Some people should not be playing chess. I am one of them.
Recently I have been playing a lot more chess, and it seems to be the one game that I don't mind opening on the phone either. Most games I actually stop playing because I hate waiting for them to load or the login is a tedious affair.
Take Splinterlands or Rising Star for example, are there any games that are worse when it comes to loading the first time in Rising Stars' case logging in every single time is a pretty lousy experience.
They are just examples of "games" we know on Hive, but in general many are similar, possibly not as horrid as Splinterlands but similar.
It is even worse if the game is specifically mobile and I can't bypass it y having it always open on PC etc. Although, another thing with Chess for me is that it is the one game I actually don't even care if it is PC or mobile.
The Lichess app for one is extremely optimized on mobile, so even with mobile data and low battery I can play and not be too concerned about resource usage.
Chess.com on the other hand is a bit of a hog, they feel slower because they are slower, I also think they use way more data than Lichess purely because of all the nonsense they like to load.
The above screenshot is my profile on Lichess, which now that I see it on desktop; I finally found the insights button :)
Anyway, the Lichess ELO is apparently different from the Chess.com one. So if I am 900 on Lichess I am probably more like a 400 on Chess.com
For Rapid (10+0) I am actually similar on both, albeit I think once my Chess.com games increase the real number should be closer to that difference.
So simply put, I am rather shit, like if two pawns had a baby in hopes it would follow the family career; I would be the one sent to work in the stables instead.
Recently though I have been playing more Blitz (5+0) and if I thought I was an idiot when I had time, then the best move I could make was to reduce my thinking - or in my case braindead time by 5 minutes.
In Blitz my proclivity for leaps of faith become far more apparent; and frankly, I could just call myself a badass with a born-to-be wild attitude.
Now I only started playing Blitz since Immortals Games only has the 5 min Blitz as one of the longest playing options. Since I actually can earn from playing on Immortal, it just stands to reason that I play and lose as much as possible in Blitz.
Instead of maybe a bit more often in Rapid on Chess.com or Lichess.
Needless to say as you see above I have about a 1 in 4 chance of winning any one game, and it is going down hard.
I have started looking at learning some openings, because the main thing is also I tend to lose not only because I am bad but also on time.
If I can get the first 20 moves or so down to minimal thinking required as these people seem to be doing by memorizing all the openings. Then I might do a bit better by being able to not constantly be on the backfoot and never really having a middle game I control.
Finding good learning resources for Chess is actually a shitshow, Chessable seems to be one of the main sites but it is absolutely pathetic on mobile. I doubt it is better in the browser, it is so slow.
They do have some Coursera style free courses and I guess to be spoonfed info it really is the only option.
Memorizing all these possible opening lines is a ongoing thing so I don't bog myself down with it too much but I tend to see what sticks.
Currently, I like Nf3 or Nf6 no matter what side I am playing and I do the normal move the midgets to the center and see what happens...
Possibly not the best but that is 5 moves I don't think about. I have some alterations and things I have noticed that I slowly add in until they become cemented in my memory but I find tweaking something 1 move per game works ok for me.
Aside from then taking my Chess.com and Immortal Games to analyze inside Lichess, there is this site
Opening Tree which also gives an overview of all games and general gameplay for a player.
I only visited the website yesterday, after actually having the mobile app before. If you do use it, then only use the browser version. The mobile app is nothing short of pathetic.
All in all I may be 400 ELO which as mentioned is 10 IQ points below that of a brick, but I also don't really care because I like playing the game. Not to mention , even though I am not supposed to be playing it is nice that Immortal Game still gives me tokens; although maybe it is like financial outreach for the chess disabled but money is money. Ya'know.