u/rawr4me

I watched a YouTube video that said studying openings is completely overrated if you're under 1800 rating. One principle it stated was, if you start d4 then you should try to set up an e4 break, or if you start e4 then try to get a d4 break. And you should play the break when you can do so without losing material.

Obviously it's situational and there are exceptions, but it got me curious -- why is a central pawn generally better for white (who gets to do it first), even if the material ends up even? I've watched enough commentary of chess candidates and analysis of grandmaster games over the years to have seen this be a real theme, but I don't actually understand why. If the material remains even before and after the break, what did it achieve?

This is something I've been pondering for quite a while. Currently my kizomba scene has no teachers, meaning follows are learning purely socially, and in my opinion are picking up many bad habits due to advanced leads putting them through many fancy tricks. One specific complaint I have is that follows are very trigger happy on preparing for a pivot or counterbalance. I do a block, they expect a pivot. I increase tension, they balance on one leg. I pause and stay still, they go on one leg. I do a regular move then reverse it half way, they balance on one leg. Something went wrong? They go on one leg to "fix" it because it was "obviously" going to be a pivot.

I intently watched how an international guest teacher handled one such follow who inserts random steps: I saw him implement four solutions that I'm not equipped to do, and I'm kind of guessing that there might be an additional hidden factor:

1. He picked moves that are very obvious as to which foot one must be on -- in fact this is "easier" when you're doing certain tricks where the entry is much more forced than relaxed steps
2. He started using tons of blocks with his free leg or even hands to prevent incorrect weight transfers or steps
3. If the above didn't work, he would cheekily force the follow's legs into position using his hands or feet, he was very playful by default so there wasn't any rude vibe in this kind of obvious correction
4. If all else failed or it wasn't an important moment, he would just fly with the follow doing random footwork and adapting to re-align later

I'm starting to think there might be an invisible factor here: could it also be that his basics in general are somehow 300% clearer than mine?

Consider this: the most advanced follows in my city say that my footwork and leading is really clean (at least for the moves I know well). These same moves have like 10-20% success rate on everyone else. (In a more advanced city, I would expect it to be higher, at least 50%.) It would seem that my technique is "roughly" correct for leading advanced follows, while being "not clear enough" for beginners. Is that even possible? If so, how do I even figure out how to make every step clearer to a beginner, since this is what an international pro might be able to do subconsciously but would never teach specifically because technique is regarded the same regardless of the follow's level?

Mind reading is a social pattern where someone acts like they know exactly what you mean, think, feel, or intend, often better than you do, and especially without adequate evidence or checking. Some common patterns that occur in my experiences of people who mind read:

• They latch on to their first interpretation of what you said, and often punish you for their interpretation before allowing any clarifications (if at all) or change in subject
• They are constantly accusing me of meaning something I didn't
• Black and white thinking: In the moment, they treat words and phrases as though they have one single meaning, and all others are wrong. If there is a language barrier or differences in connotations across countries, these get amplified and they will treat unintended meanings as your personal fault, rather than a valid cultural difference.
• They make absolute statements about my inner experiences that they aren't aware of (and are usually very wrong about)
• They constantly project and make absolute judgments (e.g. "anyone who goes to the gym must be obsessed with themselves")
• They are aggressive and consistently use the language of blame
• They seem to have a warped sense of boundaries, e.g. it is the job of the speaker to express themselves 100% accurately. If they misunderstand me, it was my fault. If I misunderstand them, it was my fault because they expressed themselves "correctly" and umambiguously.
• They have a lot of argumentative energy, which often means I either walk away or would have to accept a lot of false accusations without myself having the energy to push back (also partly because it seems futile).

So the thing is, mind reading in the past has been an absolute deal breaker for me in terms of friendships or even casual conversations. However, I believe that mind readers aren't being intentionally malicious in the vast majority of cases, even though their behavior is somewhat toxic and gaslight-y. And they can otherwise be friendly or at least interesting people. They simply might not be used to making space to communicate with another messy human being.

I get really dysregulated when talking to a mind reader, but I'd rather not feel attacked and unsafe purely on the basis of someone else's flaws that have nothing to do with me as a person. Has anyone developed a strategy for not feeling drained or threatened by them? Ideally, I'd want a way to stay in the conversation and hold my ground without needing to defend myself. Like, I have no interest in constantly defending myself, is there a way to bypass this entirely?

P.S. I'm not looking for a silver bullet. Even something I can practice slowly to increase my tolerance over a period of several years would be valuable.

Historical context: every time I've gotten a private lesson (in pretty much any style), I bring an improver-intermediate follow as my demo partner, the instructor blows my mind with fundamentals of connections plus specific move corrections, it all works magical and then at the socials, even with my demo partner, the magic is gone and the same connection and fixes l learned don't work anymore.

Specific context: This time around, I'm a rusty traditional-Kiz-trained lead (well, also a follow) who has self-learned Urban Kiz due to there being no Kiz classes in my city for years and traditional Kiz not working well locally. I've learned many moves but am probably doing something suboptimally in every single one of them, and anything that's remotely intermediately level just doesn't work well socially.

As an example of something I want to fix, through a private lesson -- you know the basic leg slide entry which happens on count 3, I know 6 different variations that start from that, but some of them actually shift the follow's weight onto that foot (#1), and some of them don't (#2), meaning the foot can still move/slide. Almost every follow I dance with appears to be autocompleting some sequence different to what I'm trying to lead. Most commonly they perform a foot slide even if I do two counts and freeze my position, even the most advanced follow in my city autocompletes the third count even if I didn't lead it.

Ultimately, my wish is that I can cleanly lead all 6 variations and be able to strongly indicate the designed weight transfer on count 3 even on beginner follows. It sounds simple, but I'm worried because this is still a very nuanced ask and the vast majority of instructors I've learned from always answer how to do things with an advanced follow, never how to adjust for a beginner or a follow with bad habits.

I've seen many decent club players in a certain pose when serving in doubles. It looks like their head and upper body is leaning back behind the rest of their body, with their arms stretched forward as though having a counterbalancing effect. My coach on the other hand tells me to be in a position that looks ready to sprint and also upper body tilted forwards, to be able to respond to a drop shot quickly. Thoughts?