when a 12 year old beats you

when my 12 year old kid brother started to beat me regulerly, i realised that my game has stgnated ever since the age of 12(im 24).
i find reading books on opening quite tedious, so if someone could tell me if there are any good openening softwares out there, i would really appreciate it.

At 1200 Elo believe me there is much more to the game than the opening.

Originally posted by z00t
At 1200 Elo believe me there is much more to the game than the opening.

which is tactics, tactics, tactics.

try http://chess.emrald.net/

Don't most 12 year olds play the Giuoco Piano opening?



😴 boring 😴

The O.P is playing closed openings.
Maybe he could change to open games & as previously suggested, study tactics?

Openings are about the least helpful thing you could study to get better at chess. 🙂 As others have said, work on your tactics.

Originally posted by Dutch Defense
Don't most 12 year olds play the Giuoco Piano opening?

[fen]r1bq1rk1/ppp2ppp/2np1n2/2b1p3/2B1P3/2NP1N2/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 1[/fen]

😴 [b]boring 😴[/b]

Yeah, most of them play stuff similar to the Giuco Piano. Just focus on tactics, and don't worry about openings until later.

i beg to differ about openings. i've studied openings more than anything else! i played speed games of 5 to 10 mins at the minimum for tactics. after reading a book though. you can learn how to use tactics quick and tons of positions become comftorable after this. at your level of play some books such as attacking chess by josh waitzkin, weapons of chess by bruce pandolfini, and winning chess strategies by yasser seirwan would help your play by a big margin. i suggest weapons of chess or attacking chess first!

"Yeah, most of them play..."

With all due respect, that's about as accurate as saying "most 32 year olds play hypermodern openings".

There are 12 yr olds (and 52 yr olds) who are exploring the open king pawn games, and 12 year olds like my friend's kid, who just won our state's grade level championship playing the ruy lopez exchange whenever possible. Even stereotyping 6 yr olds is inaccurate. Better to venture that many beginning players try out the Italian game...😕

Any Irish players out there who hate losing to kids had better beware. According to today's 'Independent' there's a five-year-old (!) in Donegal, Shane Melaugh, who's already causing quite a stir on the Emerald Isle being the youngest player ever to represent the Irish U12s.

Originally posted by Northern Lad
Any Irish players out there who hate losing to kids had better beware. According to today's 'Independent' there's a five-year-old (!) in Donegal, Shane Melaugh, who's already causing quite a stir on the Emerald Isle being the youngest player ever to represent the Irish U12s.

I met a young Irish player on Friday - Ronan Magee (aged eight I think). He was very unlucky not to beat the eventual winner of the under 8 tournament and did well in the under 9 as well. He had a very good understanding of positional ideas in one so young.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I met a young Irish player on Friday - Ronan Magee (aged eight I think). He was very unlucky not to beat the eventual winner of the under 8 tournament and did well in the under 9 as well. He had a very good understanding of positional ideas in one so young.

I bet his grasp of tactics was even better though...

There's no shame in losing to a 12 year old, I have lost a few times to a 12 year old from my chess club. His dad is quite good, and has taught his son well.

Luckily I've saved face, and beat him a few times as well😉

i lost to a 12 year old last year in a tournament. age doesn't mean jack when it comes to this game. kids have reached 2000 by the age of 10! obviously he is better than you in that game. suck it up just because your older doesn't mean you should win....