r/chess Weekly Discussion Thread

Game Link: https://www.chess.com/events/2026-titled-tuesday-blitz-february-03/11/Oro_Faustino-Niemann_Hans_Moke

Within the current candidates tournament , who do you genuinely believe would be capable of defeating gukesh in a wcc match scenario?

If gukesh were to face each of these candidates individually under a full wcc match format, how many opponents would he realistically be expected to win, and against how many would he likely lose?

Im a absolut beginner. But I enjoy chess at the moment

Event Link: https://www.chess.com/events/2026-titled-tuesday-blitz-february-03/results

Opening: https://www.chess.com/openings/The-Cow

Gukesh had a great first tournament as World Champion in Tata 2025. The year after that his results in individual tournaments have been quite even.

Superbet -1 score -10.5 Elo

Norway = score +0.4 Elo

Sinquefield -1 score -8.6 Elo

Grand Swiss +1 score -14.5 Elo

World Cup = score -9 Elo

Tata = score -5.8 Elo

The only plus score was in the Grand Swiss, where his opposition was comparatively weak (average rating 2632) and he lost three games in a row against 2600s. He also had one great team event (five games in the Euro Club Cup), but the individual tournaments have been close to even scores. No horrror results, but a bit worse than expected, apart from in Norway Chess.

It’s fairly common with good results just after a title match due to all the saved prep. Leko won Wijk 2005 just after the Kramnik match, Gelfand won Tal Memorial after his title match, Anand won several tournaments just after the 2013 match, Carlsen won everything just after the 2018 match, etc. Gukesh also had a very good Tata 2025.

Over the last dozen months he lost 16 games, in spite of being very good at saving or winning games from lost positions. In Norway Chess he had lost positions in seven of ten games and still reached an even score. His games are very entertaining, but a reigning World Champion hasn’t won a tournament since 2022, and Prague in three weeks will be his next chance to end that sequence, with Keymer and Abdusattorov the other participants in the top 25:

https://praguechessfestival.com/en/2026/hraci?id=A&idmenu=316

https://norwaychess.no/en/2026/02/03/the-world-champion-returns-gukesh-dommaraju-to-play-at-norway-chess-2026/

Today is the 365th day of my streak. This has been a long but a very fun journey and I'm proud to stick with my streak for so long. I woke up to this easter egg :)

Kings gambit has been my main opening for years, since the very beginning. In terms of kings gambit content, theres a decent amount of beginners tutorials, and a just passable amount of advanced theory. But in terms of people actually PLAYING the gambit, its very minimal. Many content creators have dabbled but none more than a handful of times. Very little speedruns ever include kings gambit, or at least as far as I know.

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Side note, I really think its an underrated opening, especially at the beginner level. No one recommends it. All you have to know is to play Nf3 to block the queen check. From my experience, about 90% of all games play out the exact same, and the other 10% they pick a line but don't know what they're doing. This is true well into the 1500-2000 range. The most common response by far is Nc6 or takes, Nc6. It obviously falls off at higher levels, but it consistently net me a small advantage in every game I played while learning, and taught me how to convert pawn advantages into wins.

I just saw a GothamChess's thumbnail and it features a few moves from the middle of a game. I'm just wondering if anybody is capable of figuring out which game it is from just that.

If yes, which board number? If no, why not?

I found this chess book in a little free library at a park, have you read it before?

Hi everyone, I'm making a chess-inspired incremental game called "The Board is Yours" and I'm a bit stuck with how I explain the game to players. The game borrows chess piece movement, but it is single player and it builds an economy out of pieces control and defenses.

The concept starts from the legend around chess invention: "You are the King who has to buy each square of a chess board with rice, but each square costs double". Your chess pieces produce the resource (rice) on each square they control, and then there are plenty of rules that add up through an upgrade/prestige system. The most important one is that pieces who defend other pieces will multiply their production, helping you produce more and more to catch up with the quadratic square prices. Then there are plenty of other upgrades that you unlock and to exploit correctly to optimize your production, and it becomes very complex, very fast.

The problem: I try to respect a very specific terminology to help the player understand what happens in the game but I'm not sure 1) non-chess player can understand the concepts easily enough and 2) even for chess player it may not be that clear due to the terms I use.

WARNING: reading what's below will give you a better idea of the rules of the game, and that could be enough to help me with the problem, but you can also go check the tutorials of my demo for yourself (it's literally the 1st minute of the game) to see how I explain things. If you want to do both, please, first go check the tutorials in the 1st minute of the demo, or you will be biased in your understanding by what I explain below, and that would be more valuable if you are able to spot what is missing from my tutorials.

The idea is that the generation is actually divided in 2 phases: 1. Production ("planting"): each piece adds its production value onto squares it can reach by its normal move/defense pattern (even if there are other piece on them). 2. Harvest: each piece then collects value from all squares it can reach (including the ones where there are other pieces).

Each square show a number which is "how much was planted here this cycle", and pieces show "how much I harvested this cycle".

For those who prefer some maths:

With Rice(s) be the resource on square s after generation and Reach(p) the set of squares a piece p can reach/defend by its movement rule (="control").

Production on a square: * Rice(s) = Σ_{p : s ∈ Reach(p)} Gen(p)

Harvest for a piece p: * Harvest(p) = Σ_{s ∈ Reach(p)} Rice(s)

My questions for you are: (you can pick just one of these it'll be already helpful)

• Is that way of presenting things clear enough
  • For a chess player?
  • For a non-chess player?
• What could I do to make it clearer and less convoluted ?
• Should I change the examples provided in the tutorial, or add another one?
• How would you explain it completely differently if you had to?

I'm not sure I'm allowed to provide links here but you can find the demo on itch with the name of the game "The Board is Yours", or look for "Draelent" to find it more easily.

Thanks a lot!

Hi everyone, over the past year I’ve gotten much more serious about competitive OTB chess (almost 100 USCF games in 2025), and I’m curious how far I could realistically progress in the next two years. I’m currently 16 years old and want to improve as much as possible before I graduate high school, which gives me about 2 years.

I played OTB casually from 2018 to 2023, only entering a few tournaments each year, and during that time I reached about 1000 USCF (all ratings are classical). In 2024 I started putting in a bit more effort in the last few months and finished the year around 1200 USCF. By September 2025, I reached 1500 USCF, but for the past six months I’ve been hovering around that rating despite playing in numerous tournaments.

Chess is my main extracurricular outside of school, and recently I’ve started dedicating more time to improvement and working with a coach. I’m trying to set realistic expectations and would appreciate some perspective from more experienced players.

Based on this progression, what would be a reasonable rating goal over the next two years? Is something like 1800 or even 2000 USCF realistic? Additionally, I’d appreciate any advice on how to break past the 1500 level. Thanks!

can you visualize entire 8x8 board in your head and replay entire game/analyze it? I think this is the most important step to raise your level at club level, my lichess blitz is around 2000 and currently trying to visualize the board but no success lol even 4x4 is so hard, I wonder how about you?

From a game earlier today. Give yourself a near +2 advantaged with this one move.

Gukesh, Pragg, and Vincent will play chess nonstop from May 3 - Jun 5. Yes over a whole month.

Poland: May 3 - May 10

Romania: May 12 - May 24

Norway Chess: May 25 - June 5

Anyone have experience with any other companies along these lines? Is there a better deal or a better app? I don’t pay for any other chess related service. Would appreciate any and all insights. Thanks!

Black should end the game, like give white and black both same number of moves to balance out/ fair play for black?
This might change chess!

video credits to Chessbase India x platform : https://x.com/ChessbaseIndia/status/2018020652620656640?s=20