Chess

[Gustaran]

Finally ... after nearly 8 months (started 1'st of March), the second round of 22nd chess tournement [1201-1400] have begun

How many rounds does that tournament have?

[MJW (ya that one)]

I've seen that problem before. MASSIVE HINT if your totally lost.

en passant

I don't like these problems as in real life people make illegal moves quite often. (ie no-one noticing checks in time trouble) Remember the average USCF rating is only 657... So if something is the only legal way it could happen you don't know if it actually happened that way.

[Gustaran]

I've seen that problem before. MASSIVE HINT if your totally lost.

en passant

Ah ok, I did not think of that. If you put a black pawn on b4, the white king could have been on b3. For an en passant to work a white pawn must be on c4, so he must moved there from c2 or en passant would be illegal. After bxc3 Kxc3 and we get the position on the board.

[Sian]

Finally ... after nearly 8 months (started 1'st of March), the second round of 22nd chess tournement [1201-1400] have begun

How many rounds does that tournament have?

there's 260 players left in 48 groups

[waterbat]

Team,
Sorry, I had no idea you were planning on starting that quickly. Also PM here and on chess.com reach my inbox, but have 0 from either site. It's my bad for assuming out of all the participants, someone would PM.

[Jkaen]

Finally ... after nearly 8 months (started 1'st of March), the second round of 22nd chess tournement [1201-1400] have begun

How many rounds does that tournament have?

there's 260 players left in 48 groups

I am in an unofficial tourney 'huge tournament U1500'. with 96 players.

Started 26th Feb.

Still waiting for 2 more games to finish before the 2nd round starts

[Gustaran]

Team,
Sorry, I had no idea you were planning on starting that quickly.

That is difficult to understand. Did you actually read my posts?

Once signed up please check this thread or chess.com at least once a day so you don't miss the start of the match.

Ok, all the regulars signed up, so I will leave this open for another 24 hours and then seek a match.

You know, i'll admit, it's always possible that there is a misunderstanding once - no big deal. But in your case in all three matches you either did not show up at all or had to be notified by PM. So in short: If you want to play with the team (at least when I do the signups and seek), make sure you can reliably show up on time on your own.
It's not the team's job to send you an extra invitation every time a match starts.

If you can't manage that for whatever reason, don't sign up or create your own team match seek with a longer time control and signup phase.

[Gustaran]

Additional information:

Chess.com has customizable alert and email settings.

If you go to Home->Account> Alert & Email Settings
You can choose which events show up as an alert (for example all messages) and you can opt to receive these alerts as an email. I haven't tried it, since I don't need more spam and check chess.com often anyway, but in case you don't this might be the way to stay up to date.

There are also additional group settings ("Realms Beyond - Alert Settings") which feature a "Team Matches: A Team Match begins" and "Events: A new Event is posted" option. I just checked them all and receive alerts for the signups as well as for the match start.

[Jkaen]

So in the likes of these games do people normally start a game with a specific idea of what opening(s) they want to play?

I tend to just follow which ever opening seems to open up naturally, which maybe is the wrong approach, should I be attempting to steer openings more in order to learn the ins and outs of specific games more?

[Gustaran]

So in the likes of these games do people normally start a game with a specific idea of what opening(s) they want to play?

I tend to just follow which ever opening seems to open up naturally, which maybe is the wrong approach, should I be attempting to steer openings more in order to learn the ins and outs of specific games more?

I think that depends on your rating. For me there were basically three stages:

Level 1) Get out of the opening in one piece. That means not falling for cheap opening tricks and knowing to what square you should develop your pieces (until around move 10)

Level 2) Start to choose openings according to your playstyle. If you are a great tactician who loves opposite wing attacks on the king, don't pick the Caro-Kann. Then learn typical middlegame plans for your opening, which means after your pieces are developed, what is your long term plan? This can also include endgames.
For example in the Queen's Gambit declined exchange variation you can opt for the so called "minority attack" middlegame plan. If executed correctly Black will be left with a weak pawn on the Queenside which can be pressured in the endgame.

Level 3) You can play different variations of the same opening depending on your opponent's strengths and weaknesses.
One very basic way would be to look at the chess.com rating for tactics and chess mentor. If I were to play uberfish and he were to pick the Grundfeld against me, I would never play the mainline against him, because the mainline is very sharp and uberfish has a tactics rating above 2000. On the other hand, his chess mentor score is below 1500, so I would pick a variation with an early Qb3 which is much more positional with less tactics.

That being said, all this is unnecessary if your rating is still so low that you miss simple tactics. I would just suggest picking a favourite line and learning basic middlegame ideas so you are not stuck without a plan. So if you play the Sicilian you must know if you want to play a Dragon variation or a Najdorf. You shouldn't just start playing these lines and pick the top move from the opening book.
If you don't know at least roughly the typical plan of a variation, don't play it.