This is not a joke post, sorry if this sounds stupid but I think castling kingside is overrated.
There was a study showing that the kings get mated on g1/g8 the most times in all games. That's after kingside castling.
From my experience as a beginner, players often castle kingside and hardly ever castle queenside. But just think about the common checkmates that happen in beginners' games:
Scholar's mate and other mate on f2/f7: Not castling
Back-rank mate: Kingside castling
Qxg7(2), Qxh7(2) defended by a rook or bishop: Kingside castling
Think about other famous checkmates:
"Opera mate": Not castling
Smothered mate: Normally kingside castling or not castling
Anastasia mate, Arabian mate...: Normally kingside castling
I also castled kingside a lot, but I got hit with Bxh3/6 sacrifices, Bxh2/7 sacrifices, Qxg2/g7/h2/h7 mate (honestly, for beginners, if endgame checkmates are not counted, Qxg2/g7/h2/h7 mates and back rank mates can take up at least a half of all mates), sometimes Bg4 h3 h5 mates (is that called the fishing pod?) and so on.
After castling queenside, no back rank checkmates are possible; the king has more space to move (it can even run to the middle of the board); for beginners if it's not direct mate, comeback is always possible. So why is castling kingside still so popular? Generally, is castling kingside actually safer? (I think the king might get stuck in the corner and can't run if needed, so it's easier to get mated in one) How to decide which side to castle? Thanks.
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I've looked at the King's Indian against d4. However it seems also double sided, as the opponent can inflict serious damage on my king side as well, which is hard to counter. Also, this opening seems slow at the start but dynamic in the middlegame.
Which would be an equivalent opening to respond against e4 ? Potentially without the same drawbacks which makes the King's indian defense vulnerable ?
Is there something you can play both against d4 and e4 which achieves what I'm looking for ? I don't know if that even exists
DC Next Proudly Presents:
Issue Five: Queenside
###KINGSIDE, Part Eight
Written by PatrollinTheMojave
Edited by AdamantAce
Next Issue > Coming Next Month
KINGSIDE - The Story So Far:
- Prelude: Detective Stories #5
- Part One: Detective Stories #6
- Part Two: Ravager #4
- Part Three: Detective Stories #7
- Part Four: Night Force: Major Arcana #5
- Part Five: Ravager #5
- Part Six: The New Teen Titans #4
- Part Seven Detective Stories #8
Jason pressed his face against the jet window, watching the rugged terrain below give way to the Markovian bread basket. The T-Jet’s automated piloting system was minutes out from their landing point - a small park just outside the palace. He’d been on plenty of long-distance flights, but the difference between flying into Atlanta to talk to high schoolers and flying into Markovburg to fight superpowered mercenaries was night and day.
He turned from the window. Charley was sprawled across six leather seats, his eyes half-lidded either in an attempt to sleep or to appear relaxed enough that sleep was an option. Jason doubted it - not after the fight Deathstroke put up. If Don was anyone to go off of, they were lucky to be alive. He’d never admit, but the thought excited Jason. It was proof he was getting stronger, mentally as well as physically. If he just kept pushing himself, he could make Protector mean something.
Lorena drummed her fingers against her armrest, apparently even more stir-crazy than he was. With every f
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The point of developing your pieces is to put your pieces somewhere where they’re doing something or prepared to do something. For example, when playing the QGD as white what’s the point of developing the bishop to e2 instead of d3? On e2 it does essentially nothing unless a bishop is on g4, but on d3 it is starting to put pressure on the enemy kingside early on. Why go to e2 if you can go to d3? I understand in some cases like Bb4 in stuff like QGD it can be easily kicked away so it’s a waste of time, but I don’t understand some other cases like the one I previously mentioned.
I keep getting wrecked when I play King's Indian Defense as black and white just starts pushing the h and g pawns. What's that line called, so I can look it up and study how to defend it? It must not be played at high levels because I haven’t found it when looking through basic KID variations, but I still keep losing to it.
Here's my understanding so far: if white plays h4 I can respond with h5. But if they push their g pawn and take on h5, I have to capture with my f knight. Then white can attack that knight with a minor piece, like the light square bishop, and if that h5 knight gets captured I have to recapture with the g pawn. Then I have a giant hole in front of my king, with an undefended pawn on h5 and an enemy rook ready to pounce.
Another problem I face is when white lines up their dark square bishop with the queen behind and targets my h6 square after I’ve castled. How do I defend against that? Ok, if I’m fast enough I can play h6 before their bishop+queen sets up and put my king on h7 to help defend the pawn. But then white can just push their h and g pawns and my position just falls apart as white’s pawns trade with mine and my king is left exposed with white’s rook on the open h file.
Any advice or tutorial recommendations to help me? I’m close to giving up on KID and finding something else as my go-to opening.
Edit: notation mistakes
DC Next presents:
Tim Drake & Azrael in...
Issue Seven: Arabian Mate
###KINGSIDE, Part Three
Written by AdamantAce
Edited by PatrollinTheMojave
<< | < Prev. | Next Issue >
KINGSIDE - The Story So Far:
- Prelude: Detective Stories #5
- Part One: Detective Stories #6
- Part Two: Ravager #4
As sick as Tim Drake felt, he was hardly surprised. After spending a good few years fighting a losing battle for Gotham’s soul, and now his own, he knew things had been too easy so far in the pursuit of Checkmate and its senior leadership. That didn’t stop the exacerbation of his grief, considering he’d watched the new leader of Checkmate’s head explode from only a couple metres away. Especially considering the culprit was wearing the face of someone Tim desperately wanted to leave in the past: Red X.
Together, Tim and Azrael didn’t know where the girl had come from, nor where she got the ability to school them both in combat or where she got the sick idea to wear the skull and cross. But clearly she was an agent of Checkmate. That much made sense considering Kingsley Jacobs was surrendering critical information to Tim before his demise at her hands, doubly considering the unstable and highly scarce xenothium that fuelled her weaponry. Checkmate was the only place Tim had seen anything like it.
He’d tried to look into the girl’s mention of Deathstroke, but there was nothing suggesting his involvement with Checkmate. There was a mention of him in Saskatoon, a sighting in West Africa, and rumored involvement in a prison break in Eastern Europe. Tim knew he was missing something.
The gala was a bust. Kingsley Jacobs w
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Tim Drake & Azrael in...
Issue Six: Bad Bishop
###KINGSIDE, Part One
Written by AdamantAce
Edited by GemlinTheGremlin & PatrollinTheMojave
<< | < Prev. | Next Issue >
Tim Drake sat behind the controls of the Batplane, soaring through the sky from the depths of Switzerland and over the viridescent chills and fields of Germany. The Batplane was a sleek stealth aircraft with VTOL flight functionality, capable of supersonic flight and precise manoeuvring at both low and high altitudes. Perfect for covert and overt pursuit alike. But right now there was no rush at all.
After having narrowly escaped the belly of the beast when he was discovered eavesdropping on Checkmate’s dedicated supervillain expo, Tim had quickly employed a plan as not to allow the assassin handlers to fall from his grasp. While he had escaped thanks to the fortunate arrival of the redemption-bound crusader Azrael, Tim’s drone was left within the Checkmate manor undetected. Having triggered a preprogrammed subroutine, the third Robin had tasked the drone with pursuing the new Checkmate grandmaster best it could. But in order to ensure the drone wasn’t detected by Kingsley Jacobs’ cyborg bodyguard Killshot, Tim had to cut communications with the drone, meaning he had to trust the rigour of his programming and engineering - trust it had completed its job successfully. That was two days ago. He had to wait, allowing the drone enough time to follow Jacobs to a resting place, be that his personal home, a Checkmate safehouse, or one of their many headquarters across the globe. Then, when Tim was satisfied they had waited long enough, he took a gamble, reconnecting to the drone for just long enough to get a ping of its location before disconnecting again with the hopes that Killshot would not have detected the drone’s presence and mobi
... keep reading on reddit ➡I am a 1400 level player, and have been working on the English for the past year or so. I prefer lines where I fianchetto my white square bishop, and it usually goes okay EXCEPT for when opponents decide to swamp me with kingside attacks. What are some conventional wisdom ideas for repelling this strategy? Thanks!
DC Next Proudly Presents:
Issue Four: Eye For An Eye
Written by PatrollinTheMojave
Edited by Dwright
Next Issue > Coming Next Month
“Uno.” Rachel dropped a draw four card onto the table with a smile on her face. After the past few weeks, she was relieved that things were finally getting back to normal. A new normal, Rachel corrected herself. She wasn’t sure things could ever be truly normal again after she nearly destroyed an entire city block, but Titans Tower felt like the only place in the world where she wasn’t constantly trying to keep her abilities - her curse - contained.
The disaster of a mission in Xinjiang, China interrupted that peace, but thankfully there’d been no more life-or-death combat since. Rachel reasoned daily training was an acceptable price to pay for a measure of tranquility in her life. She leaned back into the hood of her Legion-issued stealth suit. The comfy, pajama-like outfit was the one silver lining to her time in China.
“This game is rigged.” Charley groaned, picking up four cards from the draw pile.
“Because you’re losing?” Jason asked.
“Can’t Rach sense what cards we have or something?”
Rachel drew inward.
“Not how it works.” Lorena shook her head, then dropped a card on the pile. “Empathy isn’t mind-reading. It’s classic correspondent magic. She knows our emotions, not our card game strategies.”
Rachel was speechless and surprised enough for Lorena to take note of her expression. “How…?”
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to overshare. It’s just - I noticed how you reacted after I took that knife, and I figured you weren’t a metahuman, so I did a little research and-”
“Research? You mean there are books about people-” Rachel searched for a word. None seemed to satisfy. “People like me?”
Lorena beamed. “Oh definitely! There was a ton of research on correspondent magic at the Conservatory. We could do a magic study session some time!”
Rachel could hardly believe her ears. She’d spent years trying to figure how to control her abilities and Lorena was talking about them like it was math homework.
“Rach?” Jason said.
“Huh, what?” Rachel snapped from her train of thought.
“Your turn
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RAVAGER
Issue Four: By Any Other Name
Written by /u/PatrollinTheMojave
Edited by /u/AdamantAce, /u/dwright
Rose couldn’t be certain, but she was starting to suspect sipping champagne on a private jet above Western Europe was the beginning of the high life she’d been chasing. The interior of Count Vertigo’s plane was decorated with excesses from leatherbound seats to mahogany furniture, to flags and heraldry of some country unrecognizable to Rose.
The twenty-something royal magnate, Werner Vertigo, sat at a table with Slade. Though the flight had been quiet so far, Rose was pulled from her hedonism by her father.
“Rose. Come here.”
Slade rolled out a blueprint of some extravagant mansion. “It’s about time you learned what my association with Vertigo is about.”
“Are you sure about that? She’s only a child,” Vertigo said.
The words didn’t sit well with Rose. The point of that hell she went through was so nobody would call her ‘only a child’ again. Nobody who didn’t want their ass kicked, anyway.
“She’s my daughter,” Slade continued. “Werner is thirteenth in line to the Vlatavan throne, meaning his twelve brothers have a stronger claim to it than him.”
Rose smirked at Vertigo. “Explains a lot.”
“With the Vlatavan royal head of security on an extended absence, now is the perfect time to hurry succession along.” Slade continued. “Once the count’s taken the throne, he’ll use Checkmate and Vlatavan assets to launch an invasion of Markovia.”
Vertigo gave a thumbs up. “Thus restoring my nation’s historic borders!”
“And making next Thanksgiving really awkward.” Rose said.
Vertigo was indignant. “You joke at a time like this? I take no pleasure in paying this terrible price.”
Rose shrugged. “You seemed pretty jazzed about it a second ago.” Not that she really cared apart from the glare Slade was throwing her. Time to change the topic. “So what am I doing while Dad’s killing five percent of Vlatava’s population?”
“You’ll be handling a snitch. Kingsley Jacobs.”
Rose blinked. Kingsley Jacobs? Wasn’t he the guy in charge?
Vertigo raised an eyebrow. “She’ll be handling him?”
“It’s the perfect time to attack the Vlatavan palace.”
Vertigo scoffed. “You’re Deathstroke the Terminator. Any time is the perfect time.”
Slade’s demeanor changed. Rose wouldn’t
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Tim Drake & Azrael in...
Issue Eight: The Exchange
###KINGSIDE, Part Seven
Written by AdamantAce
Scene by PatrollinTheMojave
Edited by deadislandman1 & GemlinTheGremlin
<< | < Prev. | Next Issue >
KINGSIDE - The Story So Far:
- Prelude: Detective Stories #5
- Part One: Detective Stories #6
- Part Two: Ravager #4
- Part Three: Detective Stories #7
- Part Four: Night Force: Major Arcana #5
- Part Five: Ravager #5
- Part Six: The New Teen Titans #4
A lot had occurred in the last few hours. Together, Tim Drake and Jean-Paul Valley had raced to New York to intercede as Checkmate launched a dastardly plot to take out the refuge-seeking Princess Tara of Markovia. That had led them to a stone quarry where they found themselves caught in a bloody fight between a band of colourful rogues and Carnelian, the rock-tossing compatriot-turned-enemy of Jean-Paul. There, Tim learned that Carnelian’s true identity was of the thought-dead Markovian prince Brion, Tara’s sister. Tim and Jean-Paul fought beside their newfound allies - including the son of Deathstroke and former Titan, Jericho - but the princess was gravely injured, buried alive. But, miraculously, Tara emerged rejuvenated, sporting newfound geokinetic power rivalling her brother’s, a metahuman. With the tide turned, the group fought and incapacitate
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Issue Four: Judgement
###KINGSIDE, Part Four
Written by PatrollinTheMojave
Edited by AdamantAce & ElusiveMonty
KINGSIDE - The Story So Far:
- Prelude: Detective Stories #5
- Part One: Detective Stories #6
- Part Two: Ravager #4
- Part Three: Detective Stories #7
New York City, New York. 13:00
Eddie glanced at the 14-year old gripping onto him. An expensive-looking handbag hung around her shoulder. He’d seen excited fans before, but this was something new. “Uh— Sure, no problem. Do your parents want to take the picture?” Eddie glanced around for someone to claim the kid.
That got the girl to detach. “No, they’re…” She trailed off, looking uncomfortable.
A frown passed over Jennie's face and she knelt next to her. “Did you get separated from your parents?”
The girl grunted in frustration, then sped through her words, her tone taking on a bit of snark. “My brother’s been kidnapped and I need your help to rescue him so are you heroes or not?”
Traci shrugged.
Todd studied the girl until a look of recognition came across his face. “Wait, Tara?” He turned to the group. “Guys, this is the princess of Markovia. We fought off some assassins gunning for her back in Palo Alto.”
Eddie tried his best to hide his excitement.
“Okay.” Jennie saw through the girl’s frustration. She was scared, vulnerable, and needed help - princess or not. “Explain it to us. Slowly.” She held the girl by her shoulders.
“My name is Tara Markov. Two days ago I got a text—” She pulled a phone from her bag and handed it over to Jennie. It was a picture of a young man tied to a chair in a dark room. Small cuts marked his face.
Tara continued, “Everyone else thought he was dead for years, since I was a baby, but I knew he wasn’t! They told me to bring five thousand dolla
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##RAVAGER
Issue Five: Groundhog Day
###KINGSIDE, Part Five
Written by PatrollinTheMojave
Edited by AdamantAce
KINGSIDE - The Story So Far:
Prelude: Detective Stories #5 Part One: Detective Stories #6 Part Two: Ravager #4 Part Three: Detective Stories #7 Part Four: Night Force: Major Arcana #5
The scenic Adirondack Mountains passed by through the backseat window, beneath Rose Wilson’s attention. The cloth in her hand ran the length of her blade, polishing it into a reflective sheen. It’d long since been scoured of the blood of some New York stock trader - she’d already forgotten his name. Now, her ritual resembled meditation. Rose studied her features. Her bleach white hair, blue eyes, and the coldness that laid behind them. Rose had never bought that ‘not recognizing yourself in the mirror’ bullcrap, but there was a kernel of truth she couldn’t deny.
Whether it was Slade’s training program, her confrontation with Robin, or the lives she’d taken since that night, Rose was seeing the world with new eyes. The only real thing in the world was strength. Morals, principles, camaraderie - they didn’t mean jack shit when you were begging on a street corner or getting a bullet to the brain. She’d killed enough politicians to know that much. It was why she refused to bother with the morality of her actions. She’d earned freedom and purpose with her sword - and anyone who wouldn’t do the same was weak or deluded. That was what pissed her off the most about her father’s ‘associates’. They’d never known what it was like to be powerless, but all seemed to think Rose would be better off going back than killing for money.
The driver was silent as he pulled to a stop in front of Deathstroke’s cabin, hidden away in upstate New York. Rose smirked as she slammed her door shut.
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