Late 2 Chess

L2C 052: Claude Fried Returns to Answer (Some) of Bill's Dumb Questions Many/Most/All(?) chess players seem to be obsessed over chess openings. In an effort to help, Claude Fried returns to offer some very good advice to us about what to do when looking to start a new to you opening. In addition, Bill can't help but ask some more of his ridiculous questions. Claude is way too good of a player to p...

L2C 051:  Space:  Our Tao of Chess Book Series Continues Our Tao of Chess series continues with this episode focused on the importance of space when playing chess.  Don't worry, this is not the final frontier of the series.  We have a long way to go.   Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in? Let us know at Late...

L2C 050:  Non-Chess Factors to Improve Your Game We started off with a simple listener question:   What do you think are things that are not directly related to chess playing and studying that could help your chess game, especially for a tournament.  Bill thought it was a 5 minute pre-episode discussion.  The Doctor had other ideas.  As usual, the Doctor was correct.      Did we miss something or...

L2C 049:  Speed Runs / Slow Runs One of Bill's favorite soft learning activities is to watch slow runs/speed runs and we go into several that he has found to be most helpful and how he tries to get the most value from them.  The Doctor then goes through a similar process that he uses to actually simulate a speedrun for himself.  Then we talk about a few ways that we may add these to our podcast's...

L2C 048:  Hanging Pawns An awesome conversation with Stjepan Tomic about a ton of topics including his chess progress and what he has found to be the best ways to improve as a player.  He is was further down the road to above and beyond being a DCP, but shares our pain in the journey.  Hopefully this episode will be part 1 of many with Stjepan.   Hanging Pawns on YouTube:   https://www.youtube.com...

L2C 047:  The Tao of Chess - Pawn Structures This week, we discuss various aspects of the pawn structure and how we perceive this area to apply to our games at our current level of play.  This is an area that will likely need to be revisited as we progress.   Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in? Let us know...

L2C 046:  Freestyle Chess, Fischer Random, and Chess 960 Is Freestyle chess good for beginner and intermediate players?  Does it help you improve your chess game?  Do we know how to play this?  do we know how to play game this well?   The answers vary and that is the topic for this week's podcast.  Plus another contest. Did we miss something or get anything wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a qu...

L2C 045: Blitz and Bullet for Chess improvement One of the hot topics on the internet seems to be whether or not to play blitz and bullet early in your chess improvement cycle.  In this episode, we share our thoughts and a few details to help make bullet and blitz (really more blitz but also for bullet) helpful to you chess training and improvement.  Lets the arguments begin.  Or more appropriatel...

L2C 044:  All About the ChessNoteR One of the bigger transition when playing over the board, live, in person chess from playing online is that keeping track of the moves during the game.  It sounds trivial, but is not as natural as you think it would be to do, especially early on.  The ChessNoteR removes this issue with an easy to use interface and also allows for an easy transfer to where you rev...

L2C 043:  All About the Chess Dojo We are always talking about the Chess Dojo and it is largely because it has helped both of us so much.  We then decided to talk about how it has helped us.  We had a bit of trouble coming up with a good way of describing it when we decided "hey, lets just give a tour and talk as we do".  So we did.  PS this may be a podcast where it is better to view on our YouTu...

L2C 042:  Best Books and Courses - Volume 1 We go through the best books and courses we have used to date so far.  Unsurprisingly, our picks differed, lol.  This is a constantly evolving list and offers our perspectives.  We expect this list to be updated in the future because it does not only involve the quality of the information but also the timing the information was ingested as well as our cu...

L2C 041:  Chess Etiquette One thing that keeps many people from starting a hobby is the intimidation of not knowing what to do.  We think everyone can and should play chess, so we began a discussion on the etiquette of chess to help assuage any trepidation on anyone's part.   Did we get something wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested in? Let us know...

L2C 040:  The Candidates Tournament 2026 - Our Wrap-up The tournament is complete.  We have two new players who will compete for the world championship.  We cover what happened that last few rounds, what we think about the tournament overall, and a bit early prognostication for the world championships.  But more importantly, we cover our fantasy tournament, lol.   Did we get something wrong? Were...

L2C 039:  The Tao of Chess - Chapter 7 - Material We return to our Tao of Chess series and discus the next chapter on Material. Of primary importance to you initial improvement as a chess player is taking care of you pieces (and pawns) and capitalizing on the opportunities that your opponent presents. We have heard that 80+% of the games under 1200 Elo are decided by this factor. Even if that is n...

L2C 038: Days 8-10 of This Year's Candidates Tournament The 2026 Candidates Tournament is nearing its end. The open contest is pretty close ot mathematically over. The ladies event is FANTASTIC. We cover both and predict the next round. Please do not wager the mortgage on our thoughts, lol. Did we get something wrong? Were we remiss in not asking a question or discuss and area you are interested i...

L2C 037:  Claude Fried Bill welcomes Claude to the podcast.  He is over qualified for our DCP title and has a USCF rating of over 2,000 at this point.  We talked quite a bit about his past and even more about what he learned that helped him the most.  We also discussed a ton of options that are present currently that were not around when he was first learning.  And since the good Doctor was not ar...

L2C 036: Days 5-7 of This Year's Candidates Tournament The 2026 Candidates Tournament has reached the halfway point and the Women's championship battle almost could not be closer.  The open championship has had lots of surprises in terms of each of the games played, but it has developed into a big lead and a few players who are (almost) out of contention.  It is looking like the later rounds are g...

L2C 035: Days 1-4 of This Year's Candidates Tournament The Doctor and Bill discuss this years Candidates Tournament days 1-4.  Usually, this tournament starts slowly due to the high stakes of playing for the World Championship with lots of draws.  Not so much this year as many matches have ended with decisive victories.  We review the results for all four days and then take a deep dive into the ro...

L2C 034: Learning Chess "Chessable"-type Instruction vs Book Learning - Advantages & Disadvantages The Doctor and Bill discuss the pro's and con's of using online resources in the style of Chessable vs the old school methods of learning with books.  What is best?  What works for us?  Are there any differences and/or advantages for each?  Tune in this week.  Same Bat Time.  Same Bat Channel.  Same...

L2C 033:  Our Picks for The Fantasy 2026 Candidates Chess Tournament With the 2026 Candidates Tournament about to begin, The Doctor and Bill reveal their picks for the Late 2 Chess Fantasy Chess Candidates Championship. We hope you enjoy the tournament and good luck going for the win! And don't forget to enter your team selection into our Fantasy Chess League for the upcoming Candidates tournament...

L2C 032: The Tao of Chess - 3 More Chapters We return to our Tao of Chess series and discus the next three chapters as they belong in one bag.  The first chapter is on Development.  The second chapter is on Controlling the Center.  The third chapter we cover here is on King Safety.  These three principles form the pillars of most good chess, especially early in your chess career.  However, as with...

L2C 031: Our Views on Chessiverse.com - So Far A few weeks ago The Doctor was talking to me about this new website that he was trying out and said it looked good so far.  I was on the road for a 4 week work travel trip and checked out the website.  We both found it to be be very helpful to us learning chess and improving our games.  So in this episode we talk about Chessiverse.com, what features i...

L2C 030: Our 2026 Candidates Tournament Player intro and Fantasy Tournament Intro In this episode, we introduce the 8 contestants in the 2026 Candidates Tournament. The winner will get the chance to play for the World Championship of Chess later this year against the current World Champion Gukesh. We also provided all the details you need to enter the even more prestigious Fantasy Chess Tournament...

L2C 029:  Our First Annual Chessy Awards for 2025 Performance It is awards season and we thought it would be great fun to start the annual tradition we nicknamed the Cheesy's.  Never one to leave a bad idea alone, we did it.  So with no further introduction, here are the Chessy Awards for 2025.  Let the arguments begin.  And don't forget to enter your team selection into our Fantasy Chess League f...

L2C 028:  Our Chess Inspirations and Aspirations With the upcoming 2026 Candidates Tournament that will decide who will compete against Gukesh to win the Chess World Championship later this year, we thought we would go into some of the players that we find to be inspirational to our games, some of the playing styles we want to have/wish we had etc.  And don't forget to enter your team selection in...