- Material
- King safety
- Piece Activity
- Pawn structure
Stronger players have much deeper understandings of these concepts and sub-factors within, but we all can use these at our own levels.
So in this position:
- White is down in material (1 less pawn).
- Black's king is safer (less access points to it)
- White has a better pawn structure (that pawn on d6 can't be defended by pawns)
- Black has more active and scary pieces (Queen and Bishop near white king)
For a visual, I'm going to highlight some of the factors at play here. Weak squares are something lower rated players rarely see (class those in "piece activity" as they allow a player to put a piece in a position to be more active).
So now we get to what a stronger player would see.
Black's advantages can be quickly removed, and his disadvantages are more long term (again, there are to levels these evaluations).
So this game turns on leaving black with less piece activity and a less safe king.
First, there are too many black pieces near white's king. Also, that Bishop on c4 is protecting the d5 square. Knights are most active on squares right in the center of the board (exceptions to every rule, but stay with me).
So white plays 1. Nc3, attacking the queen.
The queen is protecting the bishop, so she can't go far. Her 2 moves to protect it are 1...Qb3 or 1...Qa6.
Qb3 is played, and we get 2. Bxc4 Qxc4. That's 1 less attacking piece near white's king.
So the king is more safe and white's knight has more access to more activity.
I already made clear that d5 is a key square for white to create a super knight. What other piece is defending d5 for black? So that leads to the next move, 3. Bg5.
The knight can't move as it's pinned to the rook. White will then trade the bishop for the knight.
I'll jump ahead here to show how the position has changed. We have 3...Qe6 4. Bxf6 Qxf6. White now has a significant edge and won in the next 11 moves, though according to the computer, he misplayed the position (chess engines are jerks like that).
Let's evaluate again.
- White is still down a pawn
- White King is a bit less safe (black can't get to it)
- Black bishop is horrible (blocked by its pawns), White knight is a superstar when it gets to d5.
- Black pawns are ugly (pawn on d6)
The computer suggests playing 5. h4 and ripping black apart (computers tend to be more aggressive than people). White instead played 5. Nd5 and went on to win quickly.
I hope this thread provided some value. More important than this game or position is understanding the basics of assessing a position. There is a ton of positional chess theory. We all start somewhere and build on it.
Good luck and good chessing.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I made the question about me, and I stated something more firmly threatening than anything Jordan Neely was said to do. Most wouldn't justify my death for it.
I suspect the value placed on my life far exceeds that granted to his, and that's the difference.
Credit to those who don't think I deserve to be killed in my hypothetical, but also don't think there's any evidence presented justifying the killing of Jordan Neely.
I respect valuing life, including for the poor and mentally ill.
6% of people said I deserve to be killed, and while I think that's a terrifying reflection, I appreciate their response.
Don't want to be in any secluded places with people like that.
This kind of stuff has been explained to Bo many times, and he actually does get it. This is a rhetorical and political tactic though. It works by demanding that people accept the premise that race is biologically real, a position rejected by genomics and biological anthropology.
But there's also the fact that even when talking about sex, a lot of "theories" are also seen as sexist, particularly those forwarded by the EvoPsych crowd.
What's the line? Plausibility. Not just plausibility in terms of feelings, but in terms of evidence.
Those who think individuals obviously differ in innate characteristics, find the allegation of being "blank slatist" odd, not realizing that the term is now primarily used to reference rejection of specific claims about "group differences".
This significant difference in referents causes a lot of confusion and conflict. I reject many standard claims about biological race and race differences, and thus end up being labeled a blank slatist.
Many reject certain claims about inherent differences in male/female brains at conception, and that gets them labeled blank slatists.
In very few cases can we find people saying for example "every individual in my family was the same at conception", but this isn't the accusation
One really weird personal IQ test artifact: my dad only graduated high school. He has 8 descendants. 3 of them tested above 130 on professional IQ tests.
His brother managed to get a Doctor of Theology degree, was the only kid from his area to ace a standardized test, and 2 of his 3 kids also tested above 130 on an IQ test.
Another of his brothers has a grandchild who also tested above 130.
I know this sounds like a humble brag given what people think of these tests, but I'm really just thinking that I don't have set thoughts on the whole thing.
“To refer to the African population, is to refer to something that doesn’t really exist, because it’s a conglomerate of several populations, each of which is as different and as large as the ones they’re being compared to.” - @JonathanKaplan
This is a really good article on scientific racism, how they distort science to claim credibility for their belief system, and how scientists are pushing back.
This is such a difficult thing to explain to people and to help them understand.
People fundamentally believe that "individuals in group X are more like others in group X", and it's hard to convince them otherwise.