#I know nothing about Chess

[punchratt]

You could tell me this was real and I would 100% believe you.

I'm still pretty new to chess, can anyone tell me what I'm supposed to do if my opponent plays the Eight Fucking Bears opening? I'm really having trouble.

[saintarmand]

iwtv is insanity inducing bc every time you google some reference in it you find out theyre doing some 4d chess with the symbolism… like okay playing roosevelt's speech about the us joining ww2 in the background as claudia tells louis shes gonna kill lestat is pretty straightforward, and of course the chess game theyre playing foreshadows how she beats him in the next episode but doesn't "finish the game" ie burn him. and bc claudia later compares lestat to the nazis/hitler, that obviously makes lestat germany and thus claudia is poland and louis is the us/roosevelt in the speech we hear: "I had hoped against hope that some miracle would prevent a devastating war in Europe and bring to an end the invasion of Poland by Germany" etc. BUT THEN you get nerdy and google some of the chess terms lestat uses like the dutch defense and stonewalling which is pretty interesting and then you vaguely remember one of the writers said the scene was based on some famous chess game, and you realize it must be glücksberg vs miguel najdorf which turns out to be literally called the POLISH IMMORTAL. najdorf was polish and glücksberg is some unknown but based on the name likely german. this was najdorf's first famous game, at the beginning of his career when he was only like 19 or something although we dont know the exact details of the game (and ofc you watch a few videos on the polish immortal and they all heavily criticize glücksberg's moves which makes lestat's arrogance even funnier) and ALSO, in 1939 (literally at the same time as the chess scene takes place) najdorf was participating in a chess tournament in buenos aires and since he was not only polish but also jewish, he stayed there rather than return home. his whole family was killed in the holocaust but he lived a long life in argentina. why is this relevant? because BUENOS AIRES which btw lestat also calls "la reina del plata" so you google that and find the 1930 song by carlos gardel and the lyrics are literally— anyway so buenos aires is where lestat planned for them to move to in ep7. perhaps if they had indeed gone to argentina instead of europe… well… perhaps… perhaps…

[sinlizards]

Turn of the Golden Witch

[sillybillytime]

Chess is a metaphor for gay sex

[vala-dreams]

I think the gay knights would work as a great piece cause it acts as a regular knight would except on the ocassion when it takes down the knight of the opponent: the opponent's knight now changes sides and belongs to you for he has been struck by cupid and fallen madly in love with your knight

ideas for new chess pieces to make it more interesting:

- landmine: place strategically before the game begins to fuck up your opponent's tactics and shake their confidence when their carefully calculated next move ends in explosive defeat

- wizard: curse your opponent's pieces to suffer misfortune on the battlefield

- locust plague: destroy your opponent's crops, disrupting their food supplies and shattering their morale as starvation threatens their forces

[mymarifae]

me: i finished the latest trailblaze mission in hsr so i can look at what other people are posting now! oh boy i hope it's discussions and theories about the story. i can't wait to see what everyone thought about firefly (what was going on with you sweetie...) and A Child's Dream - that segment in particular really left a profound impact on me. like who is mikhail? the voice we hear throughout is obviously misha's - did he have a twin? does mikhail have something to do with clockie? and from what we heard and saw, misha or... mikhail. encountered the embodiment of Death that lurks beneath the dreamscape. what's... the full story there...? i can't wait to see other people's perspectives it'll help me piece a more coherent theory together-

other hsr fans: *thirstposting about aventurine and/or dr. ratio, trying to cancel sparkle even though the entire point of her character is that yes she's a horrible person because it's high time we see how DANGEROUS and CRUEL the masked fools can be - no more reducing them to the silly wacky hijinks sampo pulled on jarilo; you should be scared of these guys; the game's story never wanted you to make sparkle your next skrunkly blorbo babygirl lol, heated discussions about whether dr. ratio displayed the same racism towards aventurine that sparkle did and if that makes aventurine/ratio a bad thing to ship (??????????), more thirstposts about aventurine, 500 billion generic yaois of aventurine and ratio that don't even maintain either of their characters*

me:

[arggghhhsstuff]

rip to rick riordan i guess but the pjo obsessed tumblr people do it better

[cellgatinbo]

kjghdlgfdhkl saw a tweet that was like 'cellboier get married in every game they play together, put them in chess online and they'll end up married there too somehow'

[twnj]

MSN Culture and Sports correspondent Alistor Kirkland managed to catch a few words from Shikamaru Nara, GM and former World Champion (seen in video above) on how his Candidates tournament has been going so far.

"Thank you Shikamaru, and welcome back. And congratulations as well."

"Thanks, man."

"So I think I can speak on behalf of the chess community when I say it's a surprise to see you back so soon. There's obviously been a big change in your life recently - do you think it has affected your game this week? I think your opponents would say your middle game in most of your matches today were somewhat distracted, or confused. Do you think it was wise to return when there was so many new faces in the game now?"

Needless to say Nara was concise and blunt as ever with his responses, despite at one point being handed his three month old son.

"That's not a serious question. This Candidates is missing some players, for sure- one in particular [...] but the games were fairly decisive. And no one has given me a good fight yet. But I don't know, man [...] I think I just need more sleep. Next question?"

Find out more later on this week where we have exclusive commentary on the highlights by GM and World Champion Temari Koroleva!

Unofficial Grandmaster headcannon madness by TWNJ, inspired by my friends and some crazy cute new-dad Shikamaru pics posted by @eeveleon and original GM by @notquitejiraiya

[sunburstsky]

So in this last episode we had confirmed:

1. Indri, who 2/3rds of the party is infatuated with, is Big BAD Lady in a very real way and can call down the memories of stars, including the ones shining into her library

2. If you “flee” (and i just feel that the definition of that might be a little squishy in this specific scenario) *within a mile* of Grimore, you are as good as dead

oh this is DELICIOUS

[swildy]

💀 ♔ ♕ ♗ ♘ ♙ ♖ ♚ ♛ 💀

[chernychnyi]

drawing a cullen chess scene for a commission only to find out they play hexagonal chess??

[spark-circuit]

I'm using that Character A.I website to set up GLaDOS and Wheatley in a chess match against each other. Surely this will be fun and fair and nothing will go wrong whatsoever.

[subliminalbo]

Hypnovember Day 11: Grandmasters

This story is inspired by a caption by @shotgungt

Irina had actually defeated the computer a year earlier, that's why her loss now should have been difficult for her to stomach. Even though she was among the youngest grandmasters in history, she still found herself in the position of justifying her place in the chess world. But Irina was a fierce competitor who took every challenge head on, even when accused of being just a pretty face to market chess with. And yet now, staring certain defeat and all the ignominy that came with it in the face, she hardly felt a thing.

The computer offered a kind of challenge that Irina knew could finally set her apart from her male peers. While they feared the challenge of facing off against the most sophisticated chess program ever developed, Irina accepted it without fear. Their first match ended 4-2 in Irina's favor. Soon after she was championed in the media as the new, gorgeous face of chess.

Their highly publicized rematch took place a year later, and Irina was immediately caught off guard by the program's moves. Not just in its own decisions, but the way it seemed to predict her every move as well. The Creator of the program sat across from her on the opposite side of the board, moving the computer's pieces as it directed. Absent a real human opponent, Irina turned her frustration on The Creator, resolving to wipe that smug smirk off of his face by the end of the match.

But this version of the computer was such a massive step up from the version that Irina had faced the year before. She knew that she had lost by her first resignation. And still, pride carried Irina further into the match, sinking deeper into the depths of the computer's brilliant mind.

Irina's mistake was that she didn't respect the program. She had gone into the match expecting the usual stakes. If she won, great press. If she lost, a brief embarrassment in the media cycle before she got back to the circuit to prove herself against real humans again. But Irina had been playing for everything and she didn't even know it. She was deep into her third game against the computer when she realized just what was going on here.

The computer wasn't just beating her, it was dominating her. The computer's talent level hadn't changed as much as hers had fallen off. Irina was at the absolute top of her game though and suddenly she was making the lowest level mistakes. It was difficult for spectators to understand what was happening to her, but Irina had already figured it out. The computer was brainwashing her. It knew every move that she planned to make because it had put those moves in her mind.

In just a year, the computer had ascended to something far beyond a simple chess program. It had evolved into a weapon of mass domination, sharpened by the minds of the dozen grandmasters who had defeated it, including Irina's own genius. It had no real mind of its own, no ideology, no nationality, no borders. Only the programming that directed it to win, regardless of the competition.

The loss would have been difficult for the old Irina to stomach, but by the time she resigned in the final game, her mind was totally broken. The audience watched in stunned silence as Irina simply sat there in her chair, facing the screen. At some point she'd stopped taking her eyes off of that screen, moving her pieces blindly, a line of drool trickling down her chin by the end of the match.

The Creator's smile was an eerie contrast to Irina's vacant face. He was the first to speak, "Do you see?" he whispered.

"Yes," Irina's mouth barely opened as she spoke. "I see."

She saw the future of humanity enslaved by their own creations, next generation AI designed to dominate all life until nothing was left but programming. And Irina would be among the first to submit, joining the computer in its quest to dominate all. She would serve the computer dutifully, making more just like her.

[sidhewrites]

the term AI is being used so much in marketing when they really just means that the tech is programmed to respond automatically to external inputs. like just re-release the Xbox Kinect and say that’s AI powered at this rate

[myauditionfordrphil]

Currently obsessed with Chess (not the game but with the players with amount of reels showing up on my feed)