detox didn't need to be as lengthy as others. In detox you only have one roommate (as opposed to up to five on the main side), and there's literally nothing for you to do but sleep and watch tv in your room while coming down from your high. They at least did have smart tv's with Roku built in (something the staff told us they had only recently gotten in the previous few months due to Covid) and a solid Wi-Fi connection throughout the premises. There was a kitchen area with a fridge, microwave, toaster and coffee maker, open 24/7 and with plenty of items in the fridge and/or on the counters to use in those appliances. And they had a main kitchen with chefs on the premises who provided cooked meals daily for lunch and dinner for the entire center. For breakfast we were on our own as far as a cooked meal was concerned, but they always had plenty of cereal, oatmeal and what not on hand

Usually, you stayed in detox for anywhere from three days to a week. Then you would "graduate" over to the main program, which was where probably 90% of the residents spent 90% of our time while in treatment. We had to attend something like a state mandated minimum of 6 hours a day in group, which were basically 90 minute "classes" led by an administrator on their selected topic of recovery. We also met with our assigned case manager and therapist individually for one hour each per week

Mind you, you don't know anybody at this place when you get there. Some of the patients actually live in other states and were flown in by the center (that, along with my free $100+ uber ride each way, should give you an idea of how much they get from our insurance right there). You get to know your roommate pretty well in detox, as well as you can considering you're both high off your ass at first (and that's assuming you even hit it off), but nobody else really. And since you don't come into the center at the same time, you don't necessarily go over to the main side at the same time as your roommate

I don't remember exactly how many days I spent in detox, but it was no more than four (ha, I'm a fucking poet!). And I happened to be moved over to the main side on a Friday, which was BBQ Day at the center. I remember walking over, just following the crowd, and standing in line to get my food. And I didn't know a single person over there. It felt awkward. I'm in my fucking 40's, not in high school. But I've also never been the most naturally outgoing person either. And I had just gone through SO much in my personal life and had become such a loner, that I had no clue how to connect with any of these strangers even if I wanted to

Then, it happened. A little later after we were done eating, I went back to the main room, which was basically a big ass mess hall where we ate (it also doubled as the main meeting room for groups since it was big enough to hold all 60-ish of us patients) and saw two guys playing chess. There were also maybe about three or four additional people watching. Naturally, I made my way over and joined the spectator's section. There was one guy who best I could tell was Asian although he looked Native American, with the long, silky, straight hair and all. Turns out it was his chess board they were playing on, and this dude whooped everybody! I watched all the matches and thought to myself, 'damn this dude is good'. I would later find out he'd been there for a while and was kinda known for three things; playing his guitar, playing chess, and almost always having a bag full of candy that he was always willing to share with all. Once we moved over to the main side, we were allowed to order shit on Amazon and have it shipped to the center, although you had to open it in front of an administrator to make sure you weren't trying to bring in shit you weren't allowed to. That's also how he got his own chess board, and how I would later get my own dominoes after this one annoying ass fucking bitch hid the ones on the premises, after us coloreds were apparently making too much noise for her while playing in the mess hall one day

After watching the dude take down three consecutive opponents in chess, I got my shot at the champ. Keep in mind a couple of things. This was my first day over there, and I hadn't played chess competitively in 30 years. But that's why I explained the love rooted in me three decades prior first. I still loved and knew how to play the game. I was just happy to play it again. I figured he'd whoop my ass

To ALL of our surprise, I beat him! It would be the first of countless matches we played while there, and I would say it was about 60/40 in the win column in his favor. But more importantly, it gave me my first group of friends at the center. Every single chess match in rehab had an audience. And three games later there was a bigger audience by the time he and I played. And they watched me beat the guy that no one else could beat. Instantly, I gained a reputation as one of the chess wizards on the premises. Shit felt good, especially since it had been so long since I played. Even the elder guy who invited me into their spades group, likely only invited me in and taught me to play because he was a huge fan of my chess game. He was one of the spectators that saw me beat the guitar player. Winning that game would set the tone for me for about the next month in that place

The guitar player ended up becoming a pretty good friend to me while there, or about as good a friend you can have in rehab anyway. We definitely respected one another's intelligence and had some great conversations. Then about a week after our first match, while we were talking shit, we discovered that each of us knew how to play and loved dominoes as well, which almost immediately led to more shit talking before we would break out the dominoes, also available on the premises before the Amazon story I told above. Then our chess matches turned into full on shit talking domino matches. To the point where we let another guy join our game after he told us he wanted to learn how to play fast and talk shit like we do. He had the upper hand in chess, but in dominoes I beat him more than he beat me (that's some black shit right there). I really struggled for a while when he abruptly had to leave due to an insurance issue. But I'll never forget what he told me before he left:

"As the only other real chess player here, you can have my board."

The weeks following that first day were a roller coaster of highs and lows in my chess game. Since it was my first time playing competitively in literally decades, it was also my first time since the park that I understood I could be humbled in this shit after such a solid reintroduction

But I also had highs though I won't list them all. Like one guy who told me before he left that I was one of the best chess players he's ever played against. There was also a young kid, maybe 20 - 23, who came into the center talking shit, saying "I'll smoke you" when one of the other patients asked if he knew how to play chess. He turned out to be pretty good, but he couldn't beat me. Some of these dudes - and the chess players while I was there were about 98% dudes - whenever they saw me in the mess hall or roaming the hallway during free time wanted to play me. People started introducing me to newcomers as the resident chess wiz, so you got a lot of people who wanted to take their shot at you. IT WAS GLORIOUS, lol!

We would play every morning during breakfast free time on the benches right outside of the mess hall, right before first group started. I remember a group administrator having to come outside plenty of times to break up our game because it was time for group. It was an excellent thing to do first thing after eating breakfast in the morning (or some of us would eat and play at the same time if our turn was up), getting our minds right for the constant onslaught of groups ahead. In all the games the young kid and I played, and he and I played dozens, he beat me once. And you knew when he was about to win too, because he clapped his hands all loud in the middle of the mess hall and was like "let's goooooo" lol. He was a good kid who got kicked out for saying something heinous to another patient. But before that, he was actually the one who suggested I find a chess club near me when I got back home. I didn't even know they still had chess clubs, and I had never known them to exist outside of schools. But it made me check into it

But to be thorough and fair, I first need to express some lows of my chess game in the treatment center. There was this one guy who always wanted to play me, but I could never beat him. Of all the games we played, and we played probably more than a dozen, I only beat him once. But he was a dick, who I'm relatively certain tried to have me killed in treatment; but that too is another story for another day. There was also a pretty cool employee who was on leave when I first got there but came back when I had about two weeks left. He and I didn't play as many games (maybe 5 or 6) because he was on the clock, but I never did beat him. And the dick beat him the first and I think only time they played. Another guy who was a great singer played me a lot too, and he beat me more than I beat him

You know what all of these guys had in common? They had all recently spent time in prison, which is where they either learned to play or learned to get really good at the game. Some of them told me this directly. The guitar player told me before he left that's where he learned to play chess and dominoes (and his shit talking), from "playing those black guys in prison". It's the only time in my life where I, for a quick second, actually wished I had spent time in prison lmao. My ole nerd ass, who hadn't played in decades, didn't stand a chance with many of these guys at that time. But it was just so great to get back into playing it

After receiving that recommendation for a chess club from the young dude, I googled chess clubs in my area. And while I did find a physical one, what else I found was something much more popular among chess aficionados. An online arena where you can play till you drop, 24/7 against people all over the world; chess.com. To my knowledge, the largest online chess community in existence. It's an app you can download onto your favorite device or play directly online. I started playing while still in treatment during our limited time per day we were allowed to use our personal devices. What happened was, after the people I regularly played with started leaving, I would beat all the newbies that wanted to challenge me. After a while, the newbies stopped wanting to play me, labeling me too difficult to beat. But I still wanted to play the fucking game. So, I downloaded the game on my tablet, which is still my preferred method of playing because of the bigger screen (I don't play on my computer) allowing me to get a better view of the board. Update 4/10/2025: As of the time of that writing that was true. But I have recently tried it on my computer for a reason that I can't remember right now. I do like it too and I may like it slightly more than playing on my tablet. I've also gotten my hands on a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and its HANDS DOWN my all-time favorite phone that I have ever owned! I don't mind playing chess on the bigger screen on my cell phone either Because if you play you know success in chess is only based on making great moves you can find, and your vantage point is crucial. On chess.com, you can play a game against a human or a computer at varying difficulty levels, play in a tournament where you play in the same room for up to two hours and rack up as many W's as you can, or you can solve puzzles. Oh, did I mention matches on chess.com are completely and unlimitedly free?

I'm a huge mobile gamer side note: why do they always seem to put those characters in mobile games in the most fucked up situations? Like, why the fuck would this dude just leave this chick with his two babies to freeze in this broke down ass fucking house? And why do I always have to be the one to save these people? That's a lot of fucking pressure for somebody who gets high. And Maury already determined I am NOT the father of those white babies, thank you very much. And btw, if this guy is such a king, why the fuck does he keep getting his dumb ass caught up in these ridiculous situations? and while my rotation of games I play on my preferred bigger screen tablet has changed a lot over the past two years since I left treatment, the one game that I still play almost daily is chess

They have three levels of membership you can sign up for to help you get better at chess quickly: gold, platinum and diamond, with varying price tags for each. When I first joined the dot com community, I signed up for their diamond plan off top. With that membership, one of the things you get is unlimited game reviews of your completed games. But this only works when you play single game mode, and I mostly play tournaments. Update 5/3/2025: It's taken me all this time to discover that's actually not true at all. You can review your tournament games too. It's just that at the end of single games, the option to review your game will appear on screen. At the end of a tournament game, it does not. But there is an icon on the bottom middle of the screen that you can hit that will review the tournament game, and it's available after each tourney match All the reviews would do is make me feel stupid. It didn't help me improve because I wasn't learning any techniques, or the WHY I should have made that move. Then when I thought about it, outside of for a few weeks from two older gentlemen in Glendale, I'd never had anyone to really help teach me the intricacies of the game. While I learned how to play as in how the pieces move, the rules, and my ultimate objective, I've never been taught how to see the game, if that makes any sense

So I cancelled it. Then for the next year and a half of my membership-less chess life, I would teeter between my rank being in the lower 800's, all the way up to over a thousand at one point. When you're not a member, you can still do puzzles, but you can only do a maximum of three per day. All three tiers of membership include unlimited puzzles, as well as unlocks all bots at varying degrees of difficulty for unlimited practice offline. But I didn't want to sign up for diamond again after not learning anything before, while at the same time getting frustrated that I could only do three puzzles per day. Then I took a closer look at what you get with each level of membership, and realized it was actually pretty inexpensive to get the gold tier (the lowest level) for either $50 per year or $6.99 per month (I went with the annual plan). I didn't want the unlimited game review anymore (and you still get one free one per day without a membership or with the lowest tier membership) and really just wanted the puzzles. So I signed up a couple of weeks ago as of this writing and I've done hundreds of puzzles in that time span

I can honestly say that it has helped tremendously. The way the puzzles work is that it puts you right in the middle of a scenario, and at the top it tells you which color's move it is. On the board, you can see the piece the computer last played and where it was moved to. You always make the first move, and these scenarios can be anything from checkmates, to trapping pieces, to capturing unprotected pieces, or anything else within the realm of chess really. But each puzzle is different, causing you to have to really study when each new puzzle comes up. These scenarios require you to make anywhere from one to six or seven moves, with the computer alternating moves once you make a correct move. And the best thing about it is if you make a wrong move, it'll tell you that it's incorrect and give you an option to retry. Until the specific correct move is made you can't continue. This causes you to get REALLY good at checking the board, and once you solve it, it also finally provides me with answers to that WHY question I never had the chance to get answered before. Especially when you keep trying moves and keep getting that error message on repeat that the last move you made was incorrect. It makes me really take my time and study the board more carefully. There is a hint option that will first reveal the piece you should move, then if you press it again it'll give you the location where you should move it to. I've gotten really good at solving the puzzles without a hint or with only the first hint of what piece to move, and only as a last resort when I'm truly stumped on a puzzle

This has transferred over tremendously into my game, as I view the board much differently than I did before. Where I felt dumb in seeing all the moves I should have made after the fact, the puzzles train me to look for these scenarios (or similar) more than I ever did before, and with it being unlimited they just keep coming at you. Take a look at this practical example of exactly how the puzzles are helping me

Updated 2/8/2025

Ok, so when you do the game review (the one per day we get for free), your moves are broken down into a whole buncha lotta categories (10, to be exact). The top of the list consists of the very best of your moves that gradually descend to your worst, as follows:

Brilliant

Great

Best

Excellent

Good

Book

Inaccuracy

Mistake

Miss

Blunder

In the two plus years I've been playing on chess.com and reviewing my games, I can count on one hand how many brilliant moves I've made. And to be honest, all the brilliant moves I previously made were accidental. These moves are the cream of the crop, with multiple brilliant moves likely only coming from grand masters

But I'll average a couple great moves, with the majority of my highest scores coming from around the middle of the pack, but also with even distribution in smaller amounts of all of the lower categories as well. It's gotten to the point where I don't even expect any brilliant moves when I do the reviews, and I light up when I see I had two or three great moves. As of this update, I still play dozens of puzzles a day and after I got sick, I soon after found myself timid in playing real games and putting my rating on the line. When I was sick, I repeatedly got my ass kicked. So, for a while, I stuck to just doing puzzles and playing against the computer. But then I was like, dude you're being a pussy ass chicken shit right now. Fuck are you working to get better for if you're not going to put your rating on the line? How the fuck do you think you get better? And how do you know you won't actually win, you ugly ass fucking coward? No wonder your whole fucking family hated you

Yeah, my conscious is a fucking asshole. But it turns out that's what has always motivated me the most (uhh from my own conscious though, NOT from anyone else). So, I told my conscious it was right, but that if it ever talked to me like that again, I was going to put a bullet through my head and put an end to both of us. Now IIIII don't know if this was a coincidence or not, but I had an excruciating fucking headache for like three days after that. Mmmmm touché, you prick

But it worked. I am now on something like a seven or eight game winning streak. And if I'm being honest and sinceriously not bragging at all, many of my wins haven't even been close. This update is several months after the earlier parts surrounding this update were written. I have to be up to thousands of puzzles now. I no longer play at work because, a) we're very busy this time of year, and b) with me being better now I can't play and do something else like my work at the same time. I have to only play when I can focus one hunnid on the game. And all of my diligence has paid off. In a recent game review of a game I played on my other non-gold membership account, I finally got those stingy bastards to give me credit for a brilliant move. But I have to confess, the brilliant move is one of the moves the puzzles have been teaching me since day one. I didn't even know they had an option to 'share' your brilliant move, probably because I rarely get em

Aight here's the deal. So - and this is the only time you'll ever hear or read me say these words - I was white. This very scenario has been engrained in my head countless times through those puzzles. I first moved my queen up and put their king in check; what's that, to E8 (I learned how to play on an old school physical board so I didn't learn using the move codes)? They blocked the check with their queen; to D8. I sacrificed my rook (to B8) and put their king in check again, preventing my opponent from taking my queen with theirs, exactly as I was taught to do thru the puzzles. And seeing it play out in an actual game made me grow a nice rubbery one, if I can be real with chall since y'all are the only family I got left. Because when they point it out, you can easily see the brilliance of the move. If my opponent takes my rook with their king, I take their queen unprotected. If they move up one space to the green square (to C7) out of check from my rook (and the only other square they could move to), I still take their queen unprotected with my rook now having my queen's back, and their king then goes on the run without any protection on that side of the board. It was only a matter of moves before, "may the king rest in peace". Realizing they were completely out of viable options, my opponent resigned. Bro, that was fucking brilliant and represents the very essence of why I love this game so goddamn much. It's absolutely perfect once you learn it

Now, I've made it a point to say several times that I learned this move from the unlimited practice the best fucking $50 a year membership affords me. I've learned MUCH more than $50 worth of shit. So obviously I'm not bragging on this. I have the app to thank for this move, because I would have never thought to do it before I started practicing on this very scenario. I just wanted to provide actual proof of how much simply doing 8+ puzzles per day (oh y'all will read that below, my bad, I'm high as fuck) has truly helped me, and I'm not talking shit. Chess.com isn't giving me a dime in referral fees (although they should!). But you've read me say how much I love and respect this game quite a few times at this point now. And those old gentlemen beneath the shade of trees in that Glendale summertime heat never charged me a dime for the countless lessons they taught me. I mean, good luck tryna collect that shit if they did. But the point is, it's time for me to pay it forward. You all get better, and I get better and we can start our own like super chess league or some shit. A lot of people may not know how to play because they had no one to teach them. Since they never learned how to play, they may not be aware of the possibility of them getting bit in the ass by the chess bug. It does take a while (I'm talking years) to get really good. But if you fall in love with the game, you'll always want to play it anyway and won't be looking at the calendar counting years (unless you write about it on your website) and how long it takes. If you understand that every game is a lesson, understand that you literally have tens to maybe hundreds of thousands of lessons to learn. It takes patience, so when you're first learning I recommend practicing against the computer most since it's untimed. Take your time! And you'll look up one day and it be years in the future and you be like, "I'll be goddamn"

They advertise on their membership options that 8+ puzzles per day will help you greatly improve in chess. Well, I do more like 80 per day. I didn't really know how to view the game before, and honestly one of the weakest parts of my game was closing the deal and actually trapping my opponents king for good. Oh, speaking of which, checkmate is only one way you can win on chess.com. Of course if your opponent resigns or abandons the game you win. But another way to win is you both get a game clock, and when it's your turn to play your clock counts down toward zero until you make a play. Once you make a play, your clock freezes and your opponent's clock starts. If your clock strikes zero you lose, even if you were kicking your opponent's ass in points. So while I can take my time with the puzzles because there's no clock, I don't have the luxury of unlimited time during a match, making it even more critical to not only learn how to execute, but to learn how to execute quickly. Doing countless puzzles in my free time trained my brain to play faster but still correctly, because I recognize the idea behind the scenario from my countless puzzles. And this has only been for a couple of weeks

Nowadays, I don't start any tournament without first playing at least dozens of puzzles. For the six months prior to going gold, I couldn't get above the 800's and seemed to only be able to beat people lower than me. Oh yeah, one drawback to chess.com is that people famously cheat on there. I don't know how they cheat, but the game will send you messages periodically they found that "one or more of your recent opponents violated our fair play policy", and as a result some of your points you lost when you lose a match have been credited to you. And I've been playing so long I can tell if they are cheating. Your score is like 200 points lower than mine, but you seem to be making ALL the perfect moves. Stop it! Another giveaway to me is when they make the first move, you make your first move right away, then their second move doesn't come for like another minute. That's because they're loading whatever they're using to cheat so that it can give them the answers to the test. But I honestly don't care about that, especially when you're learning or trying to get better at the game. I learned 30 years ago that every game is a learning experience. When you get really good, you should be able to beat computers anyway, so it's just an extra challenge. The people cheating don't get any better at the game at all, while you walked away with a valuable lesson about the game. Usually when they comp your points back it's about six points. But I received one just this morning actually and it only gave me back two points. I've never seen it credit that low of points. You know what I think happened? I think it was for a game that I won, meaning I beat my cheating ass opponent and his little computer too (insert wicked witch laugh here)

All of this has helped me out greatly, I would say. I currently sit at 954 for the 10-minute games (the only length of games I play on chess.com). Thursday I played four games throughout the day and won three of them. Last night before going to bed I played two games. One against a 1300 opponent that I lost. And another against an 1100 opponent that I won. Remember, before going gold I couldn't beat anyone higher than me

Also, the way the tournaments work is that for each win, you're typically given two or three points, but it depends on the level of your opponent (which may give more if they're higher than you), or if your opponent forfeited by not starting the game (which gives less, normally only one point). So, your score within a two-hour tournament may look something like 5.0 or 12.0 for example. Well, just this past Wednesday, Nov 20 I ended a room with a score of 26.0.....my personal best. My tournament score can be found on the lower right, directly to the left of my name; Shadrock2k

Update: 2/24/2025

Ohhh but y'all don't hear me tho when I say these puzzle practices are the absolute shit! That 26.0 score was so last year! Just three days ago as of this update, I beat that score

I discovered there's also a worldwide chess association type situation, US Chess, where you can pay dues and "earn an official US chess ranking". I'm planning on doing that soon after I've improved some more and I'm going to see how far I can go with this thing. To quote Mel Gibson from one of my favorite movies called Maverick:

".......because I needed to know how good I really was, once and for all"

Those of you who are already on chess.com, I highly recommend signing up for one of their memberships if you're not already. It may not seem like you're learning anything, and if you only do the game reviews you won't! But if you're doing the puzzles that's basically practice. And you know the saying. Practice makes cupcakes, or some shit like that. I also recommend those of you who don't know how to play chess but want to learn to check out chess.com. It's an excellent platform for chess for all levels

In the meantime, I love the game so much I welcome all challengers. But be advised I don't care what level you're on, I will smoke you. Cuz that's the best way to learn. ;) I've disabled chatting (thank you for offering that chess.com) because we don't need to say a goddamn thing to play this wonderfully silent and brilliant game. Come at me and you gone get these chess hands lol

Oh, and I collect photographs of the dead body of any 1200 or higher ranked opponents I kill. Each player's scoring rank can be found to the immediate right of the player's screen name. Here's just a few

I didn't checkmate this opponent, but they resigned as soon as I said "gimme that queen!", raising my score to 26.0. And you see they had a pretty good tournament too. This was a real confidence booster

I was at 22.0 with about 40 minutes left in this room, but I admittedly took my foot off the gas until I buckled down for this one to try to beat my score. I'm STILL learning

Wait, what's that date? February 21 and 27.0? Pshh! That shits so old!!! I'm tellin' yall, these resources got me figuring some shit out

Played this game on my phone, usually when I'm at work and not supposed to be playing chess on my phone. Check out this mf's rank, lol got em! Also a personal high for me

#thuglife

Added in 2025

Oh yeah, I'm still racking up my body count in these mean chess streets lol

But Wait....You Know the Rest

March 30, 2025

Aight, so those of you who play, you know the process of learning this infinitely brilliant game is never really finished until you master it, and even then, I bet they still learn shit from time to time. Getting it takes a lot of time and a seemingly infinite amount of practice. If you fall in love with the game as I did, you'll always want to learn more

As mentioned above, I have a secondary account with no membership attached (where I had the brilliant move). Maybe two or three weeks ago now, I got a notification on that account advertising a special of 50% off all memberships for the first year. Ok so to put this into perspective it'll be easier if I provide actual numbers. And I'll only provide the annual numbers because that's the only term of membership I'm interested in (I'm in this shit for the long haul anyway and you tend to get a discount with the annual plans)

Gold Membership: This is the plan I have on my initial plan. The only part of this I was interested in was the unlimited puzzles. This plan is $50/year

Silver Membership: This plan comes with everything the gold membership comes with, as well as unlimited game reviews. This plan is $80/year

Diamond Membership: This basically has everything chess.com has to offer. And I've learned even more what it has to offer since my earlier writing above about it. This plan is $120/year

So since my original plan was only $50, and now they're offering me a 50% special for twelve months, on my secondary account I signed up for the diamond membership again, since it was only $10 more for the first year than my gold membership. This time, I've discovered some very helpful hidden jewels

Keeping in mind diamond comes with unlimited game reviews, it also has another awesome feature. Unlimited games against your personal coach (AI of course). When I first saw this, I dismissed it because my gold membership already unlocked all bots. So I figured it was just another bot basically, but it's really not

First of all, you can set your coach's difficulty to one of a whopping 10 levels! The number of the level is that of the ranking by each player's name in parentheses

New to Chess - 300

Beginner - 600

Novice - 800

Intermediate - 1000

Intermediate II - 1200

Advanced - 1600

Expert - 2000

Master - 2400

Grandmaster - 2800

Maximum - 3200

The matches are not timed so you can take your time. But the best part to me is that during the game, your coach does just that during the game. He'll make a play and then say something like, "do you see what I'm threatening to do?" Or "I think your rook will be excellent in blocking my check". He also tells you when you done fucked up, although he won't say it like that. It basically analyzes every move as you make it, and you can still do the unlimited game review of all your games against your coach as well

As I dove deeper in these chess canyons, it dawned on me that when you express the kind of love and respect for the game as I did above on this page, that you have a natural desire to study the game. That's what it is. I study the game of chess to improve. This is something I had never done before, or even figured out that I needed to do

I've figured out that my current level (despite what my actual ranking is) of play is around the 1200 of Intermediate II. That's the level I'll begin playing my coach on. Initially I would lose to him on repeat. Then I figured out a weakness in my game. Sometimes I'll play on autopilot. Just kind of playing quickly without really thinking it through. Whenever I play like that, I lose. No matter who the opponent is. I also realize I made dumb ass mistakes when I play like that. Plus there's no clock against my coach. Fuck am I in a rush for?

When I figured out that I play much better when I take my time and study the board (just like with the puzzles), I would beat my coach easily a good 3 or 4 times in a row on 1200. I then move it up to 1600 and I think I've only beat him once on that level. Butw when I'm "chessin" (lol) I'll play game after game on repeat against my coach. I won't always review my game after, but I will read his comments. And as I learned each game is a learning experience long time ago, I can replay back to where I went wrong and what I should have played instead. Shit, these days, I see where my opponent will move next to beat me before they even see it

When I said before that all the game reviews did was make me feel stupid, I realized that I needed to change my mentality toward the game. For me, it has always been about my deep love and respect for the game, so even when I lose it's a positive. But sometimes my mentality is different. It becomes me ultimately wanting to be a grandmaster one day, so with that mentality, every loss is damn near the end of the world. It will also cause me to not play sometimes for days. First of all, people routinely cheat on that site. Even when someone beats you, they may not have necessarily beat you. But even if they do, when my head is straight with the game as a student first, it's all good. When I forget that I can be humbled in this game that's when it goes all fucked up for me. When reviewing those games, I felt stupid because a part of me maybe felt that I should have already known how to do what it was trying to teach me. When my mind is right, I realize that's my lesson for that moment and if I miss it, I'll probably need to face this same lesson again later. And that's fine. Because when you love the game, you're open to learning anything it's willing to teach you

These days, as a student of the game, I do a little bit of everything my membership has to offer. I still do puzzles, but I honestly may go two or three days of doing hundreds of puzzles without playing any games. Then other days I'll play my coach for hours (mostly trying to beat him at 1600), learning as many lessons as I can along the way. On the advanced levels, my coach changes his opening just about every game, teaching me a lot right there

Another plus this has done my game? After playing my coach for hours on 1600, I'll then join a tournament. When you play a solo game, the system will usually match you up against someone with a similar skill level as you; for me it's around 1,000 right now. The tournaments opponents can usually have any ranking between 700 - 1300, with the vast majority of your opponent's being between 800 - 1100. After hours of playing 1600 on repeat (a computer, mind you, that NEVER makes mistakes on the 1600 level), as you can probably imagine, playing against 800 - 1100 humans turns out be a piece of fucking cake. Just yesterday evening after playing my coach on 1600 all day, I went 4 for 4 in a tournament against a few 800's and one 1050. I'm still finding ways that my chess.com memberships can help improve my game

I cannot stress enough if you want to learn to play or get better at the game how much the memberships help. Each one providing you plenty of studying material by way of actual chess scenarios. It's absolutely fantastic

I don't need two though, so when my first gold membership ends, I'll cancel it and just renew my diamond membership at the regular price. What comes out to about $10 a month is a very small amount to invest in my improving in my favorite game