The Black Vault

Are there any other chess players here who play either online or over the board? If so what's our Elo rate?? I'm 1800ish, but I've been over 2000 before. :S

I introduced humphreys to Red Hot Prawn, and we both play there. He's an 1800ish player. Over the board in live play with a decent amount of time, I'm 1700ish. On Red Hot Prawn, I'm streaky and bounce between 1600 and 1700+. I've gotten within 2 points of 1800 twice but never made it.

I like to pretend that I'm good at Chess, but really all I do is move a bunch of pieces forward and try to beat the opponent with pure arrogance and bravado.

My friends put up with my shenanigans and I've even won a few matches with that strategy, but I reckon it's because they've let more or because they just weren't paying attention to our game and focusing instead on a much tougher game they had at hand.

Now Cribbage! Well, I'm **** at Cribbage too, but I'm slightly less **** at it than Chess.

I haven't played in months, tbh. I hit a wall somewhere in the 1800s, got annoyed, and started doing other things.

Wing-Zero wrote:I like to pretend that I'm good at Chess, but really all I do is move a bunch of pieces forward and try to beat the opponent with pure arrogance and bravado.

My friends put up with my shenanigans and I've even won a few matches with that strategy, but I reckon it's because they've let more or because they just weren't paying attention to our game and focusing instead on a much tougher game they had at hand.

Now Cribbage! Well, I'm **** at Cribbage too, but I'm slightly less **** at it than Chess.

I'm the man when it comes to cribbage but I've never seen it or played it online, and, my wife doesn't play cards. Needless to say, I don't play cribbage.

My father and I used to have an agreed upon rule where the dealer has the option of asking the opponent if he'd like to keep all 6 cards with no crib. The opponent can decline. But if the opponent accepts, the dealer ends up with a 7 card hand including the cut-card. That can be fun. '*Ahem. Um, I've got 4 jacks and 3 fives... is that a decent hand?" Or.. oooooo a triple-double-run with 2 fours, 3 fives, and 2 sixes!!! Wow... the possibilities.... never saw either of those hands but that'd be some serious damage.

humphreys wrote:I haven't played in months, tbh. I hit a wall somewhere in the 1800s, got annoyed, and started doing other things.

Went back to ol' EGA version of Tetris, eh.

Par for the course, unbeliever. Par for the course.

I just know the rules.

frrostedman wrote:

humphreys wrote:I haven't played in months, tbh. I hit a wall somewhere in the 1800s, got annoyed, and started doing other things.

Went back to ol' EGA version of Tetris, eh.

Par for the course, unbeliever. Par for the course.

Fifa 12, actually, also too much of my time is taken up with imposing atheism on the world by force these days. I'm one of them militant folks now.

I've started by replacing the Bibles in hotels with Dawkin's evolution Bible.

humphreys wrote:I haven't played in months, tbh. I hit a wall somewhere in the 1800s, got annoyed, and started doing other things.

1800 is about the rate where others act like you can perform miracles, but we still can't hang with the big boys.

Humphreys maybe this is a subject we can agree on, and get along. I love to play chess, but have never played online. I'm not very good at all if you measure my ablity, but I really enjoy it. John Jr. and I have carried on the New Years eve Tradition his Grandpa and I started, when John was very little. We would spend New Years in Pasadena, and he and I would have our Champaign chess tournament til the wee hours of the morning. He is no longer with us, but John and I carry on the tradition, and always will. This New Years we had a great tournament, and he won more games, but each game was so good, we almost didn't care who won. Almost!

I'm not real familar with the online game, and I have no idea how this point scoring goes. I might be embarrased how low mine might be, but I love playing anyway. One of my weaknesses in chess is not really having a plain in the openig moves, and shoot from the hip, while I wait for pieces to get forward, hoping I see a direction to go.

I also love to play cribbage, and use to play with my Granny all the time when I was young. I still have the cribbage board which is almost as old as I am. To be honest, its been so long I do not recall how to play, and how to use the board. I should look up how to play again, and play with Mrs. G2 and teach John how to play it.

My parents and grandparents were great card players, and the 4 of them would play pinocle, but that I never learned how. Granny also taught me several other great card games, one was crazy 8s, another was Kings on the corner. We used to play a solitare kind of game called KENO, where each person has a deck, and the game plays like solitare to the center, but you can also play a card onto your opponents pile. When they make a mistake not playing to the Ace piles, you yell KENO, and its your turn, or if they can not play the card they turned up. Both my Grandparents know how to play many different kinds of solitare games, and played one of each kind, daily. They were of a generation of avid card players, when people didn't have televisions, and only had the radio. One of those died out forms of family entertainment, from a time when you listened to Amos and Andy, The lone Ranger, and George Burn and Gracie Allen on the radio. Cards was very popular at one time.