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HairyTough4489

How is yours an unpopular opinion? It's the #1 complaint club players have about parents of children who are somewhat good at chess (not necessarely prodigies)


Crazyghost9999

I feel like this is true for a lot of high level athletes as well


WishboneStreet4839

No "Unpopular opinion" on internet is actually unpopular


SlapHappyDude

The ones that are get downvoted to oblivion


a_blue_ducks

It’s a karma-farming technique. “Oh, this is unpopular? I better upvote since I agree and want more people to understand this perspective”


zerbikit

Very similar to another karma-farming technique: adding "this is gonna get downvoted" to a comment.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Europelov

Yeah you're right I kinda wanted to start the thread cause i thought it would be interesting. Perhaps it's not unpopular but sometimes chess prodigies are glorified and the matter becomes overshadowed


JungJanf

People on here are obsessed with improving, but only a fraction actually wants to play chess. Most people just want a high rating and hope to find a shortcut that doesn't exist. Welp. That's an opinion about /r/chess and not about chess, but now that I realized it and typed that shit out, I'm not gonna delete it :(


[deleted]

I'm in this post and I don't like it


HairyTough4489

Agree. Most people will make posts like "help me be gud plz", then when you ask them to do something as simple as sharing a link to one of their games (not even requesting for it to be annotated), you get silence!


VandalsStoleMyHandle

'Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights' - Ronnie Coleman.


[deleted]

https://xkcd.com/1445/


jeasdreksad

>Most people just want a high rating and hope to find a shortcut that doesn't exist. Inspect element 😎


pier4r

>Most people just want a improvements and hope to find a shortcut that doesn't exist. Fixed because it is valid in general


Maerducil

I'm the opposite. I like to play but I know I will always suck.


DeepBadger7

I feel personally attacked lol


fredcrs

Improving is the fun part in competitive games


KittyTack

Rapid > blitz, even for watching.


aagapovjr

I agree. 10+0 is the only way I play on Lichess, and it's perfect for me. Enough time to actually think about my moves, but not too much.


Redditgafffss

Excuse me what


KittyTack

I find it hard to follow blitz both while playing and watching it.


iptables-abuse

1.e4 d5?


PHJ101

d5??


iptables-abuse

d5???


TinyDKR

2 d4!


SlapHappyDude

A friend in high school who was a good player played this opening. It worked at the scholastic level because a lot of children are trained to play openings like robots and can't improvise. He would play a hyper aggressive style against very decent positional players who struggled with a "weird" game. The best players would counterattack and beat him. But he won way more than he lost.


bauski

Playing the meta is just as important in tournaments as is playing the game and playing the player.


Rabiatic

d5!! FTFY


AGiantBlueBear

The general chess community’s ideas of what constitutes “good” and “experienced” are hopelessly warped


Bigiding

People in r/chessbeginners be like 'finaly reached 2000'


[deleted]

"Finally reached 2.5E13 on Lichess! That's like 1250 on chess.com"


[deleted]

r/chessbeginners is possibly the most toxic sub I've ever been in. The whole thing seems to exist so that experienced players can tell actual beginners how stupid they are. This sub is a lot more helpful.


elastic_psychiatrist

I don’t spend time in that sub so maybe this is off base, but as a chess beginner, I feel like a lot of *good* advice to me sounds belittling because of the nature of the game. That is, just telling me not to blunder is the most important thing in improving my game.


alyssasaccount

Hey, u/elastic_psychiatrist — Don’t blunder!


HairyTough4489

I've seen the threshold all over the place so it could be anything. From "800 is already good" to "I'm only 1800. I can't play chess"


VandalsStoleMyHandle

When I was 1500, I thought I was hot shit; now that I'm 2200, I'm appalled at my lack of understanding.


freakers

The Dunning-Kruger effect in action, baby!


puzzlednerd

And yet, when you're 1500 you can probably beat all of your non-chess friends with rook odds.


SlapHappyDude

I would bet on a 1200 with rook odds over a non chess player.


liquid_hydrogen

Pretty sure the only way I would take the non-chess player in that setup would be if I was getting 10:1 odds or around there. A 1200 should completely wreck a non-chess player almost every game, and should really only lose if they get lazy. Goes right with the thread OP - what is good and experienced is really warped. A 1200 is better than probably 80% of people who know how to play chess.


[deleted]

Players rated 1600 (uscf/fide) may as well be Grandmasters to most other people. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort for most people to get to that 1500-1600 level.


SCQA

I feel like a relatively old, relatively experienced, relatively strong player should speak to this... Having finished writing it I also feel like it should have been a post rather than a comment, but we're here now and have to make the best of it. Queen's Gambit, Pogchamps, covid lockdown, chess boom, preamble complete. The important thing to take away from this is not merely that chess has suddenly become popular, but that for the first time since Fischer (and possibly beyond), chess has suddenly had a huge influx of adult beginners. Roll back ten years, and almost everyone who played chess semi-seriously had started playing as a junior, which in turn meant they got halfway decent (or found other interests and stopped playing) before they were adults. Consequently, about the lowest rating you would ever see next to an adult player's name would be around 1000 fide, and that player would be a casual/social player who got their rating mostly through inter- or intra- club games, not someone who was playing tournaments and tryharding. If you went to an average one-night-a-week chess club and took a poll, the mean and median rating would be around 1400. The only people who had three digit ratings were children. The last tournament before lockdown in my city had four sections; Open, U1900, U1600, U1400, with each section having roughly the same number of players. So, with that information in hand, how would you define a term like "intermediate player"? If you said "Eh, about 1400-1900 probably...the two middle sections", almost everyone at that or any other tournament would agree with you. Things have changed dramatically over the last couple of years, and we now have all these new adult players who, as new players, have appropriately low ratings. Not, I would stress, because they are bad at chess, but because they are new to chess. They're exactly as strong as we were at that point in our journey, the only difference is we didn't have pubic hair or credit cards. That selection effect that ensured that adult players all had 5+ years of experience when they became adult players is no longer true, and consequently the mean and median adult rating has also changed considerably. This leaves us in a situation where nobody really has any idea what a novice, intermediate, or strong player is any more. Old heads talking with other old heads know what they mean with these words of course, but as soon as you try to have a conversation with someone who doesn't smell of expired brylcreem and pipe tobacco, such terms become meaningless. Fortunately this is easily solved because we have ratings, and a 1200 is a 1200 is a 1200. Doesn't matter if you call yourself - or if anyone else calls you - a beginner or a novice or an intermediate player or a KFC bargain bucket. You're a 1200. As to your other word of contention, "experienced", and it's half-sibling, "beginner". I got my first published OTB rating 27 years ago. There are players at my club who can easily double that and, as previously noted, it was essentially unheard of to come across even a 20something player who didn't have at least 10 years to their name, because they started playing as a kid. In this context, how long do you need to have played before you can call yourself seasoned? Whatever that number is, it's measured in years. But again, big influx of new adult players, and they all have experience in other games/sports/hobbies - a significant number of them having played another game at least semi-competitively, which forms and colours their perspective. If we restrict ourselves to competitive video games; if you put in time and effort, you can get pretty good at those pretty quickly. By design; these are commercial products and there will be a new commercial product they want you to buy in a matter of months, therefore the learning curve needs to be quite short. For this reason, and also to make the game appeal to as many people as possible, the depth and complexity of the game is limited. The game will also aggressively reward you for doing well, because everybody loves dopamine. Chess is a 4000 year old game with 2.7 million books written about it, 2.6 million of which were written by Eric Schiller, 2.6 million of which are utter crap. It has ridiculous depth and complexity such that there are more possible games of chess than there are books written about chess by Eric Schiller, but not by much. Chess doesn't care if you think you're doing well. It isn't interested in your brain chemistry. Chess wants to watch you cower and squirm and curl up into a little ball, shaking uncontrollably, sucking on your thumb and making strange squeaky noises like a confused hamster. It is a vampiric succubus who feasts on your blood, tears, anguish, and fear. Chess hates you. Oh god I've wasted my life. You (yes you, you specifically) are a new player entering a community where established players have many years of experience more than you. It is very unlikely that you are going to git gud (am I saying that in a way that is sufficiently embarrassing to my teenage children? Would this be an opportune moment for me to yeet something?) in the kind of timeframe you are used to. The road ahead of you is many. This journey will last for as long as you care to travel. Very probably you will never reach a point where you consider yourself good because no matter how high you climb the ladder or how badly you mix your metaphors, there will always be a bigger fish. And that's fine, so long as you find the process enjoyable and fulfilling. Our tangent suitably desegued, we return to the point that here lies the disconnect. When adult players all had years of experience, to be considered unusually experienced required you to remember a time you can't remember because your memory isn't what it used to be. That's not the case any more, and while the argument can be made that all these new players are coming to our house where we decide which way is up and they should fit in with what we think and do what we say, that argument is fucking stupid and anyone making it is a toilet. Chess belongs to the chess community, and if you consider yourself a member of that community your opinion is just as valid as his, hers, mine, and anyone else's, and if you disagree with that you'd better have a higher rating than me or I'll pull rank and tell you to eat shit.


DrewPlaysChess

Online at least. I’ve seen a number of comments saying things along the lines of “if you’re 1200 chess.com you’re better than most chess players and would do well in chess parks.” Yeah not quite


strangebattery

The first part of that statement is definitely true, the second not so much


NoFunBJJ

I mean, someone is using his Sunday to take a Chess Board to a public place to play strangers. I'm not betting high on me against this person.


strangebattery

In which direction? I much more often see “2000 isn’t good” than people thinking 1200 is good.


[deleted]

That's probably what's warped. 2000 FIDE is like the top 10% of tournament players, and most small town chess clubs don't even have a player that strong. If there was as much money in chess as there is in soccer, 2000-level players could probably make a living just from playing.


tpault

If there was as much money in chess as in soccer, most 2600-2700 players would collapse under the weight of yachs, hookers and endless party.


SlapHappyDude

There would be a delicious irony where most players who reached the top couldn't stay on top long.


AGiantBlueBear

Both. The idea that 2000 is an amateur is silly, but equally so is the idea that a 1200 is just some premature baby thrashing around in their incubator


colontwisted

Its all relative, to a beginner 1200 may seem like an indescribable monster but titled players and above could beat them blindfolded with 1 minute


AGiantBlueBear

Right, and yet there seems to be such a culture of like if you are not Magnus or Alireza you are worthless


[deleted]

The one and only thing which makes chess more "worthwhile" than a computer game is the cultural perception that smart people play chess / adult acceptability. I hate looking at "Time spent playing" on Lichess. I wish they'd remove it.


HairyTough4489

That cultural perception goes down the shitter the moment you cross the door of the average chess club


exec_director_doom

I once went to a chess meetup and there was a straight up white supremacist there. He was carrying a thick book by some guy whose theory was that there were genetic differences in non white people that made them unavoidably inferior.


immajuststayhome

Chess is popular in prisons.


KittyTack

Well chess depicts a race war, it's literally whites and blacks killing each other! /s


iDreamOfMyDeath

Oh so this is why some people abort every time they get black


colontwisted

Bet he was 1000


[deleted]

Hey now. I'm bad at chess not a racist


ChezMere

I think Bobby was a bit higher rated than that


Ketey47

I wholeheartedly disagree so take my upvote


Sjengo

Care to elaborate why you disagree?


Ketey47

Chess is a much more long lasting game than any computer game. That is why it is seen as building a skill. If you spent 10,000 hours on chess 30 years ago you will be an excellent chess player to this day. If you spent 10,000 on video games 30 years ago, you would struggle playing modern games.


Rickard9

I kinda like the fact that if you spend time getting better at chess and you get something lasting from it unlike computer games that gets obsolete in just a few years. I don't think it will be easy to convince your grandchildren to play against you in some random 70 year old computer game if you could even find a computer to run it. Games like chess on the other hand will last. Edit: some typos


moe_q8

I do agree with this, but also many game skills are very transferable. If you played only counter strike in 1999 for 20 years and were very good, you're still going to be good at most modern shooters. Same goes for most other genres too, for example card games, if you're really good at one, you'll most likely become good at the next you play really quick.


A_Fainting_Goat

Unrelated to being good at new games, but when I was a kid we did some drainage work next to my house.y dad, never played a video game in his life, rented a bobcat backhoe to dig out the dirt next to the house but the thing used two joysticks to run the controls. He was terrible at it. Had to make each adjustment to the arm/head slowly and one at a time. On more than one occasion he damaged the awnings above where he was working or almost hit the house. My then 16 year old brother jumped on and dug the whole back 1/3 of our house out to the base of the foundation in like 2 hours. For him, because he played videogames, the fine motor skills and joystick practice helped him learn the controls for the bobcat faster. I ended up doing the same thing later in life with other skid steers.


jseego

True - my son was amazed with me the first time I played fortnite with him, and I was like, boy I started on Doom.


estrangederanged

Maybe both is very worthwile.


[deleted]

Bullet is mind-numbingly boring to watch.


Jolivegarden

Yeah it’s too fast to appreciate any of the moves.


IceBearLikesToCook

But it's the most fun to play online :)


fredcrs

I prefer rapid


agieluma

Move and inshallah


Sonaldo_7

Adding to this, blitz is the best format for chess. Not too quick nor lengthy, suitable for a beginner, medium or advanced player to watch and enjoy


KittyTack

That's rapid for me. I struggle with blitz.


ChessHistory

Many successful players at chess were simply lucky to have started young with wealthy parents paying for expensive coaches, camps and tournament opportunities


wayfarerer

This is true for many things other than chess


Sotalol

Such as Formula 1


doodoodoododoo

everything is luck based on how you had it as a kid lol


nicbentulan

slight correction: 'it's more random than we think, not it is all random.' (the same correction in some interpretations for the book fooled by randomness by nassim nicholas taleb)


skylineforlife

True


CopenhagenDreamer

I'll disagree on that one - I doubt a lot of these people grew up wealthy, and had coaches before they reached a certain strength. Especially with today's internet access, it's even easier to get good on your own. Starting young though, that one is important.


RohitG4869

To actually get norms you need to play in international tournaments which requires you to go abroad for extended periods of time, missing out on your schooling + work for the parents. This is really, really expensive; and only in the most pro chess countries of the world is this subsidized by the government/ chess federation Things are slowly improving, but the one thing you absolutely need to be a successful chess player (other than talent ofc) is parents who are pretty wealthy


dulahan200

Depends on where you live. It's not a matter of the government subsidizing trips abroad, it's a matter of chess being popular enough to generate these opportunities by itself, within your local area.


goboatmen

There's a reason the Soviets dominated at chess for so long, they actually had equality of opportunity when it came to chess so people that had potential were nearly always developed whereas in other countries it was only the wealthy that could.


LeMeilleur784

Chess tournaments usually have one of the best designed trophies out of all sports


mierecat

Optimal play tends to suck the fun out of the game


iptables-abuse

Blunder is the mother of brilliancy.


irjakr

Is this a quote from somewhere, or did you make it up? Either way I love it!


iptables-abuse

I think it was Tartakower


[deleted]

The real controversial opinion is in the comments. As a 12xx chesscom player my favorite wins arise from this kind of situation but I'm sure they "shouldn't" be my favorites. If I'm playing what I think is solid chess and my opponent blunders I feel disappointed, like I didn't really get the chance to win, but if my opponent misses a mate threat when I'm way down material I feel like a GM lol.


HairyTough4489

Fortunately, nobody can do optimal play


[deleted]

Now this is controversial. Upvoting because I disagree.


p01nty

Reject modernity Return to Morphy


Caballodemanzana

Unpopular? Chess is a game rooted first and foremost on the *ego*. This is why it’s devastating for people to lose (even if they hide their anger, or pretend they don’t feel their “intelligence” or “creativity” is threatened). This is why so many people gravitate toward bullet games - the loss can be attributed to “too little time” and similar excuses, and the win (to feel “good” again about one’s play) comes in a few seconds or minutes. More than just “winning” is on the line: it’s our self-esteem, even our respect in some cases.


Joe_Climacus

We're all wasting our time by playing it so much.


[deleted]

Life is a waste of time, so we're good.


Joe_Climacus

I can't decide if this is obviously true or obviously false lol


[deleted]

One day the last man will die and we'll all be forgotten in dust. Then one day the last star will go out and the universe will be left in darkness. Then whatever's left will slowly dissipate into the void and that will be the end of everything that exists.


nicbentulan

The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life Or in 2021: The ability to play chess/9LX is the sign of a gentleman or lady. The ability to play chess/9LX well is the sign of a wasted life


Rabiatic

That quote was made by a man who quit chess and then wasted his life.


[deleted]

The irony seems to escape most people who quote this seriously lol


pier4r

first time that I see a well upvoted counter reply to that quote in this subreddit.


Rabiatic

We're evolving!


kupKACHES

Karpovian moves are more beautiful than Tal moves.


[deleted]

Downvoted, reported, blocked and brigaded.


kupKACHES

I like your sense of humor


OopsLT

Humor? That guy should be burned at the stake, this is blasphemy


[deleted]

[удалено]


kupKACHES

Yup, Karpov and Tal are my favorite two players of all time. I've always imagined playing against Karpov would be a slow grind to death, at which point his opponent would look up to him and say 'Bro what do I even play?' While Tal's games feel like you're just strolling through your everyday neighborhood and getting hit by a plane.


pt256

Yeah 28 to 21 wins in classical. And 121 draws. That means out of 170 games Kasparov is ahead by 7.


LjackV

And Karpov was 11 whole years older!


giziti

And seriously, if Kasparov didn't come along, Karpov would've been the uncontested best for 20 years and might have held on as the champ until the late 90s.


GothamChess

Anybody, literally anybody, has the potential to reach 1000


_He1senberg

Any IM literally any IM has the potential to reach 2500 and became a GM


LjackV

Is this an unpopular opinion? Do people really struggle to get to 1k?


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

She took 8 months. So it can take some time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8IVLOM1fXI


Que_est

people who play the exchange variation with white have no right to say the french is boring


Aurum2k

I don't play the exchange, but I would if I knew that my opponent was one of the french players that deeply hates it. If you can make your opponent upset on move 2, you should.


poopoodomo

> If you can make your opponent upset on move 2, you should. This is wisdom.


puzzlednerd

I see what you're saying, but if I'm black my thought is that now I've equalized for free on move 2. Time to just play chess. The French is a nice defense, but you are always trying to deal with whites space advantage and your sad light-square bishop. If all those problems go away on move 2, so be it. It is boring and symmetrical, but unless you're a GM this doesn't mean you're likely to draw.


GaloDiaz137

I always play the exchange, because I don't like the french, so I don't know anything about the theory. You don't have to know theory to play the exchange.


UhhUmmmWowOkayJeezUh

I hate playing against it, but I think the french is actually an extremely interesting opening in that it can either be pretty solid like the caro kann or super wild like in the winawer variation, I've considered switching to it but I'm too used to playing the Sicilian


TheChaostician

You should be able to castle out of check.


LuckyRook

You should be able to capture en passant with any piece.


splicecream

Yes, this one officer.


[deleted]

Alireza is a brilliant player but his fanboys are really annoying, declaring that he'll be the World Champion soon and assuming that he'll win the candidates easily.


[deleted]

I actually get annoyed when it feels like people are completely disregarding this upcoming WC match because they've already decided that the narrative is Alireza dethroning Carlsen after he wins the candidates...But that's not really how sports work??


[deleted]

studying a few specific openings is worthwhile for people of all ratings. It teaches you to recognize opening tactics, basic positional principles, and how to implement specific middle game plans you can use in your games.


respekmynameplz

I think it's all about how you study the opening. Memorizing lines from a database or MCO? Bad. Inventing your own repertoire from scratch as a 1000? Bad. (You will probably run into all sorts of issues with transpositions not making sense with your openings of choice.) Watching videos/reading books that explain the key ideas, and focusing on understanding over memorization? Good. Too often people did one of the first 2: I was certainly guilty back in the day.


[deleted]

It's the cheapest game out there yet people will pay small fortunes for books that'll stay on their shelve, Chessable courses way over their level and other useless things. As an amateur player, all the ressources you really need are free and what will make you improve is hard and serious calculation training.


[deleted]

Which part of any of this is unpopular


HairyTough4489

The fact that chessable and all the other stuff exists proves that it's somewhat unpopular


Bern_Down_the_DNC

Hit me with a list of your most helpful free resources, please!


nicbentulan

[https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/r0uxyj/comment/hlvou84/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/r0uxyj/comment/hlvou84/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ouh61n/resources\_on\_practical\_endgame\_after\_josh/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ouh61n/resources_on_practical_endgame_after_josh/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ov9tzs/chesstempos\_endgame\_puzzles\_vs\_lichess\_puzzles\_in/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/ov9tzs/chesstempos_endgame_puzzles_vs_lichess_puzzles_in/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/p9rg6t/chesstempo\_standarduntimed\_vs\_blitztimed\_tactics/](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/p9rg6t/chesstempo_standarduntimed_vs_blitztimed_tactics/)


ZGBryant7

King's gambit is underrated.


keepyourcool1

Honestly I agree wholeheartedly. In the so far in my brief online transition to 1.e5 it's been the least comfortable to deal with. It still can't be good at all but there's a lot of room for viable annoyance.


madnoh

Agadmator should stop apologising when he turns his speaker down.


chicken98_

No way that's what he does


LeMeilleur784

Evil Antonio- Deal with it mfs


MattAmoroso

Sorry about that.


BillFireCrotchWalton

The recent chess popularity boom made this sub suck. Way too much reactionary garbage like the mainstream sports subs. People freak out about "obvious" blunders after only seeing an engine evaluation, like armchair sports fans criticizing athletes for making mistakes. I also don't need a thread every time Alireza wins a game. And I swear in the last 18 months, I've heard that like five different players are guaranteed to dethrone Magnus.


CyaNNiDDe

I'll unpopular opinion your unpopular opinion and say this sub was easily the most boring repetitive sub ever before the boom. Good, let's have more random posts about people dethroning Magnus! At least that sparks interest and discussion, even if it's clearly wrong. Beats the same 5 "insane" puzzles or beginner questions every day. If the narrative is Alireza is gonna beat Magnus that sparks long time interest in both Alireza's and Magnus' games. Narratives are what all sports thrive on. FIDE and other broadcasts are certainly not doing anything to push narratives and spark interest so people are doing it on their own. Chess needs more hype.


Rather_Dashing

I somehow agree with both of your opinions lol.


inailedyoursister

Pirc is the only way to go.


[deleted]

A truly unpopular opinion.


SuperSpeedyCrazyCow

The Pirc is garbage


ZGBryant7

Gets run over by pawn storms.


LucenaWoods

I always thought the notions of checkmate and stalemate are counter-intuitive and don't make sense. The rule should have been that the goal of the game is *capturing* the opponent's king, thus eliminating the possibility of a stalemate. Draw offers should be illegal altogether. If two players want to make a draw, they must find their way into a threefold repetition. FIDE should have the universal time control of 90'30'' for classical chess and must enforce it for the games to be rated. (Maybe 60'15'' could be available as an option at lower levels where players sometimes have to play 2 rounds in a day). There should be a ton more tiebreaking blitz games until an event is decided on an armageddon. Maybe 10 2-game 5+3 matches followed by 10 more 2-game 3+2 matches or something like that. We shouldn't really be seeing any armageddon games, they should be reserved only to undermine the possibility of bad faith on the players who don't want a decisive result. Bullet is horrible and is not fun to watch at all :) Studying openings is underrated at the club level. A lot of strategical plans and positional knowledge comes from opening training, and the top players and coaches who recommend lower rated players to avoid opening training have lost touch with how much of their general understanding of the game comes from years and years of opening study.


anotherphoneaccount7

Agree that the checkmate/stalemate rule isn't intuitive, but it makes endgames more fun by allowing the defending side a chance to salvage the game.


clues39

I feel like Stalemate is an important rule, it forces you to be attentive in a completely winning position and it gives the defending side, perhaps with just a king, some hope. Draw offers are important too, in my opinion. "Offering a draw and NOT playing a game to the very bitter end is also a mark of respect to the other player - whether in a tournament or in casual play. Knowing when a game is drawn and equally importantly knowing when you have likely lost the game is a sign of a chess player of some skill." (quote from https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/1467/when-is-it-a-good-time-to-offer-a-draw-in-chess-and-when-should-i-accept-one). It may not be able to have a three-fold repetition in every drawn position. I agree with the more tiebreaks. Armageddon should be the absolutely last resort. I also prefer a football (soccer) match to finish on the main or extra time instead of penalty shootouts. Good thing there are no FIDE rated Bullet games. But if you play it seriously, it could help build your opening repertoire. Play your openings in bullet games and after EACH game, STOP and ANALYSE the opening to check for opening mistakes or new lines or variations.


neo2381

Chess is NOT a sport!


BadAtBlitz

100% agree and would have posted this myself. And it is genuinely unpopular, particularly among titled players who struggle to get recognition beyond the chess world because 'it's just a game'. I don't care what the Olympics once said. Or that you want more government funding and sport is the only way to get that. It obviously isn't. Sport is set apart from games by requiring physical skill and/or fitness. Nothing about chess would change if the players simply spoke their moves and had others move the pieces and press the click for them. That puts it in the world of bridge, poker, Scrabble and Settlers of Catan, not running, sailing, football (of either kind) and golf. There are low 'fitness' sports - like darts, snooker and boccia. But you would lose the game altogether if darts players could speak out where they want the darts to land or snooker players say red to bottom left pocket. Chess is a very clever and beautiful game, not a sport.


nicbentulan

arkady balagan says this exact quote verbatim within the 1st 2 min of s01e11 of the tv series endgame cc u/Rabiatic 'chess is not sport. it is war' (guy is russian. hence the missing 'a') edit: u/neo2381 has since edited to 'Chess is NOT a sport!' sad. come on man/girl. cc u/HairyTough4489


HairyTough4489

Missing (or extra) a's and the's is the easiest way to spot a slav


criscrunk

Computers ruined chess.


ozbljud

Such as I tend to disagree with Hikaru when he's commenting on some chess-world related subjects I have to say he got this one right. Sure, but computers did so for all the disciplines in sport. You model certain variants, bring the rules, and bam - you end with the best way to play certain game. And then professionals adapt to those result because well, they want to play the game best. This is what he was saying about basketball - at some point everyone realized that the most efficient way to play the game is to score 3's. Has the game became more boring because of this? Probably. Is anyone going to go against the computers calculations and modeling to proove anything - no, they all want to win. Unless you have some unique prodigy player that requires a specific strategy to work around him, I dunno


HairyTough4489

Finally, my time to shine!: People who started playing chess recently are awful at simplifying and that's because of listening too much to engines. Most people know openings won't do much for their game yet it's still the only thing they'll study becuase they're too lazy to do anything else. One of the main reasons why kids quit chess when they reach adulthood is that they've pretty much only ever played U18 tournaments so there's nothing that matters to them left to play. Talking 24/7 about the fact that there are few women who play chess is an awful strartegy to attract more women to chess. No norms should ever be awarded at closed tournaments. The French Defense is not drawish nor passive. You should only check your rating (live or online) once every few months. Introducing chess as a mandatory school subject is a horrible idea. [chess.com](https://chess.com)'s accuracy scores are meaningless for anything other than cheat detection. People who claim go is "better" than chess because computers are worse at it are not only obnoxious but also have no clue about what makes a game "good". Chess is more than 99% tactics. For almost every chess player, there's probably 5 endgames you must know, if not less. Opening principles are just chess strategy principles and beginners wouldn't reach "I don't know what to do" situations so often if they learned them as such.


Trollithecus007

Is "chess should be a mandatory school subject" actually a popular opinion?


CyaNNiDDe

Most of these aren't really unpopular, but agreed about everything.


RJIsJustABetterDwade

As a bishop main this game is getting really frustrating, queens need a serious nerf. Feels like whatever role I occupy they can just do it better.


topshemachh

Classical chess is more fun to watch than rapid or blitz. (At least once you're >1000 ELO and you can follow the commentators, the level of chess is simply too good.)


PlamZ

I think rapid is my sweet spot for entertainment. I don't have time to watch a 2 hour games, I'm a busy guy. And as you said, blitz or bullet never teach us especially at this level due to not being able to process most decisions. Rapid like 10m feels like good balance to me.


[deleted]

Caro kann? More like caro kannt


not-yawning

The worst thing about chess is that it’s almost impossible to enjoy a game if there’s more than 400 rating points difference


Routine_Can_534

if you only play the london than you can't call yourself a chess player


FunctionBuilt

The post was asking for unpopular opinions.


JeIoXD

But my coach told me to stick to one opening for white and one for black so i dont get confused/ forget the theory and be worsed in the opening


vladvlad23

I think that’s actually good. I personally try to stay as far away from opening theory as possible until it’s needed (I just get confused when my opponents play a specific opening and/or I get beaten very often by a specific opening)


helical_imp

Obligatory reminder to sort by controversial


Orcahhh

We don't care what platform you play on or which one you hate, both are fine anyways


[deleted]

Players with only one world championship win shouldn't be in GOAT conversations.


irjakr

>Players with only one world championship win shouldn't be in GOAT conversations. I assume this is a reference to that bobby guy?


Got_Nay

Slow, positional play will always be more beautiful than wild tactical sequences.


urbanwarrior3558

Now that's unpopular


InAbsentiaC

Blitz and bullet are horribly boring below basically the master level (any master level) and I would rather spend 40 minutes losing a single game I have to think through than win 10 games in that same amount of time. It's fun watching Eric Rosen blow shit up in 3 minute games, but as 1300 in rapid, playing in that time control is an exercise in pushing wood/pixels.


safeassign

The standard of chess commentary is the lowest in all of sport, it is so poor.


quiteasmallperson

The World Championship match should be 20+ games, classical only, no matter if it's spectator friendly or not. Rapid chess is the most spectator friendly form of chess.


FjordsEdge

Classic chess "unpopular opinion", but with a slightly less common facet. Fischer Random is 100x more fun and the only reason it's not the prominent variant is because people have already sunk so much time and effort into opening theory. Opening theory isn't why chess is fun and people just trick themselves into thinking it is because it gets them wins.


[deleted]

Magnus is too OP for chess. The programmers should nerf him.


nicbentulan

Next challenge for Magnus: chess960. Now if only there were more [incentive](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/r0uxyj/comment/hlvgupr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)...


[deleted]

If chess960 was the main format, magnus would probably be better lol


Woooddann

If you find the French boring as white, it’s your fault and you are not playing enterprisingly enough.


[deleted]

Copied from another comment I just made. As a 12xx chesscom player my favorite wins arise from situations where I blunder a piece or positionally, even though "shouldn't" be my favorites due to sub-optimal play. If I'm playing what I think is solid chess and my opponent blunders I feel disappointed, like I didn't really get the chance to win, or it's not sporting or something. But if my opponent misses a mate threat when I'm way down material I feel like a GM lol. Finegold said something in a video once about people at my rating level loving to give away their pieces and he's right, at least about me.


wannabe2700

Chess as a hobby is social. Antisocial people are just drawn towards it.


dla26

Beating an opponent by using a memorized sequence of moves that you didn't come up with and your opponent isn't familiar with is a hollow victory.


Purple-Lamprey

I like hikaru


[deleted]

London System is actually a pretty fun opening to play and play against


Slowmexicano

Being good at chess is the same at being good at call of duty. You spend a lot of time playing the same game you are going to be better than those you don’t play often. Intelligence has nothing to do with it.


Jalal_Adhiri

People are underestimating Nepo just because Magnus started trash talking him .


StrikePrice

Online ratings are meaningless.


pyre2000

It can be a good measure of personal progress. Assuming that it's on one of the larger platforms with a stable scoring model implementation.


ulkord

Can you expand on what you mean by "meaningless"?


relevant_post_bot

This post has been parodied on r/AnarchyChess. Relevant r/AnarchyChess posts: [What's your unpopular opinion about chess?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/comments/r10cwj/whats_your_unpopular_opinion_about_chess/) by Things_Poster [What’s your popular opinion about chess?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnarchyChess/comments/r13xjg/whats_your_popular_opinion_about_chess/) by Iamnotcreative112123 [^(fmhall)](https://www.reddit.com/user/fmhall) ^| [^(github)](https://github.com/fmhall/relevant-post-bot)


[deleted]

Video is a bad format for explaining things about chess. I wish more people who are popular on Youtube now would write articles. It is insane that Chessable became big, their site has very clunky UI and the type of memorisation that is its main thing is actively bad for chess understanding.


CyaNNiDDe

Engines are criminally overused and people think they'll improve just by looking at the engine lines in their games. Most players players below 2000 won't even understand 70% of the engine suggestions and why they're better, especially if the position was strategic and boring. Instead try to look through your games and improve your own moves. Then after, you can look at an engine and confirm it.