Comment on I'm 600 elo on chess dot com, what should I do to improve now?
neidu3@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
600-700 is around when the basic beginner traps stop working. Fried liver attack, etc.
Reading theory is helpful, but I’d say that’s more important at 1000+ ELO. For now, I’d say learning the basics of evaluating any position (king safety, long diagonals, weak squares, etc). Also, knowing many openers is good and all, but I suggest picking one and get really good at that. “I fear not the man who has practiced a million openers once” -Bruce Dickinson, or something.
My personal choice for openers are Kings Indian attack (as white) or Pirc Defense (as black). These are very similar, so if you know those two well, it doesn’t really matter what color you start as - they tend to end up with similar mid-games.
Also, around 700 it becomes important to spot which tactics are available to you in various positions. The puzzles at chess.com are really helpful for learning this.
As for the lichess argument, yes, it’s good. But I find that the analysis engine on chess.com is slightly better. And on that note, if you have a subscription, analyze your games afterwards, as it helps you understand what went wrong or right (yes, don’t just analyze your victories). Also, keep in mind that chess.com and lichess have different ways of calculating ELOs.
Source: 1757 day streak on chess.com, 1261 ELO while I’m writing this (Although, knowing myself, I’ll trip back to 1100ish soon)
moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
The chess com engine analysis sucks. It’s too focused on glazing you and not enough on being honest. It certainly feels better than the lichess engine, but it doesn’t actually share more information.
For example, it used to be that a “brilliant move” was any move that you spotted but that the engine didn’t. But now, it’s been changed so that any sacrifice is a “brilliant move”.
Further, the LLM based analysis is also pretty bad. It only seems to explain moves, but like most LLM’s, it actually hallucinates and recommends nonsensical stuff, or incorrectly makes other claims about the position. If you search on r/chess you can find plenty of examples of this:
etc etc.
As an alternative, if you really want that type of UI, you can also use Lichess’ server based engine analysis (you get 40 free per day unlike chess com’s paid stuff):
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But it doesn’t tell you why a move is bad. If you really want to learn why a move is bad, the local analysis lets you play your moves against stockfish and experiment and see why they are lacking.
Just learn to use the Lichess local analysis. It’s designed to actually facilitate improvement instead of glazing users and getting them to keep paying.