ooc how normal is it to allow a child / younger sibling to win a game? My parents always said you shouldn’t do that because that’s not how the real world works then my siblings told me I was dumb for not being able to win and that this is why no one wanted to play with me (I was the youngest). When I grew up and heard stories of people letting their kid or little sibling win a game I thought that was wild but I don’t actually know what the true incidence is. It’s one of those things where I wonder if I’m oversensitive or if that was truly abnormal. My older sister also used to tell me I was a psychopath a lot while growing up but I’m starting to think she might have been projecting.
There’s a lot of different ways to do it. Some people never let the kid win (but unless you’re a master, they will win sooner rather than later if they train. Kids are monsters in chess). Some people flip the board when the kid makes a mistake and ask the kid to see how to take advantage of the move they just played. Some people let the kid win once in a while.
I split the difference by giving them a material advantage. The real world is full of those so your parents can approve. When the kid with their 16 pieces can beat me with 4, next game I get 5. They know the game is rigged in their favor so their is no BS ego inflation, but they sometimes get a little taste of victory. If they get cocky I’ll say “oh, so I get two more next game?” or something along those lines to further keep that in check. This is also pretty good for me since it forces me to think harder, run faster/further, sword fight multiple tiny people at once, etc…
ooc how normal is it to allow a child / younger sibling to win a game?
It’s normal.
I figure that folks who play a competitive game with friends with any regularity either know they have to agree to some kind of appropriate handicap for the more advanced player(s) - or just don’t realize that their regular match mates are doing it for them in some way less formal way.
Lucking into a perfectly matched opponent, who stays perfectly matched, happens, but is vanishingly rare.
An appropriate handicap is by far the best way to attract new players to a game. Modern games have built-in rules that explicitly acknowledge new-player mechanics, but older games tend to just have informal traditions for it.
Since I love to play games with folks, I often apply all of my skill to strategically coming in second place, with as close of a margin as possible.
People who notice me doing it don’t tend to mind, but do usually try to punish me for it by destroying that narrow margin I’m trying to achieve. In the end, we still end up fully competing with all of each of our skills applied, which is great fun.
It sort of depends what you mean by letting them win the game. I dont think its ever good to let an opponent win if you are evenly matched or relatively close to it. Its deceptive and dishonest, and if the other person finds out, they likely will feel negatively about it.
On the other hand, I did just let my 6 year old win a game of magic the gathering, but he cant comprehend the cards and all of the different mechanics, so I dumbed down my play to match his. He beat me pretending to be a 6 year old, essentially. I think that’s fair, and he’s simply not capable of understanding the bigger picture, but I’d still like to play with him and he’s still learning the game as he goes.
You lost to a 500 player just because you blundered your queen? Smells like someone is not a 3000 rated player
I am assuming “I am 3000” is the chess equivalent of “I bench 400.”
Any stat shared online should be multiplied by 0.6 or so to get the real number.
If you blunder your queen and don’t immediately resign, some chess players see that as a huge insult.
Not if your rating difference is astronomic. See hikaru for instance (https://youtu.be/yBAghpuH4gs)
Guy makes it to 2500+ without a queen and I believe his online rating is around 3300
Big difference between blundering your queen and giving it up for a gambit.
For example Hikaru got the enemy king out in the open and stopped them from castling. It wasn’t a free queen.
Most ~2000 players can play the standard openings. Giving up your queen for a position that you understand better than your opponent is an advantage. That’s the whole point of gambits.
If I knew my opponent knew a gambit then it would be dumb to play it against them because the gambit is going to get me nowhere. The gambit turns into a standard game going into the end game and depending on the gambit I might be worse off, it’s not going to give me an advantage.
But I agree with you that you should never just resign because you “blundered” your queen. That’s just poor thinking.
Though when Magnus Carlson does it, the insult is deliberate, but he’s got the skills to back it up. Like “go ahead and develop, I’m just going to spend the first 10 moves sending my king on a meandering path that just ends up swapping king and queen’s positions and then I’ll win anyways”.
Fwiw, I also think the idea that someone should resign after a mistake is silly. If you want to take offense that I think there’s a chance either I could come back or you’ll make a similar impact mistake of your own, then go ahead and be offended and beat me if you can. Getting pissed off about that might just make you more sloppy anyways.
Hell, I’d even go so far as to say that the act of getting offended they don’t resign is a tactic to get them to resign in the first place. And makes for more boring games because seeing games to completion is interesting.
I just thought the image of it applying to this specific case where a master plays against a novice and resigns after letting them gain an advantage was funny. Of course the son would have wanted to keep playing when he was finally up a queen. The deadpan didn’t land, but that’s a risk I accepted when I embraced dryer humour. I’m not going to resign.
Yeah sure the king came out. I’d still not call it a gambit, this is a far cry from a Smith Morra or a Budapest gambit. Or a Vucoviç gambit where white sometimes gives up the Queen for 3 pieces.
If I captured a Knight with my Queen and failed to see it could be recaptured, I’d definitely say I blundered my Queen. Even when people go cave exploring on b7 and get a pawn+Rook for the Queen, it’s a blunder and leads to a clearly winning position.
Nothing is ever free in Chess, capturing a Queen will always cost at least 1 tempo.
Some people will resign, but everyone came to play and miracles do happen. But you agreed on that, so I think we’re on the same page.
I just hate reading that dumb AI style.
My dad used to be addicted to playing chess. We played together frequently for years. I was never very good at it.
I won against my dad twice out of hundreds of games played. I honestly don’t know how, but I was proud of myself for years.
I haven’t played chess is well over 20 years at this point. I’m just completely disinterested in it.
Tl;Dr, I’m in this picture and don’t like it.
Least insane person on Linkedin.
He just had to show up without a shovel, honestly. 🤌🏼
I will keep forcing my kid into stalemate until they learn the lesson to not be cocky while up. I don’t care if she gets upset snatching ties from wins. (She 6).
Now that’s 4d chess.
As in 4 digits of future child-psych bills. At least.
I feel like my father may have done this?
I remember challenging him to a game. Then I set up The Chessmaster 2000 on the Amiga. He said video chess is fine for practice, but people should play across a board. So we did. I narrowly won. He didn’t throw shit, at least not that I could tell. But I damn sure rode that high for the past 35 years…
How is the elo hit on a 500 rated win over a 3000?
He never said he let him win, just surrendered a queen.
Could have easily won afterwards.
I wonder why the kid was running around celebrating
Cause he got a free queen?
It makes me happy to even imagine that.
“Oh… oh no…” – Kris
I’m sure this will come up in the sons future therapy sessions.
Dina turning all the knights to face him is killing me.
