I'm putting this here because I've seen a lot of posts by people on forums, here and elsewhere, asking about the best way to improve as a beginner chess player.

Oftentimes a lot of emphasis is put on reading books or consuming online content, but for me the most significant factor in my chess improvement was finding an environment where I could play over the board casually with people of varying strengths, who all enjoy chess.

The benefits are many, but perhaps the most significant is getting to discuss your games. After, and sometimes as, you play, you and your opponent will discuss lines, and often things you're worried about in your position. As a beginner, you can pick up fairly quickly basic tactics, but positional understanding -- those 'instincts' about a position -- are so much easier to learn if you have someone to point them out in your games. Chess is such a lovely hobby in that everyone I've met has wanted others to succeed and improve. The strong friends I've made there have lent me books, and reviewed my games once I started playing in the league.

Beyond the chess, there's the social and motivational aspect. I look forward to Wednesday evenings (my pub chess night) because I know I'm going to go, chat shit with some friends over beer, and play some chess.

The final thing I'd emphasise is that it doesn't have to be a formal club. In my city there's a great pub chess night, and on the continent I'm aware there's a great coffee house chess scene. You can be casual, and strength is not the be-all and end-all.

So go forth and play! If you want any advice on finding somewhere nice (and if you happen to be in Bristol, UK), let me know!

This is from the chess master app. That's the solution of the puzzle (to win).

It's level 3, puzzle 18

Subjetively, it makes a HUGE difference whether I play a "normal" game against the computer and select stockfish lvl 1 (yes, I'm a very bad newbie), compared to when I select "offline game" and also select stockfish lvl 1. The latter is far more difficult and hardly makes any mistakes (as far as I can tell anyways). I can never beat the offline bot, and almost always beat the online bot. Is this a known quirk of the app?

I clicked on "Analyze Game" and Stockfish wouldn't find any blunder or mistake. I had lost two matches against the opponent previously (on other days) so this game was just ... perfect.

(Is there any blog posts / etc on the distribution of accuracy-percentages, potentially for various ELO levels? I am pretty surprised that I played so accuracte given that I tend to blunder regularly)

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My father is annoyingly using this construct that I find very hard to break into, he played white here. So I would like to find a strategy against it :-)

so my rating on lichess is higher for rapid (close to 900) than to blitz (close to 700), and I kind of wonder whether this is due to differences in the pool of people playing rapid vs blitz, or whether I am just a not as good at thinking fast.

I have played A LOT of blitz games in June & July and only recently really picked up rapid games. Overall I think I am not even making too much use of the additional time quite often in rapid as I am still somewhat used to the time constraint in blitz (e.g. I never lost due to time-out on a rapid game), so I don't think its actually me playing much better in rapid than in blitz

A bit annoying that people won't find the 'resign' button if they are unwilling to finish the match.

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So I am on lichess in the 700es range and I continue to have these players as opponents who early on attack really aggressively.They must have some success with this (element of surprise I guess), but if I look at the stockfish analysis there moves arent so smart. (difficult enough for me to fend off though). I sometimes feel a little dumb, though because it can be quite hard to find out how to stop their attacks..

I'm failing to understand the lichess.org practice exercise 'Exploit the Pin \#3'. I've arrived at the 'correct' move (Nxg5), but without any understanding of where there is a pin, and how it has been exploited. Can someone please enlighten me?

I watched the first minutes of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYrvclbqRM8&t=887s and quickly won this Blitz game

In most recent games, the opponent just attacked aggressively in the first 5 moves and I am somehow not able to defend correctly.

Also, the opponent is usually not playing "stockfish moves", so I have the feeling they wouldn't stand a chance moving that early that aggressively if their opponent wasn't me.

(10+0 rapid at >900, <1000 ELO)

This set is not the cheapest plastic set you can get but I got it because I wanted plastic (moisture robustness) and wanted a set that still feels valuable. A numbers chess board that is foldable was a plus.

Overall I like the set, most astonishing is the sound and feel of bringing a chess piece to the board, of course it’s not the wooden experience of a chess cassette but it feels and sounds right.

What do you think, is it fun for you to watch the absolute Top of Chessplayers play, while having an ELO around 800? Are you watching the big matches and big tournaments?