Is it worth it to transition into more open lines when one is used to closed, positional games? I've played the French and Queen's Gambit, which tend to lead to more closed, positional play.  I've played these openings consistently for roughly 25+ years now, with no set opening before then really.  I did try to learn both the Center counter, or Scandinavian, and the Danish early but eventually gave up and played random moves (I was quite young).  After that it was Petrov for a year, then on to closed games.  I'm currently 38 and have been at closed positions now for 25+ years.  By consistent I mean every single game I've played since then.  If it is relevant my USCF is around 1500, with a peak of 1620.

From a strong expert:

Just because I find open games to be more fun, I would suggest playing more open games.  Also a variety of openings will expand your knowledge.  (Looking at your tournament history, you may already have enough knowledge.)  Just like you don't quit smoking in one day, don't switch to overly aggressive opening.  Try the Scotch, Vienna, or Giuoco Piano.  These openings requires the learning of more opening traps, but they should improve your quality of play.

Assuming that you have the time to invest in studying an opening, learn the common positions and plans.  If after trying this style you feel uncomfortable, go back to playing the closed/positional games.  If the game is not fun, it is not worth playing.

When I reached expert level, I switched to a more positional game because I thought this is what was supposed to happen.  I lost many games because I hid my talent.

Some GM said that he switched to d4 because he got lazy as he got old.  Anna Zatonskih said that with d4, White can make more mistakes before losing the game.  You could be hanging on to the safety of known avenues.

Your question is interesting but not to the point, if you allow me to say. You are speaking about openings and your problem is not about opening. When you say you have been playing closed openings for years, what do you really mean? Are you playing those out of interest or out of fear or prudence? I would advice you, given your rating, to restudy from the beginning the game of chess. Study all of its history with commented games and try to make progress tactically. Practise and practise again until you get a grip on tactics: this is the major step to mastering the basics of chess. You should be prudent: books for beginners and weaker players always insist on ideas, and they are right, but you should not forget that a minimal mastery of concrete tactical chess is unmistakenly necessary. There is no progress without this. Playing closed openings closes road for your progress. There are good books for you to study: just think of Yusupov's course in several volumes, for instance. You read the book with a board aside (computer also) and you think what you want to play and what could be annoying to you. Then when reaching your conclusion, you look up with computer assistance and finally you try to figure out why computer moves are better than yours. This is a very rude way to learn but you will make progress. You can keep on playing your openings, they are not bad, but play them with an open mind and try to master tactics. You rating will then go up. I know this is not comfortable, but there is no such thing as comfort when trying to progress. Maybe you will even lose elo points in the beginning, and so what, if you risk nothing you get nothing. Just try, it's a game, open and closed. Open games are more dangerous in the short term BUT you have to master them to understand what underlies closed positions when those get opened. Closing positions is not an aim in itself, it's just a means. Sorry for being so direct but i really want to help you ahead.
Greetings!


What rule changes are proposed to minimize the incentive to draw a game? Many world champion games are drawn, and people in the general public think that is disappointing. Not to debate that opinion here, but the question seems to be out there. So what would a rule change look like to get rid of most of the drawn games in tournaments? Especially those agreed upon rather than those forced. What has been proposed?

What consequences would come from giving zero points to both players who draw? Or to punish the party who proposes a draw by a reduced score? Draws can be forced, and the players could "agree to force" a draw, so it's not apparent to me how it would work out.

Tried systems are to award 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw, not being able to offer a draw before move 30, and only being able to draw with the consent of the arbiter.  There has been a long discussion about giving black 0.6 points versus white's 0.4, due the the advantage of the first move.  There is also Fischer's suggestion of not counting draws in matches.

I have suggested on splitting the point in a ratio derived by the difference in rating.  For people with <= 75 points difference, the point is split evenly.  75-150, the point is split 0.6-0.4, weaker and stronger player respectively.  There could also be a variance based upon which color was played.  This should give the stronger player more incentive to play for a win, however it also gives the weaker player more reward for playing for the draw.

One way to get rid of draws is to have all games be Armageddon games. Basically, when you play under these rules, a draw is counted as a win for one player, and the other player is given a time advantage as compensation.


How to measure strength of my own chess engine? I'm wondering how can I estimate ELO ranking of my own written engine. I figure out that I have to connect my engine with some well known engine (via UCI protocol?) to be able to play automatically many games. My first thought was to adjust ELO ranking of well known engine to finally have draw, eg. If I the result of 1000 games match between my program and other is about 500 - 500 then I'll know that my program has the same strength. The problem is that, as far as I know, we are not able to set any engine to play on particular ELO level. Do you have any other idea how to measure own engine ELO rating?

Implement UCI or Winboard protocol (just enough to play games).  Download some engines (e.g. via CCRL) stronger than your estimate and run a Gauntlet tournament in Arena/Winboard/Cutechess etc.  Hundreds of games at least.  Feed the resulting PGN output file into Ordo and it'll give you an ELO (for the time control you used).  Try different time controls etc if needed - depends on your target competitors.

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/UCI

http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

http://www.playwitharena.com/

http://hgm.nubati.net/

https://github.com/cutechess/cutechess

https://sites.google.com/site/gaviotachessengine/ordo

For an initial quick ELO you could use Ferdinand Mosca's tool that makes an estimate based on your engine's performance with the Strategic Test Suite EPDs.

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56653

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Strategic+Test+Suite

You can do a test on

http://www.elometer.net

This is a test based on problems


In Caro-Kann Defense, what are the differences between 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2? After 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5, what are the differences between 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2?

It seems 3. Nc3 is more popular, though after 3. ... dxe4, I failed to see the difference.

3.Nc3 allows White to play the Two Knights Attack with 2.Nf3. It does block the c-pawn, though, so Black can play 3...g6, the Gurgenidze System, because White cannot protect the d-pawn with the c-pawn.

There is also the rarely played Gurgenidze Counter Attack 3...b5. A very dubious line that can be stopped easily with a3.

3.Nd2 tries to avoid these lines, but it makes the Two Knights Attack impossible, a line that is very popular nowadays. It also blocks the view of White's dark-squared bishop, so Black can develop their kingside knight to h6 if they want.

It is subtle and positional.  It avoids lines white does not want to see and does it without any drawbacks that are significant.


Good Knight Against Bad Bishop Endgame - A More Constructive Plan? I reached the position below in a recent tournament game

[Event "Recent Tournament"]
[Site "Deepest, Darkest Oxfordshire"]
[Date "Feb 2020"]
[White "Ian Bush"]
[Black "A Young Victim"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "~1850"]
[BlackELO "~1850"]
[ECO "C55r"]
[StartPly "52"]
[FEN ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.e5 d5 6.Bb5 Ne4 7.Nxd4 Bd7 8.Bxc6
bxc6 9.O-O Bc5 10.f3 Ng5 11.Be3 Qe7 12.f4 Ne4 13.Nd2 Nxd2 14.Qxd2 O-O 15.
Nb3 Bxe3+ 16.Qxe3 f6 17.Nc5 fxe5 18.fxe5 Be6 19.Rae1 Rxf1+ 20.Rxf1 Rf8 21.
Rxf8+ Kxf8 22.Nb3 Bd7 23.Qc5 Ke8 24.Qxe7+ Kxe7 25.Nc5 Bf5 26.c3 h6 27.Kf2 Bc8
28.Ke3 Bf5 29.Kd4 Bb1 30.a3 Bc2 31.Na6 Bb3 32.Nc5 Bc4 33.Ke3 Ba2 34.Kf4 Bb1
35.h4 Bc2 36.g3 Bb1 37.Nb3 g6 38.Nd4 Kd7 39.b4 Bd3 40.a4 Bb1 41.a5 Bd3 42.Nb3
Bc4 43.Nc5+ Ke7 44.h5 gxh5 45.Kf5 Be2 46.Kg6 Bd1 47.Kxh6 Be2 48.Kg5 Bg4
49.Nb3 Bd1 50.Nd4 Kd7 51.Kf6 Ke8 52.Nxc6 a6 53.e6 Bg4 54.e7 Bd7 55.Nd4 Bh3
56.Ne6 Bxe6 57.Kxe6 h4 58.gxh4 d4 59.cxd4 c5 60.d5 1-0

Though I ultimately won I have to admit a good part of it was waiting for my opponent to make a mistake - my opinion was that only black could lose this one so I'd try and slowly improve things waiting for a mistake in a difficult position, and then hopefully pounce. But is there a better plan which does not involve my opponent being cooperative and I can just win whatever he does? Sample variations to illustrate ideas would be appreciated - especially as this is a thematic endgame from the opening I use, and so I would like to learn how to play it better. I should also say I saw at various points how I could win a Q side pawn or two but was worried it was taking my wonderful knight out of play and sometimes saccing the e5 pawn to get 2 Q side pawns, which again I was not convinced was a good bargain - was I being too cautious?

For what it is worth both he and me are about 1850 FIDE (converted from ECF), and my plans to improve the position were

Get everything on black squares so he doesn't have any targets
Edge my pawns forward making them closer to queening when the breakthrough occurs
Plant the king on d4 or f4 again for the breakthrough
Combine varying the angle of attack of the knight against the Q side pawns with threats of e6 to try and win one or more of his Q side pawns

First, the good: You are probably winning this throughout the game, and thus, improving your position gradually was the perfect plan. It also was one of the best examples of Shereshevsky's "Do Not Hurry" principle that I have ever seen. Black could do nothing, so gradually improving, and eventually converting, was perfect since you had all the time in the world. Having this much time is, obviously, not that common in chess, which leads me to the next paragraph.

Now, for the bad, and you even allude to in in your question when you said "was I being too cautious?" I do not know if this is a pattern in all your games, but you showed a lack of calculating when it was just winning, and a lack of action. You need to work on concrete play. In games where you do not have that much time, that might be the difference between winning and drawing, or worse.

I am not trying to be hard on you, but rather, just to point this out. In fact, just yesterday, I read this article, and you might find it helpful.

Here are my notes to the game.

[Event "Recent Tournament"]
[Site "Deepest, Darkest Oxfordshire"]
[Date "Feb 2020"]
[White "Ian Bush"]
[Black "A Young Victim"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "~1850"]
[BlackELO "~1850"]
[ECO "C56"]
[PlyCount "119"]
[FEN ""]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. e5 d5 6. Bb5 Ne4 7. Nxd4 Bd7 8. Bxc6 bxc6 9. O-O Bc5 10. f3 Ng5 11. Be3 Qe7 12. f4 Ne4 13. Nd2 Nxd2 14. Qxd2 O-O 15. Nb3 Bxe3+ 16. Qxe3 f6 17. Nc5 fxe5 18. fxe5 Be6 19. Rae1 Rxf1+ $2 {This was, indeed, way too cooperative. The Be6 should blockade the pawn, and the rooks should seek counterplay on the queenside.} (19... Rfb8 20. b3 Rb5) 20. Rxf1 Rf8 $2 {I am tempted to give this positional lemon two question marks. } 21. Rxf8+ Kxf8 22. Nb3 (22. b4 {Is typical here, not wasting time, but since there is no good way of avoiding getting the queens off, it is worth it.}) 22... Bd7 23. Qc5 Ke8 24. Qxe7+ Kxe7 25. Nc5 (25. c3 $1 {A little refinement preventing d4 since Ke6 does not help.} Ke6 $2 26. Nc5+ Kxe5 $4 27. Nxd7+) 25... Bf5 (25... d4 26. Kf2 Bf5 {Black is still worse, but finally with some potential for counterplay.}) 26. c3 h6 27. Kf2 Bc8 28. Ke3 Bf5 29. Kd4 $18 {THE perfect initial setup.} Bb1 30. a3 (30. a4 $1 {Concrete play.} g5 31. a5 Bg6 32. Na6 Kd8 33. Nb8 Be8 34. Kc5 {And just wins.}) 30... Bc2 31. Na6 Bb3 32. Nc5 (32. Nb8 $1 {Again, you avoid concrete play.} Ba4 33. Kc5 Ke6 34. Nxc6 a6 35. Nb4 Kxe5 36. Nxa6 c6 37. Nb8 $18) 32... Bc4 33. Ke3 Ba2 34. Kf4 Bb1 35. h4 Bc2 36. g3 Bb1 37. Nb3 g6 38. Nd4 $6 {Although it loses a pawn for black, you allow counterplay, and the one move black has been trying to play the whole game, c5. It still wins, but unless you calculated it all well, it is not a move I would allow here.} Kd7 (38... c5 39. Nb5 c6 40. Nxa7 Kd7 {The computer has no doubt you are winning, but if I got here in my calculations, I would worry about the semi-trapped knight here, and even after e6+, I get it out, will the extra pawn still be winning.} 41. e6+ Kxe6 42. Nxc6) 39. b4 Bd3 40. a4 Bb1 41. a5 Bd3 42. Nb3 Bc4 43. Nc5+ (43. Nd4 Bd3 44. g4 Bb1 45. h5 g5+ 46. Ke3 {And Nf5 or e6 will win.} Be4 47. e6+ Kd6 48. e7 Kxe7 49. Nxc6+ $18 Kd7 50. Nxa7 c6 51. b5 cxb5 52. Nxb5 Kc6 53. Nd4+ Kb7 54. Nf5) 43... Ke7 44. h5 $1 gxh5 45. Kf5 Be2 46. Kg6 Bd1 47. Kxh6 Be2 48. Kg5 Bg4 49. Nb3 Bd1 50. Nd4 Kd7 51. Kf6 Ke8 52. Nxc6 a6 53. e6 Bg4 54. e7 (54. b5 $1 {Again, concrete play.} Be2 55. b6 {And queens.}) 54... Bd7 55. Nd4 Bh3 56. Ne6 Bxe6 57. Kxe6 h4 58. gxh4 d4 59. cxd4 $6 (59. h5 {While not technically a mistake, you should have seen this common mating pattern easily.} dxc3 60. h6 c2 61. h7 c1=Q 62. h8=Q#) 59...c5 60. d5 1-0

Looks like an easy win for white.  You have to be careful how you do it but getting the k to the qside to pick up the rook pawn or else win the bishop as you advance the kpawn without the black king to stop it because it is guarding the rook pawn.

putting your pawns on black squares first could block your king from getting to the q side


I wanted to understand the chess engine comparison. What does this result matrix show? For example in the first row and second column, Stockfish vs Houdini, the result is 27-25+7-3=-16. I understand that 27 signifies Stockfish's number of wins+ draws, similarly 25 signifies that of Houdini. But what does "7-3" signify? and how is the result -16?

And what does the blank in Row 1, column 7 mean? similarly in (6,11), (7,1), (7,10), (7, 12), (10,7), (11,6), (11, 12), (12,7), (12,11). Do they signify that those matchups have never happened? If so Where should I look for if I want comparison of such matchups?

This question may be weird, but please at least guide me where should I ask these questions if not the answer.

@muclux is right on the results. Check his comment. I'll answer what "16" mean.

Scroll further down on the page.

The number is the rating change. Stockfish lost 16 rating point to Houdini, similarly Houdini won 16 points from Stockfish (convince yourself by going to the Houdini vs Stockfish cell).

I believe the answer to the meaning of the numbers is at the top of the list above that matrix.

As for the blank spots, yes I believe those are for games which did not occur.


What are the ideas behind the Blackmar-Diemer gambit? I have a new chess student who likes risky openings. We conducted an exercise where we played the first 4 or 5 moves to see which openings come naturally to him. He chose the Scandinavian Defence and Queen's Gambit Accepted as Black, and the Blackmar-Diemer gambit as White.

[FEN ""]
1. d4 d5 2. e4

My problem is that I have only come across this opening once, and it does not appear in any of the books I have. It also is that my style of play is very different from my student's. I have a much more cautious style.

So, my question is, to help my student, I would like to know what are the main ideas and variations in the Blackmar-Diemer gambit?

I've used BDG countless number of times and won virtually everytime over weaker players. This is a dangerous opening if Black simply plays normal development moves, quite tricky to play in a 5-minute blitz game.

White has to attack because he is a pawn down. The most direct and surprisingly effective setup is:

Position the light bishop on the d3-h7 diagonal
Move the white queen d1-e1-h4
Prepare for an exchange sacrifice on the f-file
Prepare for bishop sacrifices on the h6 and h7 squares

Why is this effective in a blitz game? An unprepared Black player might just simply make normal development moves, as if there was no gambit. By the time Black sees the checkmate, it'd be too late. If Black plays h7-h6 or g7-g6, White has the the two bishops and f1-rook to do further damage, for example sacrificing by Bxh6.

This gambit can be refuted, possible ideas:

Castle to the queen-side
Delay castling and strike on the weak d-pawn. If white plays c3, Black has ...c5 to challenge the pawn and try to open the weak g1-a7 diagonal.

I've personally found very difficult to deal with Black castle queen-side, because it is harder to exploit the space advantage in the king-side while the Black king is on the other side of the board.

Here, I give a sample game that I've used many times.

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.f3 exf3 4.Nxf3 Nf6 5.Bd3 e6 6.O-O Bd6 7.Bg5 O-O 8.Qe1 Nbd7  9.Qh4 c5 10.Ne5 cxd4 11.Bxf6 Nxf6 12.Rxf6
*

If I was trying to explain this to a beginner, I would say that black is up a pawn with no compensation.

Yes, white's position is dangerous but black is fully equal. Refer to the engine for specific lines.


Does 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 have to be a bad opening? There seems to be a pretty nifty attack for White after  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6:

[FEN ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxh8

I've played as White with this opening several times, always to my advantage (usually Black panics and plays 4 ... Ke7, soon after which he finds ample reason to resign).  But once someone played as shown above, and went on with

6. ...     Nf6,
  etc.

to try and put my queen on the spot.  Presumably he intended to follow up with moves such as ...b6, ...Bb7 or similar, ...Nc3 or similar, ...O-O-O, and then ...Bg7 forcing Qxd8.  Since it was a blitz game, best play was not made, and he made a mistake allowing my queen to escape, but it got me thinking.  Is there some way Black can recover from 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6?

My question especially regards 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f6 3. Nxe5 fxe5 4. Qh5+ g6 5. Qxe5+ Qe7 6. Qxh8 (as shown above) - is there a way to trap White's Q?  Or is 3... fxe5 simply a bad move?  Should 2... f6 be avoided altogether?

After

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5 fxe5 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qxe5+ Qe7 6.Qxh8 Nf6

with ideas of trapping the queen, 7. d3 followed by Bg5 or Bh6 and there won't be any issues getting the queen out, e.g.:

7.d3 d5 8.Bg5 Nbd7 9.Nc3 b6 10.0-0-0 Bb7 11.e5

Black can try to minimize the damage after 2...f6? with something like 3.Nxe5 Qe7

You aren't losing the exchange any more, but you've still destroyed your position with ...f6.

2... f6 should be avoided.

The damiano cannot protect the pawn and weakens kingside. Just say, damiano himself is pretty annoyed by it getting named after him.


In the Damiano Variation of Petrov's Defense, should white play d4 or f4? Here is the opening in question:

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4? 4. Qe2! Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6

White has the advantage no matter which pawn is moved next, 6. d4 or 6. f4 (there is no way to keep the knight, but after the exchange white is up a pawn). However, in the interest of knowledge, which pawn is better to push?

If white plays 6. f4, the line continues 6... dxe5 7. fxe5 and now white has two powerful central pawns while black has none. This also allows white to play the strong 8. e4 potentially creating a pawn duo in the center, although black can prevent this with 7... c5.

However, this also ditches the f-pawn, severely weakening the kingside position and violating the "rule of thumb" to avoid pushing the f-pawn (and losing it to boot). This makes castling kingside a lot less attractive and could allow black to mount an effective attack if white does so. (It also provides black with a weakness to take advantage of before the king has castled, the e1-h4 diagonal and the king's lack of protection in general, if white decides to castle queenside.)
If white plays 6. d4, castling kingside becomes more feasible again. Black has to move the queen out of the way before castling (or black can just fianchetto, but this still wastes a turn moving the g-pawn), losing a tempo (black will probably want to castle soon to avoid having the king attacked down the nice and open d file).

This move has its disadvantages too, though. The pawn on e5 is, for all practical purposes, an isolated pawn (moving the f-pawn would negate any possible advantage of playing 6. d4 instead of 6. f4). This makes it very vulnerable to attack (ex. 7... Nc5 practically forces 8. Bf4). And just as 6. f4 violates the common "rule of thumb" to avoid pushing the f-pawn, 6. d4 violates the guideline to capture towards the center with pawns.

I ended up playing 6. f4. Black subsequently blundered away the queen and resigned soon after... but I'm still curious about this position.

Am I missing anything in my analysis? Which move is better overall for white? Could white have played better in any previous moves?

White has the advantage no matter which pawn is moved next, 6. d4 or
  6. f4 (there is no way to keep the knight, but after the exchange white is up a pawn).

My initial reaction is pretty much the same as yours. You'd have to be a very poor player to even think of playing this as black. However, we are both wrong! Much stronger players than me play it as black and even win sometimes.

One of these is Austrian IM Friedrich Volkmann.

Here are 3 of his wins.

First against a stronger opponent

[FEN ""]
[Event "EU-ch 4th"]
[Site "Istanbul"]
[Date "2003.06.05"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Nedev, Trajko 2518"]
[Black "Volkmann, Friedrich Karl 2435"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d4 dxe5
7. dxe5 Nc6  8. Bb5 Bd7 9. Nc3 Qb4 10. Bc4 O-O-O 11. a3 Qa5 12. Bf4 Bb4
13. O-O Bxc3 14.  bxc3 Be6 15. Bd3 Qxc3 16. Rab1 Ba2 17. Rbd1 Kb8
18. Rfe1 h6 19. Bg3 Rd4 20. Qe2  Rhd8 21. f4 g6 22. Rc1 Bc4 23. Bf2 Rxf4
24. Be3 Nd4 25. Qd1 Rh4 26. Bf2 Rh5 27.  Re4 Be6 28. Rb1 Nc6 29. Qf3 b6
30. Rc4 Bxc4 31. Qxc6 Rxd3 32. cxd3 Qxd3 33. Rc1  Rh4 34. h3 Rf4
35. Re1 Rxf2 36. Kxf2 Qd2+ 37. Kf3 Bd5+ 0-1

Against a much weaker opponent

[FEN ""]
[Event "ICS Anniversary op"]
[Site "Fics Internet"]
[Date "2002.01.15"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Alaimo, Riccardo 2158"]
[Black "Volkmann, Friedrich Karl 2414"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d4 dxe5
7. Qxe5 Qxe5+  8. dxe5 Bf5 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. cxd3 Nc6 11. O-O O-O-O
12. f4 Nb4 13. Nc3 Bc5+ 14.  Kh1 Nxd3 15. Ne4 Bd4 16. Rb1 f6
17. exf6 gxf6 18. Bd2 Rhe8 19. Nc3 Nf2+ 20.  Rxf2 Bxf2 21. Rd1 Rxd2 0-1

Against a slightly weaker opponent

[FEN ""]
[Event "EU-chT (Men)"]
[Site "Leon"]
[Date "2001.11.14"]
[Round "8.2"]
[White "Haznedaroglu, Kivanc 2328"]
[Black "Volkmann, Friedrich Karl 2414"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Qxe4 d6 6. f4 dxe5
7. fxe5 f6 8.  Bc4 Qxe5 9. Qxe5+ fxe5 10. d3 Nc6 11. Be3 Nd4
12. Kd2 Nf5 13. Bf2 Bd7 14. Nc3  O-O-O 15. Rae1 Re8 16. Bf7 Re7
17. Bd5 c6 18. Be4 b6 19. Rhf1 g6 20. Kc1 Bh6+  21. Kb1 Rf8
22. Bf3 Ref7 23. Ne4 Kc7 24. c3 Nd6 25. Ng3 Bh3 26. Bg1 Nf5
27. Be4  Nxg3 28. Rxf7+ Rxf7 29. hxg3 Bf5 30. Rf1 Kd6 31. Kc2 Ke6
32. Rf3 Bxe4 33. dxe4  Rxf3 34. gxf3 Bf8 35. b4 h5 36. Kd3 g5
37. Bf2 Be7 38. a4 h4 39. g4 c5 40. Kc4  cxb4 41. cxb4 h3
42. Bg3 a6 43. b5 a5 44. Kd3 Bc5 45. Ke2 Kd6 46. Kf1 Be3
47. Ke2 Bf4 48. Bxf4 exf4 0-1

After those games I'm not so sure that it is a blunder. The statistics still favor white by something like 40% white wins to about 20% black wins, so it looks like a better opening for white but psychologically I can see how it would be good for black. Black gets the kind of position he knows and is comfortable with while white thinks he is playing an idiot and so is maybe more likely to play badly.

At 14 ply Fritz 6 prefers 6. d4 (+0.59) to 6. f4 (+0.50), so they are nearly the same good.


Chess game viewer plugin for wordpress Do you know of any PGN/game viewer for Wordpress, which can be used to generate diagrams, and chess games?

There are a couple.  The most popular is likely Embed Chessboard.  The nice thing about it is that the tags are simply PGN references:

  [pgn parameter=value ...]
  ... chess games in PGN format ...
  [/pgn]

So if you're already familiar with PGN, put it into your Wordpress page and the plugin detects it..

Would you share your Wordpress site URL in comments once complete?


What is positional play in chess? I have played chess so many times, understood tactics (pins, discovered check, overloading, deflection, skewer), but I never understood clearly the positional play.  I have noticed not many tutorials available that explains positional play.

What exactly is positional play? Why is it important?
Please can you show some nice examples to understand the concept?

Sorry for being so naive, but very curious on this.

Classically positional play is what is described in part 2 of Nimzowitsch's "My System". Part 1, The Elements, is more tactical in nature. It describes play in open files, using the 7th and 8th ranks, passed pawns, pins, discovered checks and a few other features.

Part 2, Position Play, deals with stuff like

Fighting for the center, which you do by moving pawns and pieces (firstly knights and bishops, later rooks) so that they occupy, support or attack the center.
Over protection of important points or squares, in the first instance central ones later they may be points important for attack or defence, is important because it strengthens those points. This in turn gives more freedom and flexibility to the pieces involved. They are not firmly tied down because other pieces are sharing the burden. And it gives prophylaxis. Because these points are over protected you are not going to get caught by a sudden attack from your opponent.
Certain static features are described and discussed which have positional characteristics. Doubled and isolated pawns are usually positional weaknesses. Very occasionally they may have good features but mostly they are bad. The IQP (isolated queen's pawn) is covered in great depth. Depending on how the two sides play the IQP can be a dynamic attacking tool or it can be a static weakness which will eventually fall.
The two bishops (when you have two bishops and your opponent has either two knights or one bishop and one knight) is positional plus because of the way they can work together. They can cut an impassable diagonal line across the board in the same way that a rook can cut such lines orthogonally.

Why are these concepts important? Well, when you first start playing you don't really know what to do with your pieces. As Nimzowitsch says you probably think you should get your pieces out, castle on the opposite to your opponent and then each of you should launch a pawn storm attack against your opponent's castled king. First one to break through wins. It can certainly be a lot of fun but it's just not going to work against somebody who has mastered a more positional way of playing.

These positional concepts give you guidelines of how to play when the position doesn't call for a tactical solution. In some respects it gives you guidance of how to build up your position so that you can either start your own tactical attack or frustrate your opponent's tactical attack.

Mastering tactical and positional play will likely take you to somewhere round about the 2000 level, which is no mean feat. To make progress much beyond this level you will have to start to learn and understand when to break these positional guidelines.

My System has many examples and games which Nimzowitsch uses to illustrate his points. He also wrote a follow on book of more examples and games called Chess Praxis which is highly recommended for further study of positional play.

Positional play: positioning (  Bring ) ur pieces into the contact of strategically important squares .
Ok then what is strategically important squares?
Strategy: plan of action designed to achieve overall goal
Goal: checkmate?? In reality chess is drawish game( it's impossible to checkmate if both side play correctly cause it's like war between the countries with equal force)
Ok then what's our goal then only we can design the plan?!
Goal: activity (positive action for the pieces)ex 1.e4 e5 2.nf3
Every one follows with nf3 cause it limits opponents response and ur +ve  action n*e5  conclusion : goal :activity strategy : bring ur pieces to the squares that will give greater activity ( central squares, blockading squares,holes in ur opponent camp).U should overprotect that squares with all of ur pieces ...it will give  greater activity for ur  pieces..... Simple idea but strong: overprotection!!! In the fight for the strategically important squares .ex : fight for the e5 square if the  square control count is  5vs4 then U can move any of ur 5 pieces greater activity!!  But 4vs4 ur pieces are tied to that great squares but ur pieces  are tied....


Three Pawns for a Knight - Why Doesn't Stockfish Like it? In a recent game I swapped off a knight for 3 pawns:

[Event "County Match"]
[Site "Deepest Darkest Southern England"]
[Date "2018.01.20"]
[White "English Player"]
[Black "Ian Bush"]
[Result "0-1"]
[FEN ""]
[StartPly "41"]

1.c4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.O-O d6 6.Nc3 c5 7.a3 Nc6 8.Rb1 Bf5
9.d3 Nd7 10.Nd5 Nb6 11.Ne3 Bd7 12.b4 Qc8 13.b5 Nd4 14.Nxd4 Bxd4 15.a4 Bh3
16.a5 Bxg2 17.Kxg2 Bxe3 18.Bxe3 Nd7 19.Bh6 Re8 20.Qd2 Nf6 21.h3 Qf5 22.e4
Nxe4 23.dxe4 Qxe4+ 24.Kh2 Qxc4 25.Rfe1 Rad8 26.Re3 f6 27.Rbe1 e5 28.Rd3
Re6 29.Rc3 Qxb5 30.Qd5 Rde8 31.Rb3 Qc6 32.Qxc6 bxc6 33.Rb7 R6e7 34.a6 Kf7
35.Be3 Ke6 36.f4 Rxb7 37.axb7 Rb8 38.Rb1 a5 39.fxe5 fxe5 40.Kg2 a4 41.Kf2
a3 42.Ke2 a2 43.Ra1 Rxb7 44.Rxa2 c4 45.Kd2 d5 46.Kc3 Rb3+ 47.Kd2 d4 48.Bf2
Kd5 49.Ra5+ Ke4 50.Rc5 c3+ 51.Kc1 d3 52.Rxc6 d2+ 53.Kc2 Rb2+ 54.Kd1 Rb1+ 0-1

I've started here as this was the plan after Qf5, and I played this way as I thought it a good way to get winning chances - it was a match and as it all looked fairly even wins were the order of the day. But Stockfish really doesn't like it, putting me down ~1.5 pawns, and I don't really understand why. Can somebody turn the "thoughts" of the metal monster into human terms for me?

Counting material is only one portion of evaluating a position. Stockfish considers space, piece mobility and activity, king safety, etc.

All of that produces an evaluation of the position, and for this one SF grades it (using LiChess) as about +2.2 (depth 31).

I note that before your knight sac Stockfish thinks you were already down by about 1.2, despite roughly equal material. That bishop on h6 controlling your weakened dark squares, for example, is clearly worth more than your knight.

As for your decision to sac the knight, from a practical point of view it seems a reasonable choice in a bad situation, because if you simply move your queen to e6 or e5, as SF suggests, white has a clear and natural plan of f4 followed by eventually opening up that file, and your clumsy rooks will not be nimble defenders.

SF suggests for white an immediate b6 after your queen takes on c4, and with that you will not get the pawn storm as you did in the game. White will have an open line to invade with his rooks (which one depends on your reaction to b6) and his extra piece will tell.

Well, sometimes knight are useful to fork pieces and stuff, but 3 of your pawns for a knight, in this position, is bad because now black has two connected passed pawns that could be put into good use during the endgame.


When is a fianchetto strategic to play? I know that some openings include fianchettoing the bishop. But sometimes, this isn't part of the opening, but I still need to decide whether to bring my bishop one rank forward (like Bg7) or to the other side of the board (like Bc4).
Someone told me that usually the fianchetto is useless if you push the center pawn closer to the fianchetto's bishop.
What should I look for to decide whether I should fianchetto or bring my bishop further up the board?
Edit
As an example, in the Sicilian as Black, I usually do 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6. At this point, I've already moved two pawns, so I am not going to do e5.

In a lot of cases you just rely on your intuition. With enough experience you can tell whether a fianchetto makes sense in setups like the Sicilian. But here are some tips for when to do it:

If the long diagonal is open, since the bishop will not be blocked along it.
If your opponent doesn't have a bishop on the same colour as the soon to be fianchettoed bishop. This will make it more difficult for your opponent to trade off your bishop. Note that if the bishop does get traded off, it's not a huge deal, but now there's a hole in front of your king.
If the bishop has no responsibilities on its normal diagonal of development. E.g., in the Sicilian, if you've pushed ...d6 and then either ...e6 or ...e5, your bishop is often important in defending the d6-pawn. So fianchettoing it here usually isn't recommended. But if the e-pawn is left on e7 (like in the Dragon), there are no issues with the d6-pawn when you fianchetto.
If it would take two moves to develop the bishop anyway along the normal development diagonal. I.e., if your e-pawn hasn't moved yet, you'll have to spend a tempo pushing it and then bringing out the bishop. This means that if you go for the fianchetto, at least it won't waste any extra time.

All of these guidelines can absolutely be broken though. They are just some things to factor into your decision -- each position should be treated on a case by case basis.

There is no general rule to follow.
It all depends on the exact position and how the game is going and what your strategy is for the middle game.


Are there mobile chess tutoring/training apps for Android or iPhone? I'm looking for a Chess tutoring/teaching app that I can dip in and out of on my phone. At the moment I use Shredder Chess to practice when on the move (which basically involves repeating the puzzles over and over) but I was looking for some sort of app which has structured lessons on openings, defenses etc. and explains the positions in depth like Chess Mentor does.

Does anyone know if this type of app exists?

Here are my Chess apps for Android:

iChess — lots of chess tactics to solve, all offline. You can also load your own PGN or purchase recent tactics based on openings, or from recent games.

Chess Book Study — a very innovative app that shows a board and an eBook in the same screen. It makes it easy to study chess books. You can even dictate and the moves are made on the board.

Analyze This — analyze a position with two engines, simultaneously!

this is my suggestion 1. chess.com 2. Follow chess 3. Chess Book Study 4. Droidfish chess 5. ChessOcr http://newchessbasics.blogspot.com/2015/07/best-5-chess-android-apps.html


How do you calculate elo? I am starting a chess club at my school, and I want to create a Python program to calculate and store Elo ratings for each player. I am confident I can program it, but I just need to know:

How do you calculate Elo?

What i am looking for:

Equations to calculate expected outcome for each player.
Equations to calculate elo change using this.
How to deal with a draw.
How the value of K can be calculated, or suggestions for a static value of K which would work for students.

So far the best explanation I have found is the League of Legends rating system explained in this video (which happens to be the same system used in chess).

Here you have some more information about Elo system that maybe it's useful for you.

Arpad Elo designed his system assuming a normal distribution in the results achieved by the players with a standard deviation of 200 rating points. So he used a logistic function to calculate the expected results by a player. The actual function (actually a table is used with minimal differences with this function) is:

WEa = 1 / (1 + 10^((Rb-Ra)/400)), rounded to two decimal digits

WEa is the expected result for player a, while Rb and Ra are the ratings of both players. As you can see in a game between two players having 400 points of difference in rating the chances of winning the game are 10:1.

After the game(s) expected and actual results of a player are compared, so players performing better than their expected results increase their ratings, and players performing worse decrease them. To do that the difference between expected and actual results is multiplied by a constant factor K. This constant value has to be small enough to make the system stable and avoid reflecting the very last results only, but large enough to be able to track players evolution. I guess a good value would be between 20 and 30, Jeff Sonas for example suggest 24 as the optimum value, while FIDE handbook points that rating stabilizes after 70 games (K10), 35 games (K20) and 18 games (K40), maybe these numbers can be useful for you to set your own K value.

Using a greater K value the very first few games can help your students to reach an approximate rating quickly and then you can change to a smaller K value.

Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system

A player's new rating after a tournament is calculated :

Rn = Ro + (K/2)(W - L + (Sum of rating differences/2C))

Rn is the new rating, Ro is the old rating. W and L are the number of wins and losses. A rating difference is the opponent's rating minus the player's rating, not the other way around.

C will determine how spaced out the ratings are, i.e. the standard deviation. It appears that 200 is commonly used.

K will determine how much of an effect each game has. FIDE uses 30, and 20 once a player reaches IM. http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/3963-rating-regulations-the-k-factor

A draw is 0 wins and 0 losses.


Queen's Indian Defense question that has me stumped After the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 if White plays 3.Nf3, Black often plays the Queen's Indian Defense with 3...b6. But if White plays 3.Nc3, then Black rarely plays 3...b6.

 [FEN ""]

  1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 (3.Nf3 b6) b6!?

Does anyone know why that is? (assuming GM level play)

The simple reason is because 3...b6 doesn't prevent 4.e4! when White immediately grabs the center.

   [FEN ""]

   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4.e4!

The bishop on b7 isn't very effective in the kind of pawn structure that arises after e4. Often, White may play f3, strengthening the e4 point and completely blunting the bishop on b7.

Consider this structure -

   [FEN "4k3/pbpp1ppp/1p2pn2/8/2PPP3/2N2P2/PP4PP/4KB2 w - - 0 1"]
   [Event "Bishop on b7 is blunted by White's pawns on e4 and f3"]

Black may want to break White's center with a move like d5, but that allows White to play e5, driving away the knight on f6 with tempo and also establishing a strong pawn on e5, which may enhance White's attacking prospects on the kingside, as I discussed in point number 4 of this post.

  [FEN "4k3/pbpp1ppp/1p2pn2/8/2PPP3/2N2P2/PP4PP/4KB2 b - - 0 1"]
  [Event "The threat of e5 is always looming after d5"]

  1... d5 2. cxd5 exd5 3. e5

Black may also want to play c5, but in those positions, after a move like d5, the position transposes into Benoni type positions where the bishop is completely misplaced on b7, thus Black loses at least a tempo. Besieds, b6 might also be a waste of time in some Benoni positions.

   [FEN "4k3/pb3ppp/1p1pp3/2pP4/2P1P3/2N2P2/PP4PP/4K3 b - - 0 2"]
   [Event "Unfavorable transposition to a Benoni type position"]

Recommended Games -

The following games in this line are quite instructive -

Harry Nelson Pillsbury vs Heinrich Wolf, 1902 1-0

   [White "Harry Pillsbury"]
   [Black "Heinrich Wolf"]
   [Date "1902"]
   [Result "1-0"]
   [FEN ""]

   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4. e4 Bb7 5. Bd3 d5 6. cxd5 exd5 7. e5 Ne4 8. Nf3 Be7
   9.  O-O O-O 10. Qc2 Nc3 11. Bh7 Kh8 12. bxc3 g6 13. Bg6 fxg6 14. Qg6 Qe8 15. Qh6 Kg8
   16. Ng5 Bg5 17. Qg5 Kf7 18. f4 Ke6 19. f5 Kd7 20. Qg7 Kc8 21. e6 Rg8 22. Qh7 Rh8
   23. Qg6 Ba6 24. Qe8 Re8 25. Re1 Nc6 26. Bg5 Nd8 27. Bd8 Kd8 28. f6 Rh8 29. Re5 c6
   30. Rae1 Rc8 31. Rg5 Bd3 32. Ree5 Rh6 33. Rg8 Kc7 34. Rc8 Kc8 35. e7 Bg6 36. e8=Q 1-0

Efim Geller vs Mark Usachyi, 1957 1-0

   [Event "UKR-ch"]
   [Date "1957"]
   [White "Geller, Efim P"]
   [Black "Usachyi, Mark"]
   [Result "1-0"]
   [FEN ""]

   1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. d4 b6 4. e4 Bb4 5. Bd3 Bb7 6. f3 O-O 7. Nge2 d5 8. cxd5
   exd5 9. e5 Ne8 10. O-O c5 11. a3 Ba5 12. b4 cxb4 13. Na2 Nc6 14. Rb1 bxa3 15.
   Bxa3 Ne7 16. Ng3 g6 17. Nc1 Bc6 18. Qe2 Ng7 19. f4 Re8 20. f5 Nexf5 21. Bxf5
   gxf5 22. Nb3 Qg5 23. Rf3 Rac8 24. Rbf1 Ba4 25. Nxf5 Rc3 26. Nxg7 Qxg7 27. Nxa5
   Rc2 28. Qxc2 Bxc2 29. Nc6 Qh6 30. Rg3+ Bg6 31. Ne7+ Kh8 32. e6 Rxe7 33. Bxe7
   fxe6 34. Rc3 Be8 35. Rc8 Qe3+ 36. Kh1 Qe2 37. Rxe8+ Kg7 38. Ref8 h5 39. Bd6 h4
   40. Be5+ Kg6 41. h3 a5 42. Rg8+ Kh5 43. Rf7 1-0

Phillip Viner vs Elias Castrillon, 1964 1-0

   [Event "Tel Aviv ol (Men) fin-D"]
   [Site "Tel Aviv"]
   [Date "1964"]
   [Round "5"]
   [White "Viner, Phillip"]
   [Black "Iniguez Castrillon, Elias"]
   [Result "1-0"]
   [FEN ""]

   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6 4. e4 c5 5. d5 d6 6. Bd3 Nbd7 7. f4 exd5 8. cxd5
   Be7 9. Nf3 O-O 10. O-O a6 11. a4 Bb7 12. Bc4 Qc7 13. Re1 h6 14. e5 Nh7 15. b3
   Rfe8 16. Bb2 Ndf8 17. Qd2 Ng6 18. Rad1 Bf8 19. Ne4 Qd8 20. Nxd6 Bxd6 21. exd6
   Qxd6 22. f5 Nf4 23. Be5 Rxe5 24. Rxe5 g5 25. fxg6 Nxg6 26. Qxh6 Nf6 1-0

That's because black would normally use the king side bishop to pin the knight at c3

   [FEN ""]

   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4!

update

With the bishop at Bb4 if white tries to play the pawn to e4, then black could take it without a second thought. So basically with Bb4 who will control the center is yet to be determined.


For Black, against the Caro-Kann Advance Shirov variation 4. Nc3 which move tends to lead to the most positional, slow, solid and strategic positions? I'm a 1800 Elo player that likes positional, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic openings.

As Black against 1. e4 I play the Caro-Kann. But there is one variation of the Caro-Kann that I slightly dislike: the Advance Shirov (4. Nc3).

  [StartPly "7"]

  [FEN ""]
  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 (4... Qb6) (4... h5) (4... a6) 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 (6... f6) (6...h6) (6... Ne7) (6... Bb4) (6... Nd7) (6... Be7) c5 7. h4 h5 (7... h6) (7...cxd4) 8. Nf4 Bh7 (8... Nc6) 9. Nxh5 cxd4 (9...Nc6)

It seems to be much more sharp, aggressive, chaotic, wild and tactical than every other variation of the Caro-Kann. And so I don't know what to play against it.

I could go for the main line with 4... e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2, but then I don't even know which variation to choose next among all the available options.

Or I could choose to stop 5. g4 with 4... Qb6, 4... h5 or 4... a6, but I don't even know if any of these three moves are objectively good.

I've included everything in the FEN diagram.

And so my question is: which variation tends to lead on average to the most positional, solid, safe, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic positions? (i.e. the least sharp and tactical positions)

But note that the variation also needs to be objectively good and reliable. And if possible it needs to be played reasonably often by Grandmasters. I don't want to play something bad just for the sake of not entering into complications. (i.e. I would still prefer something that is both tactical and good over something that is both positional and bad.)

At this point, it's very hard to keep the game quiet. You have two choices: keep the center closed (then a flank attack will be justified and advantageous), or open things up. The good news is that if you open up the position according to modern theory, or at least play accurately, you will be objectively better, and White's flank attack will be turned into a weakness.

Buy Chessbase 14 and the latest 2018 Database and in partnership with some free engine, like Stockfish, to have 3400 assistance to every chess question. Alternatively, there are wide selections of far less expensive books, say from someplace like Chess Direct, to cater for your general 1800 improvement and in particular of any opening you feel troubled with.
In this computer day and age, there is no end to the software support available.
Good lucky, and do try to stretch away for your present grade.


How to make an AI chess engine which can play like a human of similar rating? We have lot of sophisticated chess engines, but I always prefer playing with a human online, because they make genuine mistakes / blunders which adds a human touch. Playing with computer at a high level is boring as it is too difficult to crack and at low levels it makes a random blunder which practically a human will never do. Can someone either point me to an existing engine which plays like a human based on your level or recommend me some guidelines as how we can make it using AI ?
Thanks in advance

You can take a look at the Maia Chess project. What they've done is that they've built a customized version of Leela Chess wherein instead of the policy value looking for the best move, it looks for the most likely human move. The github has 9 weight files for lc0 from 1100 to 1900 elo.
It claims to better predict the moves of players compared to Stockfish and Leela Chess. You can also play these bots at Lichess.

I say: Take a normal, strong AI, and have it play P-R3 at random.
Bad players play P-R3 whenever they can't think of anything to do. They think if an enemy unit lands on N5, then P-R3 is a great attacking move. Or maybe they play P-R3 to prevent an enemy piece from coming to N5. Either way, win! And it's such a small positional concession, what harm could P-R3 do?
Bad players waste more time on useless P-R3 moves than any other, so a computer that plays P-R3 willy-nilly would approximate crappy chess play in that fashion.
Chessplayers: NM Dan Heisman's "Guide to P-R3" is such a valuable read, available at chesscafe.


Dr. John Nunn vs Irving Chernev's "Logical Chess Move by Move" I have the book "Logical Chess Move by Move" by Irving Chernev and personally I find it to be a great book especially for beginners, but I heard that GM John Nunn has really criticized the book.  This makes me read the book with caution and slight paranoia.  Does Nunn have valid points?

Here is a link from one of Dan Heisman's Novice Nook articles discussing Nunn's criticisms of Chernev's book.

It seems that Nunn (who is undoubtedly a stronger player than Chernev was) is correct in his criticisms of certain instances of analysis in Chernev's book, and also correct in pointing out that Chernev is sometimes too quick to dogmatically conclude an overarching general principle that doesn't properly allow for exceptions. But I don't believe this should cause you to read Chernev's book with caution (at least no more caution or skepticism than one should have when reading anything), and certainly not with paranoia.

The criticisms Nunn directs Chernev's way in Grandmaster Chess Move by Move are worthwhile things to hear for a player who is at an appropriate level to be reading Nunn's book, but the intended audience for that book is quite a bit more advanced than is Chernev's. The fact that Chernev makes certain oversimplifications (and yes, out-and-out mistakes in some places) is a good thing to be discovered at some point in a player's chess development, but this doesn't necessarily mean that Chernev's book, warts and all, cannot be (very!) useful to a beginner. [Consider: an absolute beginner reading Nunn's criticisms of Chernev that you cited wouldn't be able to appreciate the points being made at all: they would sail right over his or her head.]

The saying "One has to know the rules to break them" is applicable here. If you were to try and take every word in Chernev's book as gospel for the rest of your chess career, you would indeed be leading yourself astray. The same would be true if you tried to dogmatically follow, say, "knights should be developed before bishops" or similar overly general advice which is routinely thrown at novices. That doesn't mean that that kind of advice doesn't serve a useful purpose by giving newcomers to the game some first, rough guidelines to start learning from. I think the same can be said for Chernev's work; after all, it's not for nothing that this instructional book from 1957 is still topical today.

My experience with Chernev's “Logical Chess Move by Move” was kind of mixed. It is good but before starting it one would really benefit from knowing the style it is written in.

Initiated to chess in early childhood I have been playing it now and then for 20 years but remained somewhere between beginner and intermediate level. So, I found this book to finally start playing normally.

As for the content, the book is indeed well-detailed and very analytical. Chernev follows every move with super clear descriptions and in general it is simply a pleasant read because of its succinct and sometimes passionate language. This nice part accounts for two thirds of the book.

The rest of the book, however, is made of author's enumerations of all forced moved possible in those games. These are places where Chernev just re-writes in advance 7-10 or more hypothetical forced moves without giving context or something else for your brain to catch onto. Often for one real move there are multiple these 'think far in advance' things. At moments, it really blows your mind and honestly may become boring.

So, this smaller part of the book is clearly not for beginners and, in my opinion, at all is not well done. I spent half of reading time on it and did not get much use from it.

Conclusion: Beginners could easily use this great book but would better drop the parts with forced moves


Why does the engine tell me to sacrifice a queen for bishop after a failed Scholar's mate? I am a beginner. Recently I have looked at the computer-generated analysis of one of my games and I found a surprising recommendation. Why is it best to sacrifice my Queen in this situation, as the screenshot shows?
[FEN ""]
[StartPly "10"]

1. e4 e5 2. Qf3 c6 3. Bxc4 Nf6 4. d3 d6 5. Bg5 Bg4

It's basically a trade. After you take the bishop, if the opponent takes your queen with the knight, then your bishop is no longer blocked by the knight and you can take their queen too. The advantage here is that after the trade, the opponent's king will have to take your bishop, and thus can no longer castle.

Material superiority does not always equate with winning. A myriad of games have been won by players with less point values on the board.
For the reason above, running an analysis may not show the advantage of a particular move until a dozen or so moves later.


What does "master" mean? As I read both English and Russian chess literature I run into the term 'master'. It is clear from the context that is below grandmaster but is somehow given much respect. I never know what it actually means because it could be any of the three or even something else: FIDE Master, International Master, National Master (whose meaning depends on the country).

This site has many questions about 'master strength' so it is part of everybody's jargon. But I really don't know what it means.

There are several reasons why someone would use the term 'master', but without a specific reference to work from all I can suggest is that the term is generally synonymous with the phrase 'top player'. The two examples that come to mind are:

Historical: Many of the great early players did not have actual titles (either because the titles had not been invented or because the systems for reliably attaining them had not been introduced). In this case, one might refer to Morphy or Philidor as a 'master', simply because calling them a GM/IM would be inaccurate. Also consider that when the title 'Grand Master' was first conferred, it was not just a title to hand out to players but a real statement that those five players were some of the best ever.
Cultural: As you noted in the question, many foreign (esp. Russian) books up until the 1980s or so use the term. I cannot say exactly why, but the usage is certainly meant to indicate that those people are deserving of respect as top-calibre players. Perhaps part of this is due to the fact that some top theoreticians were not acknowledged as being among the best practical players, and so this allowed them to be given the same level of respect as determined by the author. Hopefully someone more knowledgable in soviet chess culture can fill us in on this one.

This is in contrast to the modern USCF system where a range of various master titles are (by comparison to earlier times and other areas of the world) given out like candy. This is not to say that the achievements are not still somewhat impressive, but they ultimately mean something much less than the term does in those other contexts.

Master is usually 2000 ELO, kind of national level player, who knows the game in much depth. Its consider below IM - international maser and Grand Master.


Knights on c3 & f3, bishops on d3 & e3 - what is this called, and is it sound? Sometimes when opening I fall into this odd rut of developing knights to C3 and F3, and bishops to D3 and E3. (Or, as black, C6, F6, D6 and E6). For instance, the position after 7.Be3:
[FEN ""]
[Event "Rated Blitz game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/BPXlGMH2"]
[Date "2021.05.19"]
[White "stevage"]
[Black "Rodeon0049"]
[Result "0-1"]
[UTCDate "2021.05.19"]
[UTCTime "02:54:05"]
[WhiteElo "1655"]
[BlackElo "1811"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "-3"]
[BlackRatingDiff "+4"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "0+5"]
[ECO "A40"]
[Opening "Modern Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. d4 g6 { A40 Modern Defense } 2. c4 Bg7 3. Nc3 c6 4. e4 d6 5. Bd3 Nf6 6. Nf3 Bg4 7. Be3 Bxf3 8. Qxf3 O-O 9. O-O e5 10. d5 cxd5 11. cxd5 Na6 12. Bg5 Nb4 13. Be2 Nc2 14. Rac1 Nd4 15. Qg3 Qb6 16. b3 Rac8 17. Na4 Nxe2+ 18. Kh1 Nxg3+ { White resigns. } 0-1

Does this structure have a name? It seems it could arise in response to a number of different openings.
Does it have any particular merit? What are its weaknesses?
I'm not really sure what to think about it - I sometimes fall into this pattern when my opponent plays quiet developing moves that don't engage the centre.

I don't know a specific name to it, but what concerns the downsides of this setup, I could think of two. Of course, it is very situational, but since in the example black opted for a kings-indian setup, it is that 1) the bishop on d3 is rarely useful against the fianchetto (pawn on g6 is well protected), and 2) it blocks the d-file which sometimes can lead to weakening of the d4 pawn and/or square. For example, there is a line in KID where white plays Bd3 and Nge2, and one of the black's possible responses is Nc6 and e5, and he's ready to meet d5 with Nd4. This would be impossible in a classic white setup with the light-square bishop on e2.

As it's so often the case in chess: it depends. These types of general questions are too broad to have a definite answer. There will be some positions where those squares will be the optimal for those pieces, and there will be others where they aren't.


Improving my skills is getting harder I am new to chess and I am playng mostly online at sites like chess.com. Now I have a rate around 800, so it is still low, but my problem is that improving my skills is getting hard. The arrival to the rate 800 has been quite quick, but now I feel like I am stucking often to the same moves and the same way of reasonings.

How could I improve my skills? And most of all how can I improve my mental elasticity in playing chess in order to be a better player?

Thanks in advance.

It really depends on whether you are willing to do the work, but I have tried this with people before, and it has worked extremely well. Most weaker players are initially weak because they lose material so often and easily.

First, I believe strongly in an immersion-type training program. If I give you 20 problems, and you get 100%, you only learned 20 problems. If I give you 150, and you only get a 66.6%, you still learned 100 problems, or five times what you did when you got only 20 problems. I firmly believe that the more you see in a short period of time, the more you will learn. In this case, I am advocating quantity over quality.

This is based on my own personal experience, and is based on my learning Russian in the Air Force. The first night, I got 20 words to learn, but by the end of 47 weeks, we got about 300 words every other night. I also had a friend, who was 38 at the time, and he went from 1000 to about 1850 on the Internet Chess Club in three months doing what I am about to recommend.

I am not a fan of the chess.com and other site tactics programs for a couple of reasons. First, they are checked by computers, and often take the computer route in the defense portion of the solution, rather than the human path. Second, they are not well grouped by theme.

I still love the grouping on the two Fred Reinfeld books, "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate, 21st Century Edition" and "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations, 21st Century Edition".

You start with the 1001 checkmates book because the first chapter is queen sacrifices, so you have two big hints: Give up the queen, and checkmate. Now, I want you to try to do 50 per day (25 minimum though), spending no more than two minutes on each problem trying to figure it out. If you do not get it, just look at the answer, and play it out on a board, if necessary. You may not have gotten it right, but you have absorbed something. Write in pencil next to the diagram 1-5, with one being that you solved it easily, and five that you had no idea.

Go through the whole book at 50 per day. You can skip the last chapter on composed mates if you want. Do the same with the 1001 sacrifices book.

Now, you have read both, and have rated how easily you got them. Go back ans read the both books again in the same order. They are both grouped so well, that you will start to pick up on themes better than ever.

Funny, in early 2019, a new book, "The Woodpecker Method" came out, and recommends a very similar method to the one that I have been recommending for over 30 years.

I have found over the years that even guys, who are 2000-2100 over-the-board, are still not that great tactically, so keep doing this, and as you get better with your two original books, pick different tactics books for some variety. We never stop practicing that, and calculation, in general.

Of course, as you get better, there is a lot more to learn about opening pawn structures (search my other posts about this), and of course, the endgame.

The best way to improve is stop playing.
You will learn a lot faster playing over GM games than playing patzers on chess.com or any web site.

Start studying books on the basics.  Learn ONE opening well.  Practice tactics daily.  Play over GM games daily, especially ones that use the opening you want to learn.

As you improve some then look at endings, and keep up with your opening and tactics pracice;  later on move to pawn structure,  positional play; and later on psychology and playing the player not the board.

Won't be as much fun that way but it will make you improve.

You will learn more by stretching just a little bit to solve tactics or in tournament games when you go back to them.  Try to play people 100-200 points higher but no more and only less if forced to by being matched against them.

My experience is that perfect practice makes perfect and making many mistakes while playing more positions only reinforces bad habits and hurts improvement.


Why is stalemate a draw? It is so difficult to force stalemate and sometimes unintentional too, so why is stalemate a draw?

  As the opponent doesn't have a further move, why is it not considered a win?

Stalemate is a draw in classical chess yet there are other chess variants both historical and modern where stalemate is not a draw.

Very early versions of Chess, such as Shatranj Chess (props to Andrew Latham) declare the player causing stalemate the winner and even today there are callings to return to that rule.

for example:

Larry Kaufman Chess Life Sept. 2009 writes:

  "calling stalemate a draw is totally illogical, since it represents
  the ultimate zugzwang, where any move would get your king taken"

A typical counter to this point is that Chess tradition dictates that a stalemate cannot result in a win for the stalemating player because it would require a suicidal move from the stalemated player (moving your king into check is, in most forms of chess, an illegal move). If there are no moves on the board that you are able to make (other then resigning) then in making the stalemating move your opponent has effectively ended the game without a definitive result (capture of the king) and is judged to have not won the game.

So.. "In Classical Chess what is the probable origin of stalemate being considered a draw?"

The earliest reference I can find to Stalemate being a draw in formalised chess rules is 13th century Italy where the version of Chess played declared that a game could only be won by checkmate or resignation. Stalemate, under those terms, describes a state where a player cannot make a legal move. In effect the game has stalled in a state where neither player can achieve Checkmate and is drawn.

Stalemate as a draw then spread to Germany (1400s), Spain (1600s) and throughout Europe by 19th Century when the formal rules of what we know as classical chess were put in place.

England was one of the final adopters of Stalemate as a draw in the 1800s (up until that point the stalemated player had actually been declared the winner).

Opinion:

Yes tradition does favors the player in stalemate but it has been that way for a very long time. The flipping of that advantage to the stalemating player would greatly change the nature of the endgame (and thus the game of chess and a huge amount of chess theory), which is probably why such arguments have not recieved too much traction.

Because the king is not under attack.
Attacks are the single most salient feature of the game of chess.
How could you win without an attack?
Can you capture material without an attack?
Similarly.


What do top players' get from coaches? I read an article about how Wesley So hired a coach. Well, Wesley is rated 2800 and is far stronger than his coach ever was. I'm just wondering what a coach would have to offer to a player as strong as Wesley, and if it's really worth the money.

In physical sports, coaches can provide plans. For example, in tennis, Nadal is a great player. His coach can give him plans so that Nadal can go out and execute them. The reason Nadal is better than his coach is because he can execute the plan.

But, in chess, the plan is the sport. If Wesley So's coach can make better plans than Wesley So, why isn't he a better player than Wesley ?

Being a good coach takes a different set of skills than being a great, or world-class player. You can't just say that the coach makes better plans, as that is over simplification and somewhat inaccurate. The point of the coach is typically to help the player identify and eliminate their weaknesses, whether it's tactics, strategy/positional considerations, technique, opening, middlegame, endgame, etc, or non-chess considerations like diet and exercise. The coach will also have different ideas on how a position could be played, and can be useful in bouncing ideas around with, or analyzing opponents weaknesses.

I think making plans and executing them are two different things. Our calculational abilities diminish as we get older, so maybe having someone who can work out the big picture stuff but is not able to calculate as far ahead could be very valuable.

In addition a chess coach may not want or need the thrill of competition any more. For instance, Garry Kasparov retired as world champion and coached Carlsen for a bit, but then Kasparov found activism to be where he wanted to focus his energy. Other coaches may have a family that means they can't focus on chess full-time. Kasparov is still very good at chess if he wants to be. But he did all he could and decided to move on.


Level the field when letting computers play against each other I just read this question and it made me wonder: when setting up such a game/comparison - shouldn't you try to level the computing capacity field? Or at least limit how much energy each "player" is allowed to use (and then let each team optimize within that limit). Otherwise, isn't it just a matter of building the biggest computer?

You absolutely should, which is why the two most important computer chess tournaments (CCC and TCEC) both make all competitors play on the "same" hardware. "Same" in inverted commas because the recent advent of neural-network engines like AlphaZero, which run best on GPUs, meant that it's no longer fair to play on exactly the same hardware for everyone.

You can see the result of not using equal hardware from the 2019 WCCC results, which Komodo won. Komodo is almost a hundred elo behind Stockfish when run on equal hardware (and Stockfish doesn't play in the WCCC, because it's not a commercial engine and doesn't have full-time staff to attend the event).

The situation right now is traditional engines run on the same CPUs, NN engines run on the same GPUs, and whenever traditional engines play against NN engines, they run on consensus fair hardware. "Fair" here is a very controversial word, because there are several different measures of what is fair that I'm glossing over. Suffice to say unless you are a hardware expert yourself, I'd just trust the admins of CCC and TCEC to use something that's fair.

Edit: to illustrate the impact of hardware, here's the list of hardware the competitors played at in the 2019 WCCC. Note Jonny ran on 1200 (!) cores, and it just barely edged out Ginkgo, which was running on 1/20 of the cores. In TCEC Season 14, the two engines played with the same hardware in Division 1, and Ginkgo comfortably finished ahead of Jonny in spite of multiple crashes (which happen because Ginkgo doesn't run well at 43 cores; they result in auto-losses).

You can also see that these games were played is Division 1, not even Division Premier. Many of the strongest engines in the world simply don't participate in WCCC. I don't know the exact reasons why, but I'm confident hardware is a major issue for participants. In turn, this lack of participation is partly why the community don't take the WCCC very seriously.

Should we limit human players who play by how much they weigh or their IQ?

There is no point in so called 'levelling the field' when computers play each other.

There is much more than building the biggest computer that determines who wins.

Software makes the hardware happen.   And how well they came up with the software and how well they determined the algorithms to guide the software as well as practical tricks they use like having table bases or pitting two machines against each other to help them learn faster are more important than the hardware.

Limiting energy would only mean that they would use different compuer chip technology that has nothing to do with chess.

Your suggestion would change what is being optimized and what most people care about are how well the computers play not how much electricity they use.

However since the real concern is the software the latest championship had these rules for software:

The rules for the World Chess SOFTWARE  Championship state that competing programs must run on machines with identical hardware specifications.


Is playing stronger oppenents useful as a beginner? I have signed up to a chess websites and there are very few people who are as bad as I am (rating around 800), so I have to resort to playing against people who are much better (1200+) and end up beating me very quickly.

I do analyze the games to see what went wrong but I am wondering if it's even worth going up against players much better than me, since I don't get to even the end game stage.

As long as you're also playing players of your rating (and lower) along with the higher rated players it's okay. You don't want to be discouraged by losing every single game you play. Ideally you want to play people higher rated than you more than lower rated because it's like getting a free lesson - a higher rated player will be able to take advantage of your mistakes more than a lower rated player.

At a 800 rating, you'll want to focus on basics (basic opening principles, tactics, safety, thinking processes etc.) and review your games for common mistakes to pinpoint weaknesses and then eradicating them.

Of course, you'll also want to play slow time controls more than fast time controls as you want to be able to think about your moves and then be able to go back and correct your thinking. Faster games involve a lot of intuition and at your rating you won't really have a lot of it. So you'll want to develop that by playing slow time controls. Besides, you don't want to mess up games and then excuse yourself by saying that you didn't have enough time on your clock.

Also, you should begin reviewing some (master) chess games. A decent beginners book is Logical Chess by Irving Chernev. Don't review modern GM games yet as those are generally a lot more difficult to understand.

One of the best ways to improve in chess is to play against stronger opponents. I do this and it help me a lot. But I always play against weaker players. But, of course, I study endgames. I know people who only study openings for years and never improve. In a 100 hours of study I suggest 50 hours for endgames, 30 for middle game and 20 for openings. Start with 1. e4 at the beginning and let 1, d4 or 1.Nf3 for later. Tactics are very important for a chess player and open games is better for this learning.

And play. Play a lot.

Good luck.


Calculation of national rating In order to calculate effect on national rating, should it be enough to choose the relevant k coefficient (assuming this is what makes for the discrepancy between national rating and FIDE rating) and plug it in here: https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml ?

Furthermore, is there a resource out there to find k coeffients per country (I'm located in Israel, so if anyone knows that specifically, even better).

In order to calculate effect on national rating, should it be enough
  to choose the relevant k koefficient (assuming this is what makes for
  the discrepancy between national rating and FIDE rating) and plug it
  in here: https://ratings.fide.com/calculator_rtd.phtml ?

No. For the simple reason that countries use different methods for their rating/grading system. Some use an elo system others don't. England, for instance, uses a completely different system.

If you go to the ECF grading website and click on help, on the left hand side of the page, then towards the bottom of the help there is a section describing how the ECF calculate their grades.

  HOW ECF GRADES ARE CALCULATED
  The basic method of calculation is as described in the next few paragraphs. For juniors, however,
  there are differences as described further down.

  Points are allocated in respect of each game. For a win you score the
  opponent's grade plus 50, for a draw the opponent's grade, and for a
  loss the opponent's grade minus 50. "Grade" means his grade current at
  the time of grading. There is a proviso that if your opponent's grade
  differs from yours by more than 40 points it is assumed to be exactly
  40 above (or below) yours. This applies whatever the result.

  If an opponent (or the player himself) is ungraded, a "starting grade"
  is estimated, using all available information. See Estimating a
  starting grade for an ungraded player below. Note that FIDE ratings
  are ignored. An opponent who has only a FIDE rating will be treated as
  ungraded.

  In the interval between the end of a grading period and publication of
  the new grades, the "current" grade for calculation purposes is the
  new, as yet unpublished, grade.

  The grade is calculated by dividing the total number of points scored
  by the number of games played. If there are 30 or more games in the
  most recent 12 months, then the grade is based on these games alone.
  If there are not, it is based on the most recent ** 30 games played;
  or on all the games played in the last 36 months if that is less. In
  no case does calculation go back more than 36 months. Where games are
  brought forward from a previous period, they are not recalculated. The
  number of points scored for a game always remains the same.

  ** "Most recent" has a special meaning here. In principle the program counts backwards till it reaches 30 games. But there are certain
  disadvantages (see Appendix) to applying this naïvely. Instead, if the
  30th game falls part way through a 6-month period, the program will
  take as many games from that period as it requires in order to make up
  the 30; but they will be notional games calculated at the average
  score for the whole 6-month period.

  How is "most recent 30" interpreted if a game has been reported late
  and graded in the "wrong" period? Answer: the game will be listed
  under the grading period in which it was reported and calculated, and
  it will go into that period's grade with a notional playing date of
  1st January (or 1st July as the case may be). This notional date will
  be used, where necessary, to determine the game's position in the
  backward count to 30.

  Rounding
  Grades are calculated to the nearest whole number (halves
  go up). Rounding is done once, at the end. A grade, once rounded and
  published as a whole number, is henceforth deemed to be that whole
  number.

You say -

  I'm located in Israel, so if anyone knows that specifically, even
  better

Really? Do you play chess in Israel? Do you have an Israeli rating? Can you read Hebrew?

I'm guessing some of the answers must be "No" since otherwise you would be better placed than 99.9% of forum members to find out the information for yourself and are only asking out of sheer laziness.

My ICF rating is in the 1800's and my k factor is 12.

Boris Gelfand's ICF k factor is 10 as you can see from the calculations for his Israeli rating from his games played abroad (i.e. converting his opponents' FIDE ratings to ICF and then using them to calculate changes to Gelfand's Israeli rating). This link takes you to Gelfand's ICF rating page and then you will have to click on  משחקים בחו"ל (middle / fourth of the box links underneath his main details).

Here is the same page for Liel Levitan, the European Schools girls U7 champion. Her Israeli rating is 1445 and her k factor is 14. Again, on the page click on משחקים בחו"ל to get to the calculation page.

Here is the Israeli rating list (but I don't understand why you couldn't get this for yourself if you are living and playing in Israel?) You can find players of different strengths and ages and check their k factors. I know the ICF website is hard to navigate. I found the old one from about 5 years ago much easier. It used to give the calculations, including k factor, for every game, not just the foreign ones, so including the Israeli ones.

As you can see from the FIDE Ratings Change Calculator you cannot type in any k factor. That means that in general you cannot use this for ICF ratings and for other federations only if they use the same k factors.

What I can recommend myself is to "backtrack" the k coefficient based on historical rating changes. For example, if you know that after a certain game your national rating changed by X points, and you know what rating you and your opponent had before the game, then you could plug that data into the FIDE calculator and try for different values of k to find out what k factor your national rating is based on (assuming it's one of the values that FIDE allows in the dropdown in the calculator).

Otherwise, it's of course also possible to do the same by using the actual ELO equation which is easily Googled or found on Wikipedia.

One word of caution, though: the pre-game rating of the players may be  slightly different compared to the last time rating were published, let's say if ratings are published at the beginning of each month and the game took place mid-month after the players had already played a few games and rating changes took place.


How can I analyze and annotate multiple (500) games with stockfish? I want to analyze multiple games in one batch with Stockfish. Apart from Scid I do not know any other tool which will do it faster or better. What are som alternatives to Scid with better performance or annotation quality in mind?

Scid allows me to set time or depth (not both at together), put score, put variation, multiple lines analysis.

If you are using Android, Analyze This (Free) is the way to go, just use the 'Auto Analysis' feature.
If you are using windows, Arena Chess is the way to go (you need to install Stockfish, and load the games in a single PGN, and turn on Auto Analysis ...)

Hope this helped, ~CSS

ChessBase's Fritz (any version less than 10 years old or so) will accept any UCI-compatible chess engine, including Stockfish.  You should be able to find a used copy for about $15-20 at most.  You don't need to worry about the version, because the functionality of annotating the games has been around a long time, the deciding factor in analysis is the engine, which you're going to replace anyway.

Fritz can process PGN files, but I find it's more helpful to convert the games database to ChessBase's format (.cbh, etc.), so that training questions and the more exotic glyphs that are generated by Fritz from the engine's output can be stored.  I haven't tested the impact of file format on processing speed, but I'd expect it to be minimal, as long as your games database to be processed is 1 MM games or less in size.

Regarding speed, a lot depends on your CPU and memory configurations.  I use a 1024 MB hashtable, though you can go up to 2048 MB.  I also use a quad core AMD Athlon processor running at about 2.9 GHz, and set the engine to use 4 threads.  The speed increases pretty linearly with each additional core, so if you have 8, you'll almost double it.

I use Stockfish 7, and set the engine parameters to a depth of 22 or 23 ply, with unlimited time. I've found that the proportion of games where deeper analysis makes a difference to the best move selection is very small (well under 5%), and each additional ply increases the work exponentially, so there's a significant tradeoff in speed for additional depth of analysis.  My configuration will process about 15 games per hour (games are about 36 moves long, on average).


Capturing the king in a blitz game In a blitz game, when my king is checked, I make an illegal move that checkmated the opponent and pressed the clock. Then my opponent captured my king and claimed victory. Capturing the king is not a legal move. Who wins?

This is a good question indeed and a somewhat bizarre situation, which is not fully covered by the Laws. As you mention the opponent has completed an illegal move and you claim that. The relevant parts of the Laws are articles A.4.2., B.2 and 7.5.5.

The easy case is if your opponent has made an illegal move (that has been claimed) before. In that case they lose the game.

If this is a first illegal move your opponent has made in this game, however, then the arbiter will give you one minute extra time, the opponent's last move is taken back and they have to play any other move that is legal. This is where things become complicated. Your opponent has been checkmated and thus there is no legal move they can play. According to article 5.1.1 they should lose the game but only if the move producing the checkmate was legal, which it was not. Therefore, since your opponent cannot make any legal move, the game cannot continue but it has not finished and there is no result. Quite bizarre indeed.

The following is a somewhat bizarre solution to a bizarre situation. If the opponent is satisfied with a draw they could ask the arbiter to watch the next move and then make a move that leaves both kings in check. Then the arbiter will declare the game drawn according to article A.4.4..

If the opponent does not want a draw then the only solution that satisfies the Laws is that both players agree to correct the illegal move that caused the checkmate. This is allowed by article A.4.2. If they don't agree the Laws do not tell you what to do. In such situation, I, as an arbiter, would rule to correct that move nonetheless without penalizing the player who made it (i.e. you) since it was the opponent's responsibility to make a claim.

Current Laws of Chess are here.

If the opponent presses the clock he has finished an illegal move and you may claim a win. If he does not press the clock he may claim a win because of your illegal move.


Does playing bughouse have any benefits on your chess game? I've heard that it helps your tactical skills, but can a chess variant really help you in tactics more than simply playing standard chess.

Bughouse really doesn't. What can help you is shogi. Shogi is similar to chess but with complications that start almost immediately and become much more crazy than in chess. The reports that I have had from multiple players who went from chess, to shogi, back to chess is that the chess tactics suddenly seem exceedingly easy when you return.

To speculate for a moment, bughouse is harmful because it is similar enough to chess that it interferes with your thinking about chess. Shogi is sufficiently different to be separable.

No.  It will likely hurt your OTB ability. If you want to really improve then play Go.  Go is so much harder than chess that when you come back to chess you will feel much more confident with your moves.

It is like bulking up at the gym.


What are quick and easy ways to learn, and what should i focus on I've always loved chess, but never was really serieus about it. Lately I've picked up trying to get better and bringing up my game to a new level. I started playing online a lot and currently watching videos on chess on daily base.

Chess.com is providing the needed lessons on all the basic things but as a beginner there is so much stuff to learn.

What should a beginner focus on (think about openings, end games, ways to mate, etc.)

Also I was wondering if anyone an easy way to learn the chess notations, I get how the squares are lined up and everything but I need practice (maybe software or a paper method anyone knows of).

A beginner should focus on playing games, solving tactic puzzles and playing through annotated master games.

If you play through master games with a real board instead of at the computer, you will quickly learn the notation as well.

Tactics teach position: the answer is to learn tactics.

Try these!


If I accidentally knock over a rook with my elbow while reaching for another piece, do I have to move the rook? According to the official FIDE rules for otb games, does the above description warrant the touch move rule?

No.

The relevant part in FIDE's Laws of Chess is Article 4.3 which contains the word deliberately.

  4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move
      deliberately touches on the chessboard:

  a. one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched which can be moved

  b. one or more of his opponent’s pieces, he must capture the first piece touched which can be captured

  c. one piece of each colour, he must capture the opponent’s piece with his piece or, if this is illegal, move or capture the first
      piece touched which can be moved or captured. If it is unclear,
      whether the player’s own piece or his opponent’s was touched first,
      the player’s own piece shall be considered to have been touched
      before his opponent’s.

The situation you describe once happened to a team mate of mine. The opponent wanted him to move the touched piece according to the rule, but the arbiter explained it had to be deliberate.

I think the key word is elbow. Unless you were previously moving pieces with your elbow then the touch rule wouldn't apply. Disputes of this kind without a judge can easily be avoided by what we call in my area "you break it you bought it". You can touch a piece as long as you don't lift it from the board.


How important is castling? How much is it worth? Are there some statistical values for the worth of castling? Are there some numbers, for example in centipawn that can represent the value of castling?

Yes there are some numbers that can (sort of) represent the value of castling.

If you let Stockfish or any other strong engine analyze the starting position, it will generally come to the conclusion that White has roughly a +0.50 advantage. But if you use an opening book (1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Rg1 Ng8 3. Rh1 Nf6 4. Ng1 Ng8 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Rb1 Ng8 7. Ra1 Nf6 8. Nb1 Ng8) which lets Black castle but not White, the advantage actually flips around, and the starting position advantages Black.

Check these games out:

Stockfish-Xiphos. The starting position, except White can't castle while Black can. Stockfish's starting eval at depth 31/48 is -0.20. (Yes Stockfish wins anyway, but it is Stockfish, the strongest conventional engine in the world, playing)
Xiphos-Stockfish. The reverse game. Xiphos plays 1. Nc3 evaluating the position as 0.00, while Stockfish is -0.84 at depth 36/52.
AllieStein-Stockfish. Played from the opening position with both sides able to castle. AllieStein gave 0.43 advantage to White at depth 18/57.
Stockfish-Alliestein. The reverse game, Stockfish gave White a 0.47 advantage in the opening position at depth 38/59.

The rule is you have to castle in the first 10 moves, otherwise you will leave your king unprotected.

Most amateur players launch an aggressive attack and leave the king sitting there without any protection. If you study games from professional players, you will notice that they castle early in the opening.


How do you keep chess fun when your opponent constantly beats you? How do you keep chess fun when the only person that wants to play against you beats you all the time? I am struggling to want to keep playing, because I get smashed all the time, and it is not fun anymore.

There are many people who want to play chess with you. You can play chess online! Online sites such as chess.com and lichess.org will match you with opponents of similar rating so you should win about 50 percent of the time. Furthermore, playing online as well as studying chess will immensely improve your chess, and maybe you'll play your friend again and this time you will win!

Read a book and get better.

It's like basketball. You want to compete with the best? Get good.

Read My System by Nimzowitsch.


Is this endgame drawn after the rook sacrifice? 2R5/8/8/8/4Pp1P/3k1K2/2p2P2/1r6 w - - 0 46

In this position, the engine recommends 1. Rxc2 and evaluates the position as drawn. Is there a general rule in such positions or precise calculation is required to reach such a  conclusion?

Let's note the following: 1.Rxc2 and 1.Kxf4 and 1.Rd8+ are equally good, since they all draw. If we ignore 1.Rd8+ for now, 1.Rxc2 is clearly at least as good as 1.Kxf4 in the position, since it drives black's king back one square, meaning that black will at some point have to 'waste' a move with the king to get to white's remaining pawns (the option of 1.Rd8+ introduces a different way for black to play for a win that ultimately doesn't work, but needs to be taken into consideration. This line should be considered if we come to the conclusion that 1.Rxc2 loses by force).
So we begin by calculating a few steps ahead in the 1.Rxc2 line (since it's a direct capture, and if it works then we're happy): 1...Kxc2 2.Kxf4 Kd3 (this is why 1.Kxf4 and 1.Rxc2 are equally good; it doesn't matter if black's rook is on c1 or on b1).
This will be the main tabya of the endgame, and at this point white needs to make a decision: which pawn should be used as the main passer?
Let's consider our options, beginning with the h-pawn:
[White "NN"]
[Black "NN"]
[FEN "8/8/8/8/4PK1P/3k4/5P2/1r6 w - - 0 3"]

3.h5?? Rh1 4.Kg5 Kxe4 5.f4 (5.Kg6 Ke5 {White's king is chained to the h-pawn.} 6.h6 Ke6 {Opposition. Now Black threatens to play ...Rg1+, forcing White's king onto the h-file, and granting access to the f-file for Black's king.} 7.h7 Rg1+ 8.Kh6 Kf7 9.h8=N+ Kf6 10.Kh7 Rg7+! {All that is left to ensure victory for Black is to round up the final pawn.} 11.Kh6 Rg2! 12.Kh7 Rxf2-+ {With the knight in the corner, White is helpless.}) Kd5! {The way black wins in this position is to maneouver their king to the f-file, where it will be able to contain both of white's passers. Since the black rook keeps White's pawns from advancing too quickly, Black will be able to interfere with the king in time.} (5...Rg1+ 6.Kf6 Kxf4?? 7.h6= {and White's pawn promotes.}) 6.Kg6 Ke6 {Black is now threatening to play ...Rg1+, after which Black's king reaches the f-file} 7.f5+ Ke7 8.f6+ Kf8-+ {Black will now be able to either pick off White's two pawns, or White's king will be caught in a mating net.}

So the h-pawn is a no-go. What about the e-pawn?
[White "NN"]
[Black "NN"]
[FEN "8/8/8/8/4PK1P/3k4/5P2/1r6 w - - 0 3"]

3.e5?? Kd4! {The problem with the e5 push is that it allows Black's king easy access to the d5 square, which makes it impossible for White to gain enough time for the pawns to advance successfully.} 4.Kf5 (4.e6 Kd5 5.e7 Re1 {just drops the pawn.}) Kd5 5.f4 Rh1! {luring White's king away from the e6 square, creating access for Black's king.} 6.Kg5 Ke6-+ {Again, White will not be able to stop Black's king from getting to the f-file, after which Black will either mate White's king or pick up the passed pawns one by one.}

Ok, only one attempt left to consider then!
[White "NN"]
[Black "NN"]
[FEN "8/8/8/8/4PK1P/3k4/5P2/1r6 w - - 0 3"]

3.Kf5! {This is the only way to draw, and it is by far the best move in the   position. White waits with pushing a pawn forward until after Black has made a  commitment which leaves White with a tempo to spare in comparison with many of the previous lines, i.e. the answer to the question of which pawn to push depends on which pawn Black decides to go after first!} 3...Re1 {It's not clear which line should be considered the main line for Black in the position.} (3...Rh1 4.Ke5! {This time the f-pawn is used} 4...Rxh4 5.f4 Ke3 6.f5 Rxe4+ 7.Kd6= {There is no way for black to round up the f-pawn.}) (3...Kd4 {The last line we will consider here. Other tries make little sense.} 4.h5= {is essentially a repeat of the main line. The other way to draw is to push the f-pawn forward, but this move is the simplest.})  4.h5! {By waiting with the push, White managed to get Black to waste a tempo on stopping the "wrong" pawn, so to speak. Now there is no way for Black to stop the h-pawn in time.} 4...Rh1 5.Kg6 Kxe4 6.h6 Ke5 7.h7=

Ok, so it turns out that White will be able to draw after 1.Rxc2. Although some precise calculation was needed to make sure that White manages to create sufficient counterplay with the pawns, we have to consider far from every possible line.
This is a common theme for practially any endgame: precise calculation is crucial, but the use of certain abstract "guideposts" in the position (such as "Black's king getting to the f-file = White is doomed" in this case) means that we only have to make a relatively small number of precise calculations to reach the correct conclusion. In general, the more endgame theory you know, the more of these abstract "guideposts" will be visible to you, making endgame calculations far more efficient than brute-foring them.

It is very close and complex.
I have won many end games with 2ps vs rook.
here the black king is out of play and white has 3 pawns
black will have to work hard to get the draw.
I doubt any computer can analyze this far enough to give a conclusive answer and it was drawn as far as they could see ahead.


What is the best strategy for white in this position? 1n3r2/q4pbk/3p2pp/r1pPp3/1pB1P3/1P2BP2/2PQ2PP/3R1RK1 w - - 0 1

I was white in the diagram position in an OTB game I played recently. However, I couldn't find a satisfactory plan. Playing f4 is always tricky because it vacates the e5 square for the black knight and opens up the diagonal for the black bishop. I have the feeling I evaluated this position wrong and it is in fact just equal and not better for white. Any thoughts?

I think the f4-plan is doomed to fail. It would be beautiful if we could achieve it in good conditions, however, as you pointed out, f4 is met with ...exf4 followed by probably ...Qe7 and Nd7-e5. We get rid of the pressure on the 'a' file though, so it's better than doing nothing.

If we went for g3, preparing for gxf4 after f4, our effort will be met by ...f5! shattering our dreams.

It would be interesting to try to put our light-squared bishop on a4, but I don't see it working either after 1.Qd3 Nd7 2.Bb5 and now even Nb6 does fine

For those reasons, I think the best answer here is to immediately play c3!? It's true that Black has ...Ra2, but after Qe1 I don't really think it does much. If Black captured on c3, our queen would be now in a great square to fight for the a file. If Black does NOT capture, then we can begin to put some pressure on b4

Whites position is much better/winning due to double bishop advantage, space advantage and black's poor dark square bishop.

f4 looks like a good plan, however it needs preparation with g3. It threatens f5 with f6 which will completely crush black's position.

c3 looks pretty good as well, breaking up black's queen side.

Of course all of this is my speculation and you should just use an engine to see white's best plan.