Yes, Aman is good. The gold standard is of course Daniel Naroditsky, who sadly passed away last year. His speedruns are very good, but tough for me to watch now.
In terms of general resources, I’d also recommend lichess.org/practice. These introduce a lot of the basic skills (e.g. simple checkmates and tactical motifs like pins and skewers). These help a lot with getting the piece coordination instilled in your brain :)
Personally I find that improvement follows the conscious/subconscious competence cycle.
I’ll be exploring a new concept — maybe a new opening, integrating a new middle game concept, learning about a new pawn structure — and my rating will drop a bit as I’m not as smooth in using it and it’s not well oiled. Then I get better at it, and it slowly beds in as something I don’t have to think about, and my rating goes up to more than it was before.
I’d recommend not playing to destruction, however. If you want to improve, I’d recommend having a look at a few videos of GMs playing and explaining concepts. It’s like science — you wouldn’t expect to reach an understanding of relativity using the scientific method from scratch in one lifetime; you attend a few lectures to get the grounding you need to then build on. Happy to recommend specific resources if you’d like.
fr i’m not a huge fan of using the hammer and sickle as an emblem given the atrocities carried out by the USSR like the holodomor.
like you can be in favour of a planned economy without simping for stalin’s regime.
Yeah, as someone who had Dan Norris (🤮🤮🤮) as metro mayor, it’s a shitty thing to do to try and dump your role as mayor the minute an MP slot opens up. We want mayors who are committed to the region and solving the challenges (transport in particular) in their remit, not people who have half an eye on Westminster. I’m no Starmer fan, but trying to dump Manchester at this point has soured me a bit on Burnham.
Just wanted to say I really appreciate you posting this stuff — I don’t often have much comment to make, but I showed this news to my dad (as we live in the West Country and he’s an avid birdwatcher) and he was very pleased :)
George bush ass post (affectionate)
I knew the original tumblr post, so this is so cute haha
If I were in the states I’d def see them! Will have to keep an eye out for a UK tour haha. Shame no-one was buying merch, as they have an aesthetic that’d work great for Ts. Also I’ve listened to the album about 4 times since the first comment haha
Very pretty puzzle — ty for sharing!
Nc3 Rxc3 Qb7#? Wait the rook blocks facepalm. I have a feeling it’s Qb1 — will check the variations at my next coffee break
Qb1
If the rook leaves the rank then Nc3#; if the rook leaves the file then Qb7#
If the e knight moves then Nf4#
If Nxe2 (or indeed anywhere other than e4) then Qh1#
If Ne4 then Qxb3#
Women fear me. Fish want me.
Imagine I bothered to look up the Matt Damon rapidly aging gif, and put it in this reply. If it’s not too much trouble.
I can do this one by heart haha. Other great ones for this era are ‘Enough is enough’, their acoustic rendition of ‘Bella Ciao’, ‘mouthful of shit’… the list goes on.
I do! Violin to a decent level, and a passing familiarity with the bass guitar (first song I learned was ‘Born under a bad sign haha). And yourself? Is it mainly guitar?
Nice song! I know what you mean about the tone of the guitar :)
I came at the blues from the rock direction (via Gary Moore, who I’d definitely recommend if you’re not familiar — Parisienne Walkways is my favourite of his).
Marigold is a flower — e.g. marsh marigolds :)
what if 👉👈 we were in the cia torture facility 👉👈 and i had information you desperately needed 👉👈 and you [REDACTED] 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
Glock riders
Just one letter L away from greatness :/
I mean obviously Fahrenheit 451 and The Handmaid’s Tale if you liked BNW and 1984!
Personally I enjoyed a lot of HG Wells’ work for similar reasons — War of The Worlds, for example, is an obvious allegory for colonialism, (with the aliens as the empire builders). The original book is excellent. I binged a tonne of his works, including the Time Machine, the invisible man, the sleeper wakes and the island of dr Moreau. They’re quite short books. Easily read in a day (though I am a fast reader).
Otherwise I quite enjoyed for whom the bell tolls (Hemingway; set during the Spanish civil war, in which he fought, as well as Orwell funnily enough).