Thinking Skins

well in my last game I was really stressing about an unprotected pawn that the white queen could have captured and then threatened my rook. At the same time I had a chance to fork their rook and pawn with my bishop. I decided to protect my pawn. The engine (not chatgpt but the chess.com thingie) said it was a miss or mistake, i forget which. But on the next move, he moved his king thinking that I may take the pawn on f3. Instead i moved my bishop to e2 forming the rook pawn fork that was available earlier.

haha well I know I have asked chatgpt a lot of questions and it has gotten a lot of them wrong. and even in this very conversaion, i had to say, do you mean the pawn (it said king) or it said the something about a knight taking my bishop and i was saying that the knight can't go that many spaces. it is repeatedly apologizing

why are you ruining my joy. I like play by play. i had a response to your question but I didn't post it because I was playing a game and lost it. but basically I have a page of notes where I'm doing that. So I have the PGN notation, and the threats of each move, and the possible moves I can take. I was told that this was not allowed at tournaments, but I'm not playing at tournaments, I'm playing untimed online games against computers. But sometimes I make some blunders like one game I moved a rook into a diagonal of an attacking bishop. Why? because I was trying to do the opening that gets the rooks to the open file. Too bad I missed that. But I went from up 3 points to even and was still able to win the game.

I love how chatgpt does a play by play of my game. I was doing my full games, but these are just the highlights. of the game. 4...Bc5: Black develops the bishop to a natural square, aiming for harmonious piece development. 6...O-O: Castling, which is always a key moment in the opening, completes Black's kingside development and connects the rooks. 8...Bg4: This move attacks White's queen and indirectly pressures the pawn structure around White's king. It also sets up potential tactics with ...Bxf3 and ...Qg4+. 10...Be2: This move forks White's rook and knight on f3, gaining material advantage. It's a tactical shot that puts immediate pressure on White's position. 11...Bxd3: Black continues to win material, capturing the rook on g1 after White's response. 12...Nxe4: Black continues to prioritize material gain, attacking the knight on f3 and threatening mate on g2. 14...Qg4: This move initiates a powerful attack on the f3 knight, with the threat of mate on g2. It further increases the pressure on White's position. 16...Bxf2+: Black wins another piece with this move, forcing White's king to move and creating further weaknesses in White's position. 19...Re8+: Black maintains the pressure and improves the position of the rook, with the threat of ...Re1+. 20...Re1+: Black delivers a decisive check, exploiting the exposed position of White's king. 21...Qxg2#: Checkmate! Black concludes the game with a beautiful queen sacrifice leading to mate on g2.

here's a question I have and i may ask it to somebody else but I played a game against a computer foe yesterday that I'm getting better at beating. He was beating me yesterday morning and then i beat him three times in a row (its sad that I'm giving gender roles to computers), but in trying to get better I have been analyzing the last game I played which I think was my best. I'll post the PGN here then ask my questions 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 Bc5 4. d4 $6 exd4 5. Nd5 Nxd5 6. cxd5 d6 7. Bh3 $6 Bxh3 8. Nxh3 Na6 $6 9. Nf4 O-O 10. Qd3 $6 Nb4 11. Qb3 (11. Qb3 a5 12. O-O Qd7 13. Bd2 Rae8 14. Qf3 Bb6 15. Bxb4 axb4) 11... c6 $6 (11... Nxd5 12. Nxd5) 12. Qd1 $2 cxd5 $9 (12... cxd5 13. a3 Nc6 14. b4 Bb6 15. Nxd5) (12... Nxd5 13. Nxd5 cxd5) (12... cxd5 13. a3 Nc6 14. b4 Bb6 15. Nxd5) 13. f3 $9 Qa5 $6 14. Ne6 $4 Nc2+ $6 15. Kf1 Nxa1 16. Nxf8 Kxf8 17. a3 Qb5 18. Qe1 $6 Nc2 19. Qd1 Qc4 20. Qd2 d3 21. Kg2 $6 Ne3+ 22. Kf2 dxe2 23. Qxe3 Bxe3+ 24. Bxe3 d4 25. Bd2 d3 26. b4 Qd4+ 27. Kg2 $6 Qb2 28. Be1 d2 29. Rg1 d1=Q 30. Bf2 Qxg1+ 31. Bxg1 e1=Q+ 32. Kh3 Qxg1 33. Kh4 Qbxh2+ 34. Kg4 Qgxg3+ 35. Kf5 Qf4# 0-1 So this was a cool game because I was able to get THREE queens (though not at the same time). I had never done that before. But there are some moves that I'm looking at and they're (the computer analysis) is saying hey you took that pawn with a pawn, you could have took it with a knight and won a knight, but I was being greedy and trying to keep by knight. I wonder if there is some way to just figure this out easier.

So I sent the above image to my dad and talked to him about it and he was a bit confused. Each piece is represented by a single letter. I'm trying to see which pieces are attacking other pieces and the free squares (where I may want to move). So here's what the letters mean. K - white king Q - white queen R - white rook N - white knight B - white bishop P - white pawn k - black king q - black queen r - black rook n - black knight b - black bishop p - black pawn Like I said in the post above, these are also color coded so the black side has its threats blue and the white side has its threats red. Now about letters appearing together. That just means that multiple pieces are attacking the same square. So the red RKN in cell h4 means that the white rook, king and knight are all attacking it.

So I wrote this program. To help me with my matches, but then thought it would be cheating so I'm not using it. But I think it's a good way of thinking. What I try to do is just really analyze the board before making a move. And what I mean by that is taking account is each piece on the board and each each square and which pieces have power over which squares. In the attached image, black had the blue attacking color and white has the red attacking color. I think that along with algebraic notation I'm going to practice doing this.

I wish I could show you some of my recent games. I'll get bad "grades" from community I guess from just stuff of common scenarios of boards, but it's like what they recommend doesn't take my opponent into consideration at all. I'm one game, I had a knight about to do a fork on my rook and queen and I'm trying to stop it and so I move my bishop to f3 and then capture it with my knight. But (up till I got the knight) they acted like I was a lunatic. But then suddenly my score shot up. But as far as winning games, man I missed some mate in one cause I just didn't see them. I was too scared of losing. But sometimes I have like a knight and a bishop that can move to the same square and I'm saying which one should make the move? And I think one time I was playing a game where I made a capture with a pawn that I could have made with a rook that later I wish I had made.

So I've settled that I'm at about an 800 rating. I listen to chess podcasts and people who started chess and had a 1500 rating from the start and settled at 2100 or so. Thats not me. I got beat by by 4 year old last night. I mean. I taught him everything he knows, so I'm proud, but I'm also kinda shamed. I shoulds seen the mate with the rook and bishop setup coming. I thought it was just a queen. Anyway. I can play a bunch of games against the computer at a level of about 800- 1000 and win some lose some. That's about where I want to be. The main problem I have with the phone / computer play is that when I'm analyzing moves, they think I want to do the move. I don't want to press the knight. I just want to look at the knight. I'm analyzing the possibilities because there are about 5 possible moves each turn and three are good and 2 are dumb. So that's my main problem. But I have been getting my game going on chess.com regularly again. I think I like The Collie & London opening for its beauty and simplicity. look it up.

So I started listening to chess songs again this morning with my kids to wake them up. Surprisingly, I found some that were very instructive. I need to get the lyrics because (I think) they were telling me that my method of playing is kinda naïve.

I wish I could say the same. My son (the older) beat me, I think 3 times now. The last one was kinda tricky because I had him on the run and had a mate in like 3 moves but as I was setting up my queen, I took one move to not put him in check and he used that one move to move his queen and put it next to my king and it was mate. I've taught him 2 checkmates so far. the 2 rooks (which can be done with a rook and a queen or 2 queens also) and a queen next to the king in a protected square. I've warned that the second is only powerful if the king is in a corner or the side though, and he saw the opportunity and took it. But I feel like people get this false impression of me. Like they think that because I'm a mathematician I'm going to be a chessmaster. I wish it was that easy. I'm still pretty much a beginner Maybe. Let me finish some meetings at work first.

This reminds me of my 4 year old. He's not too great at checkmate stuff but he will quickly try to trick me into a trade of queens. His goal when playing chess is always to get king vs king (stalemate). "you didn't beat me".

I used to play a lot as a kid and was pretty good, won some citywide competitions. but stopped after the school stopped having chess clubs. I never forgot the rules and things, but just never really picked it up again. When I had my kids, I can remember trying to teach them but at first they couldn't sit still long enough to play a game. They were listening though because a year later they wanted to play a game. They lost, but they did remember the rules. But that did reignite the fire to play once again. So in between playing them almost daily after school and their chess clubs now, I find myself listening to podcasts and analyzing my games to see where my mistakes in my games are (even the games I've won). I don't always agree with the analysis though, but I do realize that I'm winning some of these games because the computer is making some real blunders (I think they had a mate in 2 but they didn't take it-maybe I'm wrong on that). So I was just wondering about the chess community here on ES, and if there is one, maybe we could start sharing some tips / questions with one another about games ?

I think the draft did well for the snaps they played. Forbes got torched, but then the entire secondary did, so was that on Forbes? Later in the season (after the Patriots) he was getting breakups and playing with confidence. Quan got two pics off tipped balls. Sure they were tipped, but he held on. Strom - he was the #1 center on many boards and he barely took a snap last year none at center. And when he played he played well. I think he is a hit. Hopefully he's in the plans to stay this year. Daniels? maybe a miss but he could be a guard as many projected him in scouting profiles, or maybe they could do something with him KJ Henry - He looked good. He had a sack taken away on a BS call. Clearly has some talent. Chris R. Has some talent and some running game, but man we lost that second giants game partially because of those red zone fumbles. but he scored those TDs late in the season before getting hurt. clearly has a positive future. Jones - Similar to Henry but I cant remember the highlight reel hits

Again, this is a slept on move that I called from the beginning. People are going by that agents poll but these guys have relationships with one another. And the fact that this is Peters's first job as a GM, I think he wants to make sure this doesn't go wrong. As long as Marty doesn't get in the way he'll keep as many voices around as possible right now. Things might thin out later as he gets more of a feel for things but I knew that there wouldn't be immediate firings. I don't expect that he needs a "big brother" type of thing but if Marty is getting paid to be in a semi-retired mentoring role where he's doing a bit of scouting (which is his hobby anyway) and answering questions that Peters may have about things if Peters should want to come to him, then I'd assume Marty is available. I think that the Martin thing is a whole different aspect. I think it is a three headed monster beteeen Lance and Adam and Marty. I don't know where anybody's specialty is, but I do know that Martin knows both of these guys and so you can say that Martin was helpful in building both the SF and the Detroit franchises. I know I have heard that SF designed metrics for pass rushers to get off the ball and thats how they draft them. I wonder if Detroit has designed a metric for running backs because thats what they seem to specialize in (for years), or WRs (a number of good to great WRs). They had good offensive lines in both places, so maybe they had really good metrics for that.

The thing that gets me about the (offensive) hires is that they seem to go in the face of the physical approach that he spoke about at the press conference. Well, apart from the Bobby Johnson hire. If we're going to be doing a gimmacy new age run and shoot offense, its the opposite of physical. Maybe Billy Johnson or the new guy will make it more physical, but even in NY their run game wasn't physical it was all about speed. So if we are going to be built like SF or Baltimore, I'm not seeing it. Maybe the offense will be similar to SF, but I'm not quite seeing it. The other thing I'm hearing is that KK likes his linemen to be more athletic. Not small, but athletic. That did remind me of Shanahan though where he would wait til the lower rounds to draft linemen because he knew the kinds of linemen he wanted and they were zone blockers. Trent could block anywhere but others were guys who were undersized. If we go for undersized guys then we are not going for physical guys and will get overpowered by the bigger teams.

Ok, this is the last one, just more readable. with more people from the last two years.

Let me adjust that post earlier with this one. These are still third down numbers, just trying to get things more readable, and that Jayden Daniels Int number wasn't right. It was 3 ints, not 4. And this is some 3rd down stuff from 2022.

Ok, so here's some info from my analytic and basically it is starting to back up some of the hype behind Caleb. 3rd down is supposed to be the money down so I wanted to focus on it. 2023.Caleb Williams TDS - 10 Yards - 1104 Ints - 4 comp% - 0.69 YPA - 9.5 sack % -8.6 int% - 0.009 AYPA - 9.56 2023.Drake Maye TDS - 9 yards - 1185 ints - 6 comp% - 0.60 YPA - 9.4 sack - 7.1 int% -2.4 AYPA - 9.9 2023.Jayden Daniels TDS - 9 yards - 1188 ints - 4 comp% - 0.70 YPA - 12 sack% - 9.1 int% - 3.03 AYPA - 14.35

So here are some more updates. I'm still working on my analytics. The clustering (grouping) stuff may not be as exciting because that will just start arguments. its honestly just more mathematical than I thought it would be. But it is still fun. That said, I have been able to compute stuff like - completions - attempts - completion percentage - yards per attempt - yards per completion - adjusted yards per attempt - Passing TDs - Passing Yards - Interceptions - Fumbles - n yard passes where n is a multiple of 10 - sack % - int % - TDs in each game - interceptions in each game - n yard rushes where n is a multiple of 10 - number of times sacks - yards lost due to sacks - average yards per sack - 3rd down completions - 3rd down attempts - 3rd down completion % - 3rd down TDs - 3rd down yards - 3rd down interceptions So while the actual clustering metric is not quite as strong as I want it to be, I like these features because I can just look at these college QBs from an angle I cold not look at them before.

If anything, thats my problem with Sam. He should have been yelling at EB during those games. Instead, as you said, he was a team player. And never spoke his mind. He's gotta get in somebody's face sometimes.

I mean you and Skins / Commanders nation may not agree but Sam was done dirty. And Sam may feel that way. Thrown out there with no OL and not allowed to run the ball, with a first time coordinator who was so stuck in his ways that he wouldn't listen to players who would tell him what would work. Yeah I think Sam might be a bit salty.

Honestly this is where I am. I am taking myself into Maye more and more. He's a not hate prospect, but I just don't love him. I'm writing analytics to try to fall in love with him. But I do wonder about the Howell Maye relationship. Having your best friend take your job may put a strain on the friendship.

Here's an updated version of my post on twitter based on more QBs, in particular I wanted to see how Spencer Rattler did, because I was hearing his name coming up a lot as somebody who looked good before getting injured. It may not be readable any more because of the number of people I included.