Just read this about a guy from India becoming the youngest ever world chess champion. I used to play chess a LOT during my teenage and college years but then I discovered PC gaming....
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Doing chess problems on chess.com, but that's about it.
I like to watch chess content on YT though, Gothamchess, Botez sis, Hikaru, Anna Cramling...
World chess championship is very much going to be India vs China now that Magnus has retired, though US still have some chances for next decade with Hikaru, Fabiano, and weirdo Marvel villain Hans. Classic chess isn't super exciting to wtach though, I love blitz and bullet. Chess 960 may become a parallel event to WCC if Magnus gets hiw way, and there are different chess rules going in and out of fashion every few months.
What's hard for me to swallow is that when I was 19, I could beat my electronic chess board at the highest level while doing maths, nowadays I lose to my phone on level 3 or 4
I tried teaching my daughter how to play chess a few months ago, but maybe I was too hard on her. I refuse to let her win at anything, as that teaches the wrong lesson. Adapt and overcome is what she needs to learn, which she mostly does elsewhere.
There was a time a couple of decades ago where I would play three simultaneous games of chess vs. three different people--that was fun.
StarCraft 1 took over before chess grabbed me hard, which is a lot like chess, actually, except real time instead of turn based. Many, many concepts are shared between the two games.
I was taught chess at a very young age by an uncle . It really affected my thinking and planning. I am truly grateful for that. I still really enjoy it.
I still have my old electronic chess board that I bought at a Radio Shack back in like 1994! Amazingly it still works.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
I used to play with Dad, he told me chess. But to this day I still don't know how or when to use the Passant move.
Waaaay back, pawns only moved one step at a time. To speed up the early phase of the game, they were allowed to go two steps at once with their first move. However, that would bypass the chance to take that pawn with the first step. Let's say there is a white pawn on d5, and the black pawn moves from e7. With one step, it would move e7-e6, and the pawn on d5 could take it. With going directly to e7-e5, "en passant" "emulates" taking the pawn when it makes its first step e7-e6, before it makes e6-e5. But only in the very move where black goes to e5, not in later moves, because black could do the move in two consecutive moves. Which is also the reason why a white pawn on d6 is not able to take "en passant", as it would not be able to take a pawn that moves from e7-e6 by the old rules either. It's only working with white pawns on 5th rank and black pawns on 4th rank respectively, and the opposing pawn moving two squares in on step and then standing right next to them.
Over the weekend, while flying some longer MSFS2024 career missions, I watched the recorded livestreams (~5h per game!) of the decisive games of the world championship (games 1, 3, 11, 12, 14) - Ding wasn't at his prime over the whole year, and also not in the championship, but he still managed to put up some good fights (esp. game 12 was a very impressive performance by him) - until his final blunder... Congratulations to GukeshD!
Now the country where Chess originated has a world chess champion! It is fitting.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
^^ Halfway down the page are some good games to watch the en passant in action by grandmaster chess players. You can use the play/forward/rewind buttons to watch them play by play.
Also, the AD&D 5th edition rules (which I dislike) have a variation of en passant called "attack of opportunity" which I dislike in Baldur's Gate 3.
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