New chess variant (opinion required) I have just came up with a new chess variant.
The variant works like this.
So, the player starts with a match with a computer (not-so-powerful one)
If the player wins the match, he gets to use the computer as his advisor.
And then, the player, with the new advisor goes up the ladder and challenge a more powerful computer. And so on and so forth.

What do you guys think about this variant? Will this give the human player an advantage? Do you think that the World Chess Champion can win the Best Chess Program (Stockfish) using this system?

I have got this idea from a chess match of GM Daniel Naroditsky+Rybka vs Stockfish match. IMHO, the computer has already won the human-computer chess rivalry. But if human players can subdue weaker chess computer and then use them against stronger computer, it would be another way of saying that human can still beat computer.

Principally I like your idea. I really like it. I could even imagine to implement something like that just for fun sake. However, there are some problems:

At a certain stage, an average player with a strength of about 1400 will just end up copying his engines moves in an extremely tactical position, which he doesn't understand.
If there is an ELO difference between the engines of only about 50 points (what's pretty common, especially in the higher levels), one could easily win by luck (since a higher ELO doesn't necessarily mean a 100% win chance) or even by just playing as white. This issue however can be fixed by giving opponents with about 200 ELO more, so one's not going to win by his engine itself.
Humans usually rather play with other humans, since they're more predictable. An average machine sees almost every trap in one or two plies, while humans may overlook it. "Playing for tricks" is essential, especially in quicker time controls.
One might struggle to proceed further at a certain level. It's unterstandable, that it becomes boring to play (and lose) to the same engine over and over again.

Sorry for my bad english, I'd appreciate any suggestion. (:

I call it silly.  I do not want a computer I beat helping me.  It gives the human no advantage at all. I would want the computer I cannot beat helping me against yet another computer.


Why not Ng4 in Sicilian after Nf3? After

[FEN ""]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nf3

(which is trendy at top level in 2017) I am wondering why Black doesn't play 7...Ng4.   I only found a couple old games with 7...Ng4, and both ended in a draw.

6...Ng4 doesn't look good at all.

Tactical flaw:

Black is behind in development, so White should aim for direct play with 7.Bg5 and then:

7...f6 8.Bc1 [8.Bh4] Be6 9.h3 Nh6 10.Bxh6 gh6 11.Nh4 [11.Be2] and Black has huge weaknesses on the light squares.
7...Be7 8.Bxe7 Qxe7 9.Nd5 [9.Qd2, 9.Bc4] Qd8 10.Bc4 with a nice bind is probably the lesser evil for Black.
7...Qb6 8.Qd2 [or 8.Bh4 Qxb2? 9.Nd5 and Black cannot block Nc7+] Qxb2 is too greedy: 9.Rb1 Qa3 10.Nd5 Qc5 11.h3, or 11.Be3 and 12.Nb6 winning material, or 11.Rb3 with a huge attack.

Strategic reason:

It the structure with a hole on d5, the fight for the white square is essential and probably more important than the bishop pair. White often plays Bg5xf6 in Boleslavsky, Najdorf and Svechnikov variations. Thus trading the knight for the Be3 is not a big achievement, especiallly at the cost of two tempi, even if White plays the simple 7.Qd2 Nxe3 8.Qxe3 Be6 9.0-0-0 or 9.Ng5.

If black wants to play Ng4 he could do this one move earlier (which is the normal way to do it), when after 6 .. Ng4, white has only two options to prevent his bishop from being exchanged:

7 Bc1 which can lead to a repetition 7 ... Nf6 8. Be3 Ng4 ....

or

7 Bg5 which is usually answered by 7... h6 8 Bh4 g5 9 Bg3 Bg7 and black gains a very nice bishop on g7 and some space on the kingside

Playing 7... Ng4 (after 6 ... e5 7 Nf3) could be answered by 8 Bg5 attacking the queen which was not possible before and also playing h6-g5 does not make sense anymore since the long diagonal is blocked. With the hole on d5 and the misplaced knight on g4, black's position


Where to play online Bughouse Chess As far as I can tell the main sites I use like chess.com, lichess.com, and chess24.com do not support bughouse. Is there a popular place to play online somewhere? It would also like to have the ability to play on iOS. Thanks.

Now you can play bughouse  at Chess.com (for free). You can read this article to get help.

You can play bughouse at chess.com but they chatban you for comments that they already filter (so your comment doesn't go through, and then they chatban you so you can't use communication buttons.)  it's a bad service.  Don't pay them.  FICS won't ban you


Why is 1. d4 2. c4 3. b3 so bad for white? I recently played a game that opened like this:
1. d4 c6 2. c4 d5 { D10 Slav Defense } 3. b3

 [FEN ""]

My third move, 3. b3 is apparently so uncommon that Lichess doesn't have it in its top 12 most common moves.
Stockfish rates the position after 2 moves at +0.2 and after 3. b3 at +0.0, so it's theoretically not terrible. However, the top 6 responses for black (topped by 3..Nf6 and 3..3Bf5) all have winning percentages favouring black (39%/54% for the knight), so there's clearly something wrong with it.
I often feel intuitively that I want to make this move (and in similar positions), reasoning that I prefer to bring my pawns towards the centre. Pawns on c4 and d4 look good, although I imagine b2 can become vulnerable.
OTOH, I can see that this move doesn't help develop any pieces, and maybe white is now going to be a move behind black after something like 3..Nf6?
I'd love some explanation about why this move is so dispreferred.

Stockfish evaluation is not the only criterion to determine whether a move is sound or not. The main issue with committing so early to 3.b3 (against this particular Black setup) is that there are no downsides to delaying that move.
In other words, even if you want to play some setup with b3, there's no reason do it right now. Instead, other moves that prioritize development like Nf3 should go first.
Anyway, just because a move isn't popular, it doesn't mean it's "bad". It just means people prefer something else. Think for instance of 1.Nc3, a move that is hardly ever played. Is it "bad"? Not really. There are worse moves that get played more often. The reason 1.Nc3 is so rarely played is that there are more "comfortable" move orders from which you can get the positions that arise from 1.Nc3

This move is just awful, period. At the stage you are, there is absolutely no point in exploring how terrible it really is. Work on the cause first, the lack of understanding of fundamental opening principles. Thus, I as your coach, would ask you to forget about 3.b 3 for now and first learn a few opening rules designed for novices. Then play a few games, trying to implement all of them strictly and see how it goes. If you have doubts there may be an exception, then there probably isn't. You can work on the exceptions later.


Popularity of the Scotch Game I was looking back at a game played between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen at the 2017 London Chess Classics in which Hikaru employed the Scotch game and played very creatively getting a winning advantage at one point. In the end, however, he failed to win it and the game ended in a draw. If any of you haven't seen it yet, I recommend to check it out since it's a real bloodbath!

There have also been many great players who have used it such as Garry Kasparov who never lost a single game with it! I have been wondering why it isn't used at the top level for a long time, but never got a chance to ask it. Could someone please explain why it isn't used at the top level?

I think you are on to something, and statistically, there is a very good reason to play the Scotch over the Ruy Lopez, but that might not be all there is to it.

I think that the main reason is that we are taught that the Ruy Lopez is THE most classical opening, and is the best. I have seen that mindset in SO many books written by the top players over the years, in particular, Karpov. Also, I was watching "Method in Chess" videos recently, and GM Dorfman said that white is statically better because white has more space, and black is confined to three ranks, and white can play on the kingside, center, or queenside, and thus, black must always be on the lookout. I think that is just what classical Soviet players were taught, and that mindset has not been broken among the elite, especially since so many of them became trainers in other countries after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Statistically, you are right on the money.

All the top players I looked at had similar results to Kasparov, meaning an overwhelming plus score with it. I left out Anand, Aronian, So, MLV, and Grischuk from the following list since they played it so few times (less than 6 each), it was clear that their reason was simply surprise.

Carlsen 11-1-6 (wins-losses-draws) 78%
Caruana 5-0-6 72%
Nepomniachtchi 34-6-29 70%
Nakamura 13-6-7 63%

These are against all players, and the problem is that in Carlsen's case, in particular, is most of the games were from when he was not the Carlsen we know today, and I could have left him out. Caruana's games were virtually all against elite competition!

Then I decided to search only for all games in the Mega 2020 database with players both above 2700, and then the stats fell dramatically down to a typical winning percentage for white, 58% even (53-25-97, 175 games total).

When I then did the same thing for 2700 players playing the Ruy Lopez, there were 2366 games with a breakdown of 580-373-1412, or only 54%.

That is still a healthy plus for the Scotch, but maybe the Soviets still were right, and that the only reason the stats for the Scotch are so good is that the opponent was not expecting it as much. Also, I did not attempt to look at hundreds of games to identify where the games where lost. It might have just been due to other circumstances.

Dont confuse small sample statistics and results from a top player with the quality of the opening.
Scotch is popular with beginners who want to play a wide open slash and burn tactical game as they can often beat other beginners who are not familiar with all the opening variations.
Also they would rather lose a fun game than learn how to win a positional game that they think is boring.
It is far less popular with top players who know how to play black properly because their result is more likely to be a draw or loss which would mess with their final tournament standing and prize amount.


The exsistence of IBM’s Deep Blue How would IBM’s Deep Blue fair against modern day champions like Carlsen? Was it decommissioned after Kasparov's game?

The match with Kasparov was very close - 3.5 - 2.5 and it is arguable that Kasparov's loss was due to psychological factors. Until Carlsen's recent disastrous tournament where he went to pieces psychologically after over stepping the time control in round one I would have said that Carlsen is psychologically stronger than Kasparov but now I'm not so sure.

Modern day players like Carlsen have closed the gap that existed between Kasparov and the rest without opening up a big gap. I want to say that Carlsen would beat Deep Blue but I suspect the truth is that it would be a close match again.

Deep Blue was dismantled and parts of it can now be seen in two different US museums - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer).

It will fail miserably against Carlsen since it was designed specially for playing against Kasparov.

It was decommissioned since it was a single purpose machine and had achieved the designated goal.

The hardware was sold to a Sheikh in Middle East.


Is it acceptable to pair a player with the same colour three times in a row? A few months before an official national tournament is held, an announcement is published, which contains information about specific rules (e.g., no draw offers until the 30th move), etc. One thing that caught my attention was that a player can't have the same colour for 3 consecutive rounds.
Yet, in the last round, I played Black and my opponent White. After the end of the game, I realize that my opponent had taken White 3 times in a row. Swapping colours was also impossible since I was Black in the last 2 rounds.
Can the result actually be changed? Or should the game be replayed?
As I am not an arbiter, I'd also like to ask whether there is an option in Swiss Manager (the pairing program used) not to allow players to get the same color 3 times in a row?

Lodging an appeal also came to mind that time. However, can the result
  actually be changed?

No. Only in extreme cases such as cheating can the result be changed.

  Or should the game be replayed?

No. There is no reason why the game should be replayed.

  In addition, as I am not an arbiter, is there an option in Swiss
  Manager (the pairing program which was used to make the pairings) not
  to allow players get the same color 3 times continuously?

Swiss Manager uses the JaVaFo pairing engine written by FIDE. The pairing engine implements the FIDE defined pairing rules. As far as I know (I am a FIDE arbiter) the only pairing rule that can be overridden is the one which says that a player who has already had a voluntary bye can also be given a compulsory bye in a later round given an odd number of players. In my experience this is never done.

  In the last round, I played with Black and my opponent with White.

  After the game, which I unfortunately lost, due to the lack of opening
  preparation, I realized that my opponent had taken White 3 times in
  the 3 last rounds. Playing with opposite colours was also impossible,
  since I had White 2 times continuously. In addition, I had played with
  most of the players which were up to the 10th position, so I couldn't
  find anyone else to play - maybe this is an exception?

In the FIDE Handbook the rules for Swiss pairing are given in the section Basic rules for Swiss Systems.

Your case is covered by these two rules.

  f For each player the difference between the number of black and the
  number of white games shall not be greater than 2 or less than –2.
  Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament.

  g No player shall receive the same colour three times in a row.
  Each system may have exceptions to this rule in the last round of a tournament.

In the last round of a tournament the requirement to allow the highest placed players to play each other in the interests of having clear winners and major places decided fairly takes precedence over most of the other rules. The rule which says that two players who have already played in an earlier round cannot be paired against each other again takes precedence over all other rules and cannot be broken.

Unfortunately there's nothing you can do once the game is over, even if pairing rules were violated. In some tournaments you can talk to the TD after pairings are posted, but in FIDE tournaments pairings might be final once they are posted (if memory serves).

In rare cases you could lodge an appeal with an appeal committee, but most tournaments don't have these.


Game Analysis Software What I need

Is there any software/engine/website (preferably free) that can analyze a given game (or PGN) of mine and tell me:

Whether my moves were excellent, good, bad or terrible.
Possible variations at different positions.
Reasons why a bad move was bad, and suggestions for a better move.

What I found

The thing I found closest to that is the computer analysis option on Chess.com , which tells me how many of my (and my opponent's) moves were good, bad and awful, and also suggests better moves in place of my errors. However, despite being rather good, it seems (to me) that it analyzes only the games I play on the site.

Any suggestions?

LiChess.org is free and easy, but you have to register. Almost every interface can give you what the computer thinks is best.

http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/ is a good program for beginners, but at more advanced levels the computer seems to hang.
Lucas chess has a game analysis.

The output shows current evaluation, best move, your score relative to the best score, and, under indexes, average centipawn loss with other stats.

The program comes with many adjustable parameters.  The main problem, other the the hanging engine, is that it is difficult to find which function you want.  They do have links to many videos showing how to use their program.

If after watching the videos you still have problems, we could start a thread about this problem.

Stockfish / Droidfish: just put the PGN files that you download to the file of Droidfish PGN. You can view and analyze games .. you can download PGN files in pgnmentor for a specific opening or specific player.


World Cup: passed pawns vs extra piece [fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34"]
[white "Max Illingworth"]
[black "Pentala Harikrishna"]

White to move.

In this World Cup game, Black demonstrated the power of pawns and won the game despite being a piece down. I think White's defense in the game was very weak (possibly due to time pressure). I think this is the critical position,  White needs to decide what to do with the extra piece. Despite a piece down, I think this is close to winning for Black, but the computer thinks it's only slightly better for Black.

Is there a defense for White? Is there a better line than the continuation played in the game?

Despite this post being over 2 years old, the position seems to be very interesting and caught my attention. So here are my two-cents on it:

I'm rather surprised by white's follow-up moves in that game, I just don't see what is being gained! Instead, first thought that comes to my mind is to bring the h3 bishop into the game, which in fact in the actual game is left on h3 for at least 10 moves, then moved to f1 and eventually e3-Be2 is played, but in all that the light square bishop has played no role whatsoever to justify white for being up a piece.

So let's simply focus on that and try to revive the bishop with Kf1 and Bg2. Once our bishop is in play, the trade of black's bishop for our knight will likely be in our favour as we'd still have our two pawns, and two active pieces against the single rook, whereas in the game itself, once the bishop is brought into the game, white has already lost the h2 pawn and black's pawns are already storming down the board.

Here's an annotated diagram to study Kf1-Bg2 idea:

 [title "A different approach for white: reviving the bishop"]
 [fen "N7/P3pk1p/3p2p1/r4p2/8/4b2B/4P1KP/1R6 w - - 0 34"]

 1.Kf1 Rxa7 2.Bg2 g5 {the early g-pawn push is mainly aimed at stopping white's h-pawn from advancing and attempting to undermine black's pawn chain. If black is allowed, g4 is next.} 3.Bc6 {Important move here: stops the Ra4 - Rf4+ - Rg4 maneuver, and leaves g2 as Luft for the king thus freeing the rook from the first row, more active prospects compared to g2, and temporarily untouchable on c6 as Ra6 can be answered by Be8+ and Nc7, all while maintaining control over the important long diagonal. } g4 (3...e6 4.Rb7+ Rxb7 5.Bxb7 {and if anything the draw is well in hand, as we've kept the knight next to the opposite color bishop situation.})  4.Nb6 {hard to find an immediate plan for black} Bd4 {prophylactic vs Nd5} (4...Bxb6 5.Rxb6 {and unlike the actual game we still have the h-pawn, our bishop is in play, and our rook in time to go behind the pawns} h5 6.Kf2 h4 7.Rb8 Ra3 8.Bd7 e6 9.Rh8 {forcing h3 with all the pawns on light squares, then we just have to stop f4 and black cannot make progress.} h3 10.Rh6 f4 11.Kg1 {side-stepping g3 with check, as that would probably be losing on the spot} Ra1+ 12.Kf2 Rh1 13.Bxe6+ Kg7 14.Rh4 Rxh2+ 15.Kg1 Rxe2 16.Bxg4 h2+ 17.Kh1 Rf2 18.Rxh2 {it's worth exploring some of these lines as they're very sharp and concrete therefore highly non-trivial.}) 5.Nd5 e6 6.Nf4 Rc7 7.Ba4 {Even Rb7 looks sufficient for a draw, but requires more calculation to make sure.} d5 8.h3 {if Be3, Ng2 works which is lucky. As for the rest: we've brought all pieces into play, pinned most black pawns to light squares, and managed to trade our h pawn, and big prospects of holding this position, and even winning it if black goes wrong.}

So in summary, it seems that by bringing the bishop into play immediately, we've managed to muster up an actual defense against the pawn storm, and even create active play, thus in fact making a case for being a piece up! This seems to be far more playable than the version of the endgame that transpired in the actual game.

For white, it's hard. At any cost, white should try to keep the king on white (as the bishop is on black). King to F3 could be a decent move. Also moving the pawn to E3 when the Bishop moved away to prevent being taken by the king. White should be focusing on making space for the king to move away. But black has many pawns which kind of makes it obvious that he will win.

Also, trying to take as many pawns as possible without losing an own piece could help a lot, but this is also hard.

Don't hate me but I think king to F3 is a good move, since the bishop has to move away and the pawn can move


Can a pawn move to the last row diagonally without a capture? Playing the "Champion" J2ME chess, I noticed that the bot (black) made the move "Pg2-h1=Q." Is this a bug or just a rarely known rule like en passant and castling?

Pawns only go diagonally when they capture. See the section 3.7 of Chess rules.

The software you mention probably has a flaw.

Not a bug, it's an entirely possible move. (at least on chess titans.) Chess titans is the windows 7 version of chess.


Is rotating a pawn so that it faces a different direction and then moves in that direction technically permitted according to the 2018 FIDE Laws? While browsing the Chess Stack Exchange and Puzzling Stack Exchange sites, I've come across several instances where people have found loopholes in the rules of chess, causing these loopholes to be patched out eventually. In fact, while reading through the current (since Jan 1 2018) FIDE Laws of Chess, I noticed the following paragraphs:

3.7.1 The pawn may move forward to the square immediately in front of it on the same file, provided that this square is unoccupied, or
3.7.2 on its first move the pawn may move as in 3.7.1 or alternatively it may advance two squares along the same file, provided that both squares are unoccupied, or
3.7.3 the pawn may move to a square occupied by an opponent’s piece diagonally in front of it on an adjacent file, capturing that piece.

Now I'm curious about the wording of these paragraphs, especially the phrase "in front of it". This "front" direction is not defined or mentioned anywhere in the Laws. Its usual meaning is "towards the rank furthest away from the pawn's initial location", but what if it weren't?
Suppose "front" is taken to mean the facing of the physical pawn (imagine figurine pieces with a clearly identifiable "front"). In that case, if a pawn is placed facing a different direction than usual, White could move a pawn to a lower rank or capture on a lower rank. Moving along the same rank is forbidden by the wording of 3.7.2.
Here are two examples I'm thinking of:
1.e4(facing e3) e5 2.e4e3
1.e4 d5 2.e5(facing d5) d4 3.e5xd4
In this case, it could even be technically permitted to rotate a pawn (changing what is "in front of it") using "j'adoube" before moving it.
Alternatively, the "front" direction could be defined as the direction the player is facing. However, in this case, Article 2 insufficiently defines how the chessboard is to be placed:

2.1 The chessboard is composed of an 8 x 8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the ‘white’ squares) and dark (the ‘black’ squares).
The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.
[...]
2.3 The initial position of the pieces on the chessboard is as follows: [depiction of standard positions]

It is not mentioned which pieces start closer to which player, so according to this interpretation it is technically not illegal to start with the white pieces on the side of the board closer to Black. "Front" would then mean that pawns could only move one step (assuming you get the pieces out of the way), but not promote afterwards (since the promotion rank is defined in paragraph 3.7.5.1 as "the rank furthest from its starting position"). Alternatively, a player could rotate the chessboard by 180° before moving.
I'm aware that all this is nitpicking the rules, of course that's not the intended way to play chess, I get that. So here's the question I'm actually interested in: Suppose that during a FIDE tournament, some player makes a move that is legal only by one of the above interpretations of the rules. How would this situation be resolved properly, considering Articles 11 and 12 of the Laws?

This sort of thing is what the Preface of the Laws of Chess is for:

  PREFACE

  The Laws of Chess cannot cover all possible situations that may arise
  during a game, nor can they regulate all administrative questions.
  Where cases are not precisely regulated by an Article of the Laws, it
  should be possible to reach a correct decision by studying analogous
  situations which are discussed  in  the  Laws. The  Laws  assume
  that  arbiters  have  the  necessary  competence,  sound  judgement
  and absolute objectivity. Too detailed a rule might deprive the
  arbiter of his freedom of judgement and thus prevent him from finding
  the solution to a problem dictated by fairness, logic and special
  factors.

  FIDE appeals to all chess players and federations to accept this view.

No, the laws don't define what the square in front of a pawn is. But arbiters have freedom of judgement to deal with that kind of omission from the rules.

And there is no way an arbiter will let you move a pawn in an illegal way during a FIDE tournament based on this argument.

It will just be treated as an illegal move (some bonus time for the opponent, have to make a legal move with the pawn if possible, and if it happens a second time the game is lost).

There's another loophole with 3.7.3 and it happens when you turn the pawn's front to the left or to the right. You can then capture opponent's piece at the diagonal at the previous rank. Since it's at the adjacent file, the move is a "bona fide!" chess move. ex: white pawn at e4 turning to left and  capturing Knight at d3.
These loopholes can be removed by introducing  an amendment 3.7.xx like "pawns can not move to a lower rank with the exception of 'en-passant' law, where they're technically moved by the opponent one rank below and captured, if the opponent prefers at the immediate move after the two square move of the pawn."


What is the theoretical limit for the number of consecutive checks? The known record for the longest sequence of consecutive checks (i.e. white checks, then black checks on the next move, white checks next, and so on) in a legal position without promoted pieces, is 37. See this article on Tim Krabbe's site entitled "Check!"
Is there a theoretical limit for the length of such a sequence, or is a repetition possible, allowing checks forever?

Another way to get an infinite series of checks is by using a fairy piece. Consider this position, except that the black piece on e5 is not a knight but a camel (a (3,1)-leaper). Then the given sequence of four crosschecks restores the diagram position with White to move. (Unfortunately the PGN-viewer can't display it because of the fairy piece.)

[Title "Infinite series of checks"]
[fen "1k1b4/8/8/KN2n1r1/8/6B1/8/1R6 w - - 0 1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]

1. Nc7+ Cb6+ 2. Nb5+ Ce5+

Because of the fifty move rule, the limit is 50. If you ignore the 50 move rule, then there still is a limit because there is a finite number of chess positions.  The fifty-move rule allows a player to claim a draw if no capture or no pawn occurred in the last fifty moves. For this purpose. a "move" consists of a player completing his turn followed by their opponent completing his turn. Threefold repetition is also an option, wherein if the position on the board repeats three times, a player can claim a draw.


Tricky continuation to the Fried Liver "refuted" Suppose white gets the following opening:
[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6
4. Ng5 d5
5. exd5 Na5

This is what I call Fried Liver Refuted, instead of Nxd5 we get instead Na5. From this position does white have some tricky continuation? By tricky I mean some sharp snappy line with some traps in it. It seems like after Na5 white runs out of tricks, but is this true? Some tricks in this position would be really fun to implement; most players only study this line up to this point because it is preached that Na5 is the best move for black and after it white runs out of punches, so a couple of tricks would most likely find black with is guard down.

I mean, this is the main line and for a reason.
But I would be very surprised if most people's repertoire ended here, this is where it begins. The line goes
6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6
And now White has a number of options. In all of them White stays up a pawn however Black gets some counter play. (and there isn't a great line to give back that pawn for initiative, not much to play for tricks)
The two main moves are 8.Be2 and 8.Bd3.
The line might continue 8.Be2 h6 9.Nf3 e4 10.Ne5 and Black will keep some lead in development and try to attack.
The idea of the other move then is to gain access to the e4 square, if 8.Bd3 h6 9.Ne4.
However this move blocks the d pawn so White will need to move that bishop again at a later time. Both of these lines can be very complicated and sharp so White has to be careful.

5....na5 is inferior and certainly no refutation of the fried liver.
Not going to tell you the correct move to win with black.
Leaving that as an exercise to the student who will probably look it up or might find it by running an engine.


D5 move closing my bishop activity I would like to know why playing d5 in these two positions is useful for me (Black).

You do not have enough control of e4, and if white gets to play e4-e5 here, your king is a goner. It is an absolute must here to stop that plan, and the only way to do it is d5. Making your Bb7 bad for now pales in comparison to letting your king get mated, or loss of significant material, which will happen after e4-e5.

There are multiple ways in which d5 could be useful here. The obvious answer is because it grabs grip on the e4 square. It also prepares the advance of the c pawn to c4 which will lock down white's LightSquared bishop. If you aren't comfortable keeping your bishop like this for portions of the middlegame then you can play h6 to force the knight back and capture it. Then you can play d5 and potentially c4.


What are White's advantages against the Greco Defense? After the first two moves of the Greco Defense

[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6

what should White's agenda be?  I see that the wikibook Chess Opening Theory suggests 3. Bc4, but it doesn't go into detail.  I'm not used to this opening as White, and never play it as Black, so I'm not sure 1) what to aim for in order to undermine Black's early Queen advance, and 2) how to guard against a possible kingside attack.  For instance, should I castle Queenside, or isn't that necessary?

2... Qf6, while not strictly unsound, is definitely an inferior move, not only because it develops the queen prematurely, but also (and more importantly) because it deprives the black king's knight of a very natural square on f6. Don't panic about a possible king-side attack -- black cannot mate with no minor pieces developed. There are a number of reasonable continuations for white:

3. Nc3, a natural and flexible developing move that eyes the d5 square, threatens to chase the queen with gain of time, and doesn't commit to any particular pawn structure.
3. d3, a perfectly valid move, but somewhat passive and has the distinct flaw of locking in the light-square bishop. Unless you strongly prefer to play slow, positional chess, I would develop with 3. Bc4 prior to playing d3 (if at all). If you play d3, the logical plans are either to prepare a central break with c3 and a subsequent d4, or to castle kingside and prepare f4 after re-maneuvering the f3 knight. Which of those plans is preferable depends on your opponent's development, of course.
3. Bc4, versatile and potentially very aggressive, threatening an eventual Ng5 and pressure on f7 after white's d-pawn moves. This is definitely the move I'd favor in a rapid game, and I don't think it's objectively worse than 3. Nc3.

Other moves, such as 3. d4 and 3. c3, are probably sub-optimal. An immediate 3. d4 push is likely to lead to exchanges and a relatively drawish position (and might end up transposing to lines of the Scotch that are not particularly good for white), while 3. c3 is slow and somewhat crude and might allow black to equalize with dynamic piece play.

[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 3. d4 d6 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Bg5 Qe6 6. Qd8#

The Greco Defence is easily broken in my opinion


How can I know the Elo rating of my chess engine? I built an uci compatible chess engine, and I would like to know its Elo rating. What is the easiest way to get it?

I would like something that works both on Linux and Windows.

Easy question. Announce your engine on the chess programming forum (http://talkchess.com/forum/index.php). There'll be engine testers adding your engine to their rating list, such as CCRL. But please and please provide a working compiled binary.

Announce your engine, upload a compiled binary to somewhere like Dropbox. You'll hear feedback.

EDIT

cutechess is a popular tool for automating computer engine-to-engine matches. The only and only way to test your changes is to make your engine to play games. You can make it to play with an older version or another engine.

https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Cutechess-cli

Test it at

http://www.elometer.net

This is a scientific test based on problem solving and statistical computation.


Would this clock time mode be useful at all? I want to encourage more games to be played with "thinking" chess instead of "video game" chess like in lightning and blitz.  When I play at super fast time controls, I tend to stop calculating at all and just push wood.  So my chess thought process becomes very sloppy, which makes those fast time control games pretty much useless to me in terms of improving my level.

What if there was a clock mode where a minimum time was required to be spent by a player on a move like say 10 seconds and if this rule were violated then the game would be forfeited?

I know that time delay and increment already exist, but I find there is too much temptation to gain time on the clock and move quickly.

I guess what I want is to find a clock mode that doesn't tempt me to turn off my calculating brain but where the games finish reasonably quickly.

Any thoughts on this idea?

Perhaps this could be somewhat useful in practice games, but I don't see much point in having a minimum time control in real games. Some reasons (let's assume the minimum is 10 seconds but could be any number):

sometimes you are doing forced moves (or known opening moves) where having to wait 10 seconds would be annoying
conversely, there are situations where you have to think a lot longer than 10 seconds, so here the minimum time would not help at all
you might run into the problem that you end up trying to make moves just after 10 seconds (particularly in time trouble), with the added annoyance that you now also have to keep track of when 10 seconds have passed

Overall I think that you should rather try other methods like sitting on your hands, analyzing your games with respect to time spent on moves (and relation to blunders), etc. to improve your time management. An important factor in improving your chess is also to know when to spend more time and when you can make more or less automatic moves.

Back in the day they had 10 second tournaments.  Every ten seconds, a bell would ring, and you had to make your move during the bell sound.  A second before or after meant an immediate loss.  If this time control was popular enough to hold a tournament, I'm sure that your time control would be successful.


Queen's Gambit Accepted, how to continue after 3. e3 c6 I was playing Queen's Gambit Accepted. How should I continue after 3. e3 c6? I had no idea what to do after that.

[FEN ""]
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 c6

The simplest reply for white is Bxc4 which gives white exactly what he wants, a central pawn majority with tempo because he got his d4 pawn in the center plus his bishop on C4 while black basically doesn't have any pieces or pawns off their starting squares.

That said, a4 is probably also a good move as it makes b5 difficult for black.

Note that c6 isn't a great move for black because quite often in other lines he wants to move his c pawn straight to c5. If he ends up later playing c6-c5 then he has taken two moves instead of one to get there. Better for black would be e5, aggressively challenging white in the center or Nf6 fighting for the d5 and e4 squares.

c6 is one of the most benign looking moves in that position.

black usually plays a6 or some Nf6, e6, a6, c5 setup in the QGA


Analyzing complete games on iPad? I have several apps on my iPad that will analyze the current position as I move through a game, but I can't seem to find any that will do an analysis of a complete game, ala the sort of analysis I used to do with Fritz when I still had a working PC. I don't need Grand Master level preparation insights (as in, I'm not trying to replicate the depth that Fritz could look at), just looking for something that will point out blunders and mistakes etc.

Smallfish as mentioned is good, the website lichess.org has made an app, you can downnload it and make an account. It needs internet connection for the database but not for the complete game analysis

Analyze this is a chess tool for iPhone/iPad which is a good app and you can include that as well.


Why don't I have more success with the King's Indian Attack? My last opening of choice as White was the King's Indian Attack to avoid having to learn a lot of opening lines, it being a system opening.  I've read Eric Schiller's and Ken Smith's books on the KIA.  I get the planned control of e5 and the desired strong piece and pawn presence on the kingside for an attack but rarely seem to be able to bring home the point.  The sample games I look at always seem to find strong continuations.  Am I just seeing the successful games?  Does this suggest basically a tactical shortcoming on my part, or could I be missing something else critically important that I need to know about the opening for complete understanding? I seem fairly tactically astute in open games. I might add that I haven't been particularly successful with the companion King's Indian Defense either.  Maybe positional play just isn't my forte.

The following game is the most recent KIA from several days ago against the computer, which although flawed by the blunder on move #30 yet will illustrate what I'm talking about.

[FEN ""]
[White "Conero"]
[Black "SparkChess"]

1.Nf3 g6 2.d3 d5 3.Nbd2 Bg4 4.g3 Bxf3 5.Nxf3 e6 6.Bg2 Nf6 7.O-O Bg7 8.c3 O-O 9.Qc2 Nc6 10. Bf4 b5 11.e4 Ng4 12.Rad1 f5 13.Rfe1 fxe4 14.dxe4 Nf6 15.e5 Nd7 16.h4 a5 17.a3 a4 18.Bh3 Nc5 19.Ng5 Qe7 20.Qe2 Rab8 21.h5 h6 22.Nf3 gxh5 23.Nd4 Qe8 24.Nxc6 Qxc6 25.Qxh5 Qe8 26.Qg4 h5 27.Qg5 Ne4 28.Qh4 c6 29. f3 Nc5 30.g4? Rxf4 0-1

Am I just seeing the successful games?

Of course! If you were writing a book trying to sell / promote a particular opening you wouldn't call it something like "How to Lose with the KIA". Nor would you fill it full of games where white played the KIA and lost. You'd fill it full of games where white won.

  I get the planned control of e5 and the desired strong piece and pawn
  presence on the kingside for an attack but rarely seem to be able to
  bring home the point.

Hey! You know what? That's chess. It's a pretty even game. The thing is, every time you move your opponent gets a move too. There is no forced win for white from move one and nor is there a forced win for either white or black at the end of the "book" part of almost all openings.

Your realistic aim should be to get a good playable position out of your chosen opening with white, a position you feel comfortable in, one where you know and understand the plans that follow from that particular opening. Then it's an even game. If your opponent understands the position and plays it better than you then he will likely win. If not and you both play it with equal understanding and ability it will be a draw. Only if you play the resulting positions better than your opponents will you win.

Learning openings at below 1800 makes absolutely no sense. And even above -> I'd up to 2100 it makes no sense to seriously study openings, as you do not have the proper skills to convert what ever achieved (either make a draw from an equal position or win from a better position). Of course, you need to know some stuff to not lose immediately or fall for any traps. But with ratings <2100 your aim should be to first learn to play decent chess!! -> Hence I totally agree with over-the-board and also his recommendations!! So work hard and play hard -> and if there's a chance also hit hard ;-D (btw: its always hard to come up with some rating bounds -> those I mentioned are just a rough direction ...)


What are the records for highest 1 year span performance rating? I've heard that Bobby Fischer had a 2892 performance in 1971. If this is true, it's probably the highest performance, but I don't know if this is true. Does anyone have any information about this?

Given Carlsen's 2882 current rating and the fact that he also reached this rating in 2014, it seems likely that at some point he had a year with a performance rating higher than your 2892 figure. (I calculated Carlsen's 2013 performance rating as 2890 [47 points in 69 games against an average opponent of 2757] but it's tedious enough to calculate that I don't want to do it for every year.)

However, if you use current FIDE rules on how to calculate performance rating, Fischer's performance rating in 1971 was even higher than the number you specified.

In 1971, Fischer participated in three official matches that I know of:

Fischer - Taimanov Candidates Quarterfinal
Fischer - Larsen Candidates Semifinal
Fischer - Petrosian Candidates Final

(He also played some blitz and simul games, but I assume those don't count.)

Taimanov was rated 2620, Larsen was rated 2660, and Petrosian was rated 2640 at the times of the matches. Fischer scored 6/6 in the first two matches and 6.5/9 in the third, for a total of 18.5/21 and an average opponent rating of 2640.

18.5/21 corresponds to a fractional score of 0.88. According to FIDE regulations, this in turn means that the performance rating is 336 points higher than the opponent's average rating. 2640 + 336 = 2976 performance rating.

It's hard to say whether that's the highest ever, but it very well might not be, even setting aside powerhouses like Carlsen. Since a 100% score results in a performance rating 800 points above the average opponent, anyone whose record for a particular year consisted solely of a 100% match score against a 2200 player would have a performance rating of 3000. I'm guessing that has happened to someone at least once.

I've heard that Bobby Fischer had a 2892 performance in 1971. If this
  is true, it's probably the highest performance, but I don't know if
  this is true. Does anyone have any information about this?

According to the Olimpbase site FIDE produced 2 rating lists covering 1971, one in July 1971 covering January 1971 through June 1971 and one in July 1972 covering July 1971 through June 1972.

According to this his ratings over this period were -

(Unofficial) January 1971 list - 2740
July 1971 list - 2760
July 1972 list - 2785

As you can see 2785 was the highest his rating ever reached. He was never anywhere near 2892.


Which pieces do I have to keep on the board, to win my endgame? How do I win this endgame?

2R5/pr6/3kp2p/4n1p1/5B2/P4P2/2P1K1PP/8 w - - 0 1

More specifically, I want to know whether I should trade off pieces, and in case of a trade, which pieces I should keep on the board.

I considered three options here:

A Keep all the pieces on the board.
This could be done by 1.Bg3 Kd5 2.Rh8 etc.

B Trade off the rooks.
This could be achieved by 1. Rd8+ Rd7 2. Rxd7 Nxd7 etc.
1...Nd7 is bad because of 2.Kd3 Kc6 3. Rh8!?

C Trade off the light pieces.
This can be done by 1.Bxe5 Kxe5 2.Rh8 etc.

My further questions are:

Is the rook ending in C a draw? If it is possible to win it, how would it be done?
Which endgame is better/easier to play A or B?
I guess that A and B are both winning for White. How are the winning strategies in both cases, i.e. how to win them?
In general, in Rook + Bish vs Rook + Knight endings, who wants to trade of the rooks?

Endgame D, after exchanging rooks AND minor pieces, is a trivial win.

Endgame C, with rooks, looks winning as well but might require more tactful play.

Endgame B, without rooks, is quite an easy win.

Endgame A, with R+B, is winning. The best strategy will probably involve a rook exchange...

Question 4: generally, the side with the bishop wants to keep rooks and the side with the knight wants to keep queens. There are a lot of exceptions though, including cases like this one with material imbalance (an extra pawn).

From the diagram, the logical continuation should be 1.Bg3 Kd5 2.Rd8 Nd7!, keeping rooks. White should win nonetheless. The plan (loosely explained) will be: centralisation, threats against h6/g5, helping the c-pawn forward. A bit of concrete thinking is needed too, because you don't want to allow too much counterplay against your somewhat loose queenside pawns.

Capturing the knight enables you to play Rh8. So I'll trade minor pieces and keep rooks on board. I don't think there is any need for any deep calculation here.


Not knowing what moves to make and feeling lost all the time My tactics and calculation abilities are fairly decent since I practice chess puzzles a lot, but I seem to be lacking in other areas. I always feel uncomfortable in a lot of chess games even though I've honestly played a lot of them by now. As the title suggests I want to gain the confidence and knowledge on what moves to make. I would love to become more adaptable. I love seeing masters being able to play and knowing what to do in any given position and would like to work towards that sort of ability. What should I do?

What you describe is a lack of strategic intuition. Fortunately that can be learnt. All of the following quotes come from Studying chess made easy by GM Soltis.

You need to learn how to spot strategic patterns

  "I only see things quickly if I have seen the position before," GM Yasser Seirawan once said in explaining how he found strong moves so easily.

According to this, developing strategic intuition rests on pattern recognition. When learning tactics, you had:

Theory: e.g. the abstract idea of a pin
Practice: e.g. solving tactics puzzles

This brings me onto...

Learning patterns is about theory and practice

The same thing that was said about tactics can be said for strategic patterns. For example, one pattern might be the exchange sacrifice. It has theory, you can find puzzles, and you can apply it to your games.

Remember that:

  Theory + Practice = Success

Learning patterns is often subliminal

This begs the question, how do I learn these patterns? Well, this is a life-long process.

  Some researchers concluded that the typical grandmaster knows 10,000 patterns (!). Don't worry.

  You can become a pretty good player, perhaps even a master, with a much smaller number of positions in your mental 'pattern bank'.

GM Soltis suggests analysing master games, and gave this specific advice:

  Take note of each middlegame move that is awarded an exclamation point. Try to figure out why it's a good move. If you think you understand why, try explaining it in your own words, as if you were teaching a fellow student.

Pick up Re-assess Your Chess 3e by Jeremy Silman. He'll teach you the seven imbalances to look out for which will dictate your plan.

In short,

Evaluate the position using the seven imbalances.
Decide which side of the board to play on (queenside, center, or kingside).
Construct a fantasy (ideal) position for your pieces: Move your pieces to their ideal locations in your head, without considering the opponent's plan.
Calculate the moves required to reach this position.

If you find that it's not possible to reach this position because of some defense by the opponent, return to step 3.
If after several iterations you find there is no way to realize any fantasy position on that side of the board, return to step two.


100 Endgames You Must Know - What's the difference between 3rd & 4th Eds? Does anyone know the difference between the 3rd and 4th edition of "100 Endgames You Must Know"?  I just looked at the Table Of Contents and they are identical and random pages on Amazon look the same too. I would imagine there must be some new use of the new tablebases that were completed since 2012?

De la Villa's "100 Endgames you must know", though apparently a good book seems to have been plagued by an abundance of typos and mistakes as detailed in this blogpost.

So although the culprit in this case has been the 2nd edition, maybe it does make sense to go for the latest edition. Here you can look at the errata page which presumably contains errors that have now been corrected, although as I mentioned some of these corrections probably already happened in the third edition.

More often than not, edition differences are often just edits and re-phrasings. If you have the 3rd edition, then I would not fret about getting the 4th.


If there was perfect play from both sides, will it be draw or win for one? If there was perfect play from both the colors, will white win because of the first move advantage or will it be a draw?

Most Grandmasters will argue that chess is a draw with perfect play from both sides. However, in practice it is shown that white has higher win rates than black, but this is due to the first-move advantage. This is because white technically gains a small advantage from having the first move, and black will equalize with their move.

It is possible that a first-move could cause a disadvantage with perfect play, because despite having perfect information, the black player could potentially be able to counter any strategy white attempts to play. It is more likely however that if one side were to have a forced win, it would be for white.

The answer to this question will not be known for a long time because only in 2012 were endgame tablebases able to solve any position with 7 pieces perfectly (including the 2 kings). For comparison of how impressive this feat is, 6 pieces was only solved in 2005. Obviously, this problem is exponential because with more and more pieces, the complexity increases further and further, until eventually the game is solved for 32 pieces. One could argue that the starting position is static so we don't have to consider every combination of 32 pieces on the 64 squares, but the number of possibilities is still enormous and will take a long time to know for certain.

Humans tend to draw because feeling fear - more fear if you play weaker. It lead to panic defensive, passive chess, blockades and poor game - which is opposition to rich and balanced, tactical, aggressive, positional, active chess.

Never accept draws to learn how to play even you will lose you will become stronger :) Carlsen not give up many draw positions and wins many of "draw" position which often is draw but opponent can not play enough accurate to win draw.

It will bring you much richer experience and fruitful games than building walls or waiting for draw which not works.

Simple answer 50% of draws Stockfish with other engines (no statistics for itself).
Stockfish 9 64-bit 4CPU 3441    +17 −17 72.5%   −156.5  49.5%   1198

Whatever Leela playing itself (AI) only %5 draw (maybe play bad).

http://lczero.org/stats


Do chess programmes keep a history of the full board for each move? I am creating a chess GUI for UCI engine as a hobby. I keep the history of moved positions (e.g., (4,6) -> (4,4) for the pawn in front of the white king moving forward 2 squares) and the type of the moved piece (e.g., pawn), and some minor states like castling, capturing, etc).
Now I am trying to implement checking for draw conditions. At first, I thought it was about repeated moves, but after seeing the official rules, it seems that it is about repeated positions. Is it practically possible to check for this without keeping the snapshot of the whole board (in my case, a 8x8 integer array, 256 bytes) for each move? I thought about taking a hash value of the board, but even if I take a long value, it can only represent 2^64 values, and according to a quick search, the number of all possible positions is about 10^120, so hash collisions will occur.

You are doing a chess GUI, not a chess engine right?
Chess GUI doesn't need to be super efficient, because you have no more than a chess game to look for. Even a game over 200 moves about the world record is absolutely nothing for a computer.
I would just simply keep your positions with an array of strings like FEN format (or any other format), and then simply linear scan the whole game for repetitions.
If you want to get fancy, try https://marcelk.net/2013-04-06/paper/upcoming-rep-v2.pdf.

The accepted answer points out that a GUI doesn't need to be so fast.  But if you did want to work on an engine, consider this: 2^64 is a really big number.  By the birthday paradox, you will need 2^32 board positions, on average, to find 2 duplicates.  If we assume that all positions are just 1 move away from a draw (an absurdly conservative estimate), that says that on average it will take 4 billion positions to come up with a collision.
Even in a chess engine, which has to worry about trees of moves, not just a linear stream, you only have to look within the current branch for positions that draw, so the collisions can only come from that line.  Even if we made another extreme assumption that the game lasts less than a thousand moves, there is a 0.0000232% chance of finding a collision.
Finding a collision is like mis-scoring the board.  It makes the board evaluate to a draw, even though it may have been a win.  So unless your engine's rate of mis-scoring boards is less than 1 in a million, these collisions can be handwaved away.
And, obviously, if one does occur, you can always check the game history to be sure.


How defend against rooks in 7th rank? I find it hard to defend against rooks placed in 7th rank.
What are the possible defense options?
Please share your knowledge.

[FEN "r4rk1/p1pRR1pp/1p6/8/8/P6P/1P3PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

1.Rxg7+ Kh8
2.Rxh7+ Kg8
3.Rdg7#

In general, prophylaxis can be used to prevent the rooks getting on the 7th. This is the preferred defense; common challenging moves are to contest open columns with your own rooks, or to guard the 7th rank squares with your minor pieces.

In the case that the rooks are already on the 7th, you should secure the most urgent threats (where your king is or where most of your loose material is), and then trade off rooks or go on the offensive.

Hope that helps!

If you move, you move the King to h8 and next, you move your rook to f6.


Kings gambit for white I'm just a beginner at chess and am just starting to get into the king's gambit but there seems not to be much information on this line probably because I'm not very good and the same with my opposition. I'm used to this line

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5
2. f4 exf4
3. Nf3 g5

and so on but recently I have been running into this

 [FEN ""]
1. e4 e5
2. f4 exf4
3. Nf3 Nc6

I have run through this on Stockfish but I'm curious if anyone could explain the theory behind the next move.

I remember reading about it in an old Chessbase Magazine edition (circa 2010 I believe). They examined a game where White played Bb5 at the right time, pinning the Knight then later exchanging it for weak queenside pawns, kinda like in the Ruy Lopez. I've used this idea fairly often, at least it's another option to Bc4, the normal development move that might later run into ...Be6 in this case, and it's not like exchanging and playing on the queenside is forced then.

If Black also develops their f8 Bishop, c3 and b4 also take space on the queenside, threatens b5 to kick the c6 Knight, and restrict both the Bishop and the Knight's activity.

In any case, there's nothing wrong with taking the center with 4.d4. As the f1 Bishop might want to go to b5 later, the first question to answer is how should the queenside be developed? c3 reinforces d4 and allows a Qb3-Bc4 battery, but Nc3 brings the Knight to a more active position (controls d5 in particular) than Nd2 where it would block the c1 Bishop. Take back the pawn with Bxf4 at some point (if ...g5, h4), and at this point, it should be clear where your light-squared Bishop can or should go.

At that point, White has completed development and has the center, whereas Black has trouble finding active play for his pieces. White should have a slight, lasting advantage, which should be converted in the long term. The rest is up to what themes you want to play around, but keep in mind the Bb5 idea.

I would strongly suggest that you consider 3.Bc4 instead of 3.Nf3. Do not be afraid of Black's queen check, you will simply move your king to f1. This is how Fischer played the King's Gambit. IM Timothy Taylor recently published a book on the King's Bishop's Gambit, if you can get a copy.


Is it possible to play 1 minute bullet with no increment over the board? Playing 1 minute bullet games with no increment on the Internet is hard enough, but what about over the board, in real life with an actual wooden board?

Would it be possible, or would 90% of the games end in total chaos with many illegal moves and pieces getting knocked over everywhere?

Would it be possible to have "serious" over the board tournaments played at this time control?

If the answer to the question is no, what about 2 minutes bullet with no increment? Would serious over the board tournaments be possible at this time control?

I've played one minute, no increment, over-the-board chess, it definitely can be done.  My experience (at least with the opponents I've played with...) has been that it's almost always turned into a huge time scramble with lots of knocked-over pieces, and I can tell you that a substantial fraction of the games I've played at this time control (maybe 20% or so - just a guess off the top of my head) have ended with one player or another making an illegal move - often because they didn't notice that they were in check, or because they tried to move a pinned piece or something and ended up putting themselves in check.  Depending on who you are playing with (and your own habits in this regard), I'd personally recommend playing like this only with a clock that you don't really care much about - many of the opponents I've played at this time control have been really rough on the clock...

Definitely.  To name one, Grandmaster Ben Finegold was astonishingly good at this from a very young age.


Is there a balanced chess system where players of unknown skill can have an equal chance of winning? Is there a chess system where you can make players of differing skill levels compete against each other with an equal chance to win without using different chess variations?

This system should give good players and bad players a level playing field where both of them can win.

Yes.

The way I've done this in the past is to play a series of games with clocks starting with 10 minutes each on the clocks and then the rule for subsequent games that the winner of the previous game gets one minute less and the loser one minute more. This quickly stabilizes at a level where both players have good chances of winning.

The ultimate handicap is teaching.

Typically we assume that the person with the winning position on the board is a winner, and the person with the losing position on the board is the loser.  But this does not always have to be true.  The more advanced player can always choose a different win condition.  Why not? It's only a game.  If the more advanced player chooses a win condition that isn't in direct opposition to the less advanced player winning, then you can actually reach a win-win situation.

You might be able to develop a clever handicap system where players have to "play their best" to beat the opponent with a specified handicap.  Go actually has this, though one quickly progresses to the point where a 2 stone handicap is too much.  If you do this, you quickly create a game of "you vs. nature"  The game becomes a zero-sum game and it really changes how it feels.

However, if your goal is to create situations to help teach the newer player, it doesn't matter how skilled you are.  You are no longer playing on the board.  You are playing in the mind.  And, honestly, we can all use a little practice in our quest to become a grandmaster at that.


What's this mate called? I've blundered and had this played on me before. Is there a specific name for the mate?

[FEN "8/8/8/8/1n6/8/qPP5/1KR5 w - - 0 1"]

It does not have any special name. I have been playing for 40 years, and I have never seen it given any specific name.

Here is a very good list of named mates, and as you can see, your position is not among them.

The only  real  name it has is <<   CHECK mate!   >>

Maybe somebody somewhere gave it a label, but if so it did not stick.
Most likely during  a speed game and somebody said somely like the patzer got mated. So maybe locally, for a brief time, it was the patzers mate.


Are there any 'romantic' chess programs? Are there any chess programs, which play gambits? I have two solutions in mind:

It tries to offer situations where one of your moves looks quite promising on the short term (3-5 moves), but later it turns out to be disastrous.

Or the opposite:

It tries to reach positions, which look bad for you, but there's a single line (hard to find), which can save the day.

I guess the difficulty of writing such programs can be that it's not trivial to decide which lines are easy to be found by a human and which aren't. (And that also depends on the skills of the player, so some parameters would be required.)

Houdini may be worthwhile checking out.  See link.

http://www.cruxis.com/chess/houdini.htm
(4th paragraph down)

  "The Chess Club Live Facebook page phrased it like this: "If there
  ever was a computer descendant of the romantic players like Morphy,
  Anderssen, Spielmann, Marshall, Bogoljubow, Tal, Nezhmetdinov, Shirov,
  Morozevich it would be Houdini. Houdini is the current World number 1
  chess engine and plays in a very romantic style."

I didn't notice when the quote was from because the last time in the TCEC Championship that Houdini was #1 was 2013.

I use Houdini 5.  I can attest to the romantic style of play.  Quite a change when you are used to seeing how Komodo or Stockfish play.  Settings are relatively user friendly.

It is a commercial engine but the developers do offer Houdini 1.5 for free.

Stockfish, among several others (e.g. Fritz), has an aggressiveness parameter; you'll want to look in the 'Play Style' setting, or words to that effect, in the UCI.

A more aggressive engine has a higher propensity to make potentially unsound material sacrifices; it translates to positions where accurate play leads to an advantage, though assessing the ease of finding the refutation is beyond me.


How does White crumble Black's center? Negi suggests 18.Kh1!N but it seems Black can continue to push his pawns.

[FEN ""]
[White ""]
[Black ""]
[Event ""]
[Site ""]
[Result "*"]
[ECO "B33"]
[Date "????.??.??"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3
b5 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Nd5 f5 11. Bd3 Be6 12. c3 Bg7 13. Nxb5 Bxd5 14. exd5 Ne7 15.
Na3 O-O (15... e4 16. Qa4+ Kf8 (16... Qd7 17. Bb5 ) ) 16. O-O e4 17. Bc2 Rc8
18. Kh1 (18. Qh5 Rc5 ) (18. f3 Qb6+ $19 ) Rc5 (18... Qb6 19. Bb3 $16 ) 19. f3 Rxd5
20. Qe2 (20. Qb1 Qb8 21. fxe4 fxe4 22. Bxe4 Rh5 {threatening ...d5} 23. Bf3 Rh6
24. Bg4 f5 {The Black center is gone, but Black doesn't stand bad either: White's
Queen and a1 rook are misplaced.} 25. Bh3 $4 Rxh3 26. gxh3 Qb7+ 27. Kg1 Rf6 $19
) Re5 21. Nc4 Re6 22. Bb3 d5 23. Rad1 Kh8 24. Ne3 Rd6 25. fxe4 fxe4

Does White just wait for Black to overextend?

I have no idea why @Maxwell86 was downvoted. He is correct that Blacks pawns look impressive but it is not easy to see what to do with them.
The pawns are strong if they restrict Whites pieces, or if they are mobile enough to generate threats. Neither is the case here. I would regard 16..e4 as a positional blunder, because it fixes the pawn structure, and allows White to form a plan around it. This might be along the lines of Bc2-Bb3 (hold that QP), f2-f4(giving Black a protected passed pawn, but it isnt going anywhere, and White prevents Black from connecting up his Pawns with an eventual ..f4), Na3-c2-e3 (A perfect square, blockading and influencing both wings), Ra1-b1 or Qd1-d2 (protect the b-Pawn) then in due course c2-c4, Bb3-a4, b2-b4, lauching a Pawn avalanche on the Q-side.

Yes, of course Black gets to move also, but I dont see anything like this plan of campaign. White seems to me to have a big advantage because his Pawns are (or will become) mobile and Blacks will not. Whites strategy in this sort of position is always to advance on the Q-side, while Black usually looks for counterplay on the K-side, but this will not be easy with his pawns blockaded. They hardly restrict White from doing what he wishes, and they cant generate threats. It does take time for White to do everything but Blacks play is even slower. White has only one potential weakness (on g2, which the N already protects. Black will try things like Bg7-h6, Rf8-g8, Qd8-f6-g6, Ne7-g6-h4, against which White has Rf1-f2, Qd1-d2.

There is still a game ahead, but it will be the kind of game where each player forms a plan and tries to achieve their own while frustrating the oponent. My money is on White.

Black's pawns might seem impressive, but they're not so easy to mobilize. Clearly, the c3-pawn stops black's d-pawn. Due to the tension by white's pawn f3 on pawn e4, black can't push his f-pawn. And if black pushes e4-e3, the pawn ends up isolated when white plays f3-f4.
Therefore, it's often useful for white to keep the tension in the center and to refrain from the exchange fxe4.

In the given main line, after 20.Qe2 Re5, according to Stockfish 9, white has the time to grab the pawn on a6: 21.Bb3 d5 22.Qxa6. White can follow up with Rad1, Nc2, Qe2, f4, after which white is a healthy pawn up and black's center is blocked.

      [StartPly "39"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Bxf6 gxf6 10.Nd5 f5 11.Bd3 Be6 12.c3 Bg7 13.Nxb5 Bxd5 14.exd5 Ne7 15.Na3 O-O 16.O-O e4 17.Bc2 Rc8 18.Kh1 Rc5 19.f3 Rxd5 20.Qe2 Re5 21.Bb3 (21.Nc4 Re6 22.Bb3 d5 23.Rad1 Kh8 24.Ne3 Rd6 25.fxe4 fxe4) d5 22.Qxa6 Re6 23.Qe2 Rh6 24.Rad1 Qb8 25.f4 Rd8 26.Nb5


When you check someone, do you have to say "check"? Yesterday I was playing with a friend, I was almost out of time, he checked me, didn't say anything, I didn't see the check as i was in a hurry to make my move. And I was mated.

Computers don't let you play any move when you're in check. Therefore in reality, are you allowed to make a move when you're in check? or you cannot make any move? I mean should you undo any move that you do by mistake or not? And should your opponent warn you about being checked or not?

In a tournament game, you are not supposed to speak at all other than to offer a draw or adjust a piece. This includes saying check. This tends to seep into casual games among more experienced players (I haven't said check in years).

For players that do not compete in tournaments at all, I don't think that there is any obligation to point it out.

When your opponent makes an illegal move, though, as it sounds like you did after missing the check, it has to be pointed out. You can't just follow it up with a mate immediately. In blitz, making an illegal move means a loss. In a longer game, a minor time adjustment.

Especially in friendly games, a person should be polite.  Politeness, especially announcing "check" (or even "discovered check" when an opponent accidentally moves a pinned piece) goes a long way to contributing to everybody's enjoyment and their desire to continue playing the game.


Are chess engines detrimental for lower-rated players? To give some context, I just started playing OTB and am only 1225 USCF.  My online chess rating isn't much stronger though, it's about 1650 with standard time controls.

Chess engines are a great tool, but can they be detrimental to the growth of lower-rated players?  Sure, it's true that lower-rated players can use engines to spot an overlooked tactic, or to find a not-so-obvious blunder, but what about the subtle moves that chess engines suggest in positional games?

After using Stockfish to analyze a few of my games, I noticed that from time-to-time the engine would suggest moves that didn't make much sense to me.  It's hard to give a concrete example from off the top of my head, but I think a lot of lower-rated players can relate.  Engines are obviously very strong and it's easy for any player to follow along with an engine's analysis, observe it's suggestions, and think, "oh yeah, I can implement that in my own games."  But then when it comes down to crunch time, the player didn't really learn anything at all, and just deceived themselves into thinking they learned something from the engine.

What do you think?  Are engines great learning tools for lower-rated players, or does it require a higher level of chess knowledge to truly take advantage of an engine's power?

I don't think they are detrimental if they are used properly.

There is nothing you're going to learn from Stockfish that's going to make an immediate difference. By studying the analysis you'll start to learn, however.
Stockfish plays at GM strength. It's going to suggest moves you'll never find until you're a 2200+ player.  Unfortunately I am unaware of a chess engine that plays like a sensible USCF 1650, which is what you need.
Stockfish will show you where you could have made better moves. Something that is important to note is that winning moves are there, if you are clever enough to find them.  Until the game is hopeless, Stockfish can beat a USCF 1250 regardless of which side of the board it is playing.  The moves are there.

Now, while I am a fan of engines, if you want to improve, get an instructor. You don't need a GM - an "A" or "B" player will do. Also, after playing with "A" and "B" players, ask them to help you analyze the game. This gives you reasons, not just answers. And further it will help you learn how to analyze.  This is what you'll miss if you rely upon the engine too much - it will give you the answers without helping you understand the answers.

Chess engines are, in my opinion, not suitable for novice players to use for the purpose of learning chess. And the reason for my opinion is very simple: chess engines are not designed to teach chess! If that doesn't suffice as an answer, I will try to explain my views in a more detailed manner below.

Chess engines are designed to be able to evaluate any given position as accurately as possible, and using these evaluations to try and come up with an optimal sequence of moves for both sides should the game progress.

In order to evaluate positions, chess engines assign positions with a numerical value based on things such as material, king safety, etc. But the engine will never explain what positional factors were the most important ones leading to a given score of a position. This is the key as to why any chess player should use engines with caution, and treat the engine with some level of scepticism.

The chess engines are very good at what they are supposed to do; in fact, they are so good at evaluating most positions nowadays that the leading chess engines cannot be beaten by humans. This makes it very difficult to reject the computer's evaluation even if one is not sure why the computer engine evaluates a position in a seemingly strange way, or why it favours a strange-looking high-risk continuation when there are much simpler ways of bringing a game to its logical conclusion.

Here is a typical mistake people tend to make in the type of scenario described above: they just trust the computer, no questions asked, and move on. This way these players will not only learn nothing of substance, but there is an added risk of the players thinking that they actually gained some insight even though they didn't understand a thing!

That last part, about people thinking that they learned something when in fact they didn't, is not an exaggeration. This happens to people all the time in many different setting, and it has to do with how people learn in general.

In academia, the terms "Deep learning" and "Surface learning" are used to describe two very different learning approaches used by students to pass courses:

Surface learning has to do with trying to pass a course by learning the presented information with minimal effort. This often means that the student will try to memorize facts without a hint of reflection.
Deep learning has to do with considering the course contents important in some way, which drives the student to make a real effort to learn and understand the contents of a course.

For a more detailed (and in my opinion better) description of these terms, see the first few paragraphs of the following article:
Facilitation of Critical Thinking and Deep Cognitive Processing
by Structured Discussion Board Activities.

Since surface learning emphasizes on learning facts and definition, but not on actually understanding why something is true or not, it can often leave students with a severely limited ability to apply the facts learned.

In the context of learning chess, surface learning would be regarded as memorizing specific opening variations by heart, or learning positional guidelines such as "a knight on the rim is dim" without concerning oneself with the reasons behind the variations and guidelines. I think that most people would agree that this approach to learning chess would not be very successful in the long run.

Chess is a game heavily dependent on the player's ability to calculate and evaluate positions on-the-fly. There are simply too many positions to memorize, and if your opponent sidesteps any variations you may have memorized you are on your own for the rest of the game. You need to be able to judge when to side with common guidelines and when to deviate from them. And learning to play chess well is connected with cultivating these abilities by trying to understand the moves in certain variations, and why certain guidelines are formulated as they are. This is clearly more in line with the deep learning approach than the surface learning approach.

Tying this back to chess engines: using chess engines to learn chess is dangerous, since it can very easily turn into the player using surface learning approaches to learn chess. The computer only gives a numerical evaluation and optimal variations, which can easily trap the player into thinking something along the lines of "Huh! The computer says that I was winning here, if I just played the given computer line. Instead, after my move, I was losing, if my opponent just had played the given computer line. I'll remember that for next time!" without reflecting much further. The player may have learned something, but will this new knowledge help the player improve their game in any meaningful way?

With all this being said, I still think that chess engines can be used to learn chess. But it requires that the player is careful, and ready to put in a lot of effort. The player should strive to go for a mindset along the lines of "Oh I see Stockfish, you think this position is _______ huh? You silly goose, I'm going to show you just how wrong you are!" as soon as you're uncertain why the computer evaluates a position the way it does. This way you can try to force the engine to explain itself in some sense, instead of just listening to it blindly. But this is very difficult and time-consuming for a novice player to do, and I believe learning about tactics, making plans etc. is more effective for players relatively new to the game wishing to improve.


Do top chess grandmasters have significant drawing chances against top engines? the likes of stockfish and komodo are much stronger than humans. The 3300 plus ratings of these engines suggests that even the top humans would find it impossible to draw even 1 game, but is this really true? Also, are these high ratings meaningful?

Today's engines running on suitably powerful computers will most likely beat any top grandmaster.

Ratings are essentially numbers assigned to players such that a player is expected to beat some other player (a draw being counted as a half-win) some fraction of the time, based on their difference in rating. An important point is that the absolute ratings are irrelevant: if every player in the world got a 1000-point boost to their rating, nothing fundamental would change.

The mathematical details imply that according to the rating model, no matter how big the difference in rating, the weaker player will still win some fraction of the time. In the case of Elo, we assume that even the lowest-rated player in the world has a 9% chance of beating Magnus Carlsen. This is clearly a flawed assumption, but it's the kind that almost every rating system makes; and it's not too bad anyway, it works well for the most part (i.e. when rating differences aren't too big), and even at the extreme ends, the best human players can still blunder.

However, today's engines beat humans 100% of the time in a fair game (I wouldn't say there's explicit proof, but the fact that they don't even bother to hold such matches anymore says a lot, so let's just say this is true); thus it's completely meaningless to assign a FIDE rating to these silicon monsters: there is absolutely no difference whether a 2800 player meets a 3300-rated engine or a 4300-rated engine, as far as the Elo rating system is concerned. Even for an engine running on a desktop, if we assume that a top grandmaster could score some 5%, we'd still be looking at what statisticians call a tail event; rating systems (and statistics in general) are really bad at these.

So top computer engines have their own rating lists, no humans involved. But they still run on the Elo system, albeit apparently with a different 'base'. You can meaningfully compare engines here; a 100-point rating difference will probably correspond to a sensible winning percentage.

On the other hand, the difference between the FIDE rating list and computer chess rating lists (CCRLs) are completely meaningless. While CCRL base ratings were probably chosen to be higher because most computers are simply better than the best humans, this base rating is just arbitrary (at least as far as I know); we could subtract 2000 points from every rating in the CCRL and add 2000 to every rating in FIDE, and both lists will continue to function the way they have.

It seems that the modern way to compare humans to computers today is to look at scores from matches where players are given a handicap. If I recall correctly, this is reminiscent of the pre-Elo days, when players' strengths were gauged by how they fared against the best players under a handicap!

Long story short: the high ratings are meaningful when compared with other engines in the same list. On the other hand, they are absolutely worthless for comparison against humans.

Statistics state that for a 400 point rating difference, the higher rated player should win 99.9% of the time.  The slight chance for the lower rated player is due to the player's increased knowledge and human error.  Since at the grandmaster level, there is no huge increase of knowledge, and the computer will never tire, the human has, if effect, zero chance of even getting a draw.


Out of theory pgns collection Looking for pgn files that end in taking the most popular openings out of theory.

Something like
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. a3

Where I can practice them in chessable.com

Since the question is about Chessable, I thought I'd pitch in :) If you use Chessable's Explorer Tool you will be able to navigate to a position such as

d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6

and then see which options are available to you and their win rate.

For instance 3. a3 scores 36% W, 22% D, 42% B, so if you are White, you can see it would not be a good opening to pick.

By browsing like this, you can find good options and add them to your repertoire and try to avoid complex theory. You can also turn the engine on that page and check the lines with the Engine for possible continuations.

However, in my opinion, if you want to play out of theory the best thing is to pick some openings that are known for their relative lack of theory and see if a complete book exists on it (free or otherwise). For instance, Fianchetto systems or the London System come to mind as ways to play where you can play without much theory.

As Black, I've had a Master play things like the Pirc/Modern against me where they "wait" on the third rank for you. They did not seem to be playing theory but rather just a standard set of moves (fianchetto a bishop, play e6, etc.). I had a better position but since they took me out of theory into murky waters, eventually their time advantage paid off, and I lost. Presumably, this is what you are trying to do? :)

Having said all that, this week we are releasing a new book by a renowned French chess coach that has relatively little theory and guides you to sound openings where your opponent can quickly get in trouble. So stay tuned and look out for it!

Chesstempo.com's database can help you with that.


What's the problem with the Austrian Defense? So, I looked on the lichess analysis board and played around with it for a while, and I couldn't find any reason why 2...c5 isn't considered an accurate response to 1 d4 d5 2 c4.  Does anyone know why this is?

After 3. cxd5, any sensical black response is met with 4. dxc5. The time it takes for black to regain those pawns is lost on white's development, e.g. 4... e6 5. e4! exd5 6. Bb5+ Nc6 (or Bd7 7. Bxd7 Qxd7 8. Nd2) 7. Nc3.

White's opened up the center - favorable because of black's daft, dithering development - and obtains a game with winning chances.


Is there a chess engine that does NOT use brute-force search? Every chess engine I've ever heard of (including all I found listed on Wikipedia) uses brute-force search with an evaluation function (minmax algorithm) to decide on its move.

This is not how most humans approach the game, employing general pattern recognition instead, so in principle, it would be possible for computers to do the same.

Is there any chess engine that does not rely on the brute-force approach to find its moves?

There were attempts back in the 1980s to write chess engines with knowledge bases that would pick candidate moves like humans, but they were unsuccessful. The problem is that human pattern matching is difficult to put into words, so creating the rules for the knowledge base was extremely difficult.

Training a neural network to pick candidate moves seems like a promising line of research. Here and here might be two pertinent papers. (FWIW, It is not my field of Comp Sci)

Basically all of them!

Chess engines really only use brute-force when:

told to
are analysing positions (problem solving)
Looking for a checkmate (problem solving, not when playing against, like "find the mate in N" style problems)

Otherwise they have a "selective search", this will consider all the possible moves for a given board layout, but only explore a handful of them. An engine may switch to brute-force though if it rates two moves very similarly (more than one strong move) or if it cannot find a move it likes (no strong moves).

They also tend to brute-force as a last line of defense, if you've seen a checkmate chances are it can see it coming and it will want to try really hard to draw, and cannot find a way out (the "Horizon effect" is a problem with engines, suppose it is going to loose it's queen, and it's been capped to only go 4 plays deep; if it can trade pawns and postpone that loss of the queen for 4 moves it will think it has saved the queen, in the process it'll loose at least 1 pawn (as the next move brings the horizon from before closer) and the weight it places on saving the queen may mean it sacrifices some defense, for nothing if the death goes over the horizon).

It will also brute-force when the selective search isn't very useful. This is why engines take longer when they have like 3 pieces left. They have to brute-force because the selection algorithm cannot rate a move. The selection algorithm is great during the midgame because it can be like "Oohh, doing this with the pawn blocks his [whatever] and backs up my [whatever] and [whatever] which I have a lesser number defending than attacking" - for instance.

If you have a king in the middle of the board there are 8 moves, the selective search will be like "None of these do anything useful, I can't tell".

You can think of the selective search as having two parts, it is tactical in the sense of it'll try and spot tactical moves, it will ignore the weight of the pieces involved usually because a queen not a part of any strategy is not worth more than a pawn vital to it. It is also strategic in that it'll explore moves that bolster a defense, and open up later to potential attacks.

The engine then does the same from your point of view, and back and forth and back and forth.

Something called a transposition table is a big list of things it has thought about, that way if it ends up considering something it has already done, it knows and doesn't have to re-evaluate it.

UNLESS (selective :)) it gets there a different way, or wants to explore further. Suppose for example it discovers that your ... rook is essential to an impending attack, the engine may re-evaluate a line when it discovers this. The previous weight it put on that rook (eg 5 points, how important it is to you) might be an under-estimate.

The selective search can also backtrack, like say its considering a bishop moving right into enemy territory, to the move selector it is not important that it can be taken easily. Say it discovers that strategically that is a superb move! It may then backtrack to try and find a way to protect that square to get that bishop there. Suppose it involves a pawn to do so.

The brute-force method would consider the line involving that pawn move, and (by brute force) the bishop move too, and the same stuff that rates the board position (the selective search itself) will say "this is good" so the board rates that variation highly, both find it.

It's very hard to rate a position using the brute-force method, this is why the selective search works so well.

The brute-force from the starting position might find that famous mate-in-4 that involves a queen f7 covered by a bishop, and if it were to rate that highly (I'VE FOUND A CHECKMATE! JOB DONE! PLAY!) it'd be wrong because black will obviously counter. The selective search rates a position (for further evaluation) because it is appears to be good. This means when it is considering your response it can decide what would be good for you....

So the stuff that the selective search uses to rate things is used by the brute-force one anyway because "found a checkmate involving this move" is not enough to say that move is good.

Hence What are the first moves chosen (White), by brute force chess engines?


Is it true that at any time only one piece can put king in check? I am writing a simple chess game in which I have to determine the end game conditions. My algorithm requires the piece that is putting the opponent king in check, and checks the following:

King cannot escape
Piece cannot be eliminated
Path cannot be blocked

If all three conditions satisfy, then it is checkmate. However, I am wondering if there can be more than one piece simultaneously putting a king in check. It doesn't seem to be possible, but I can't come up with a proof for it. For example, is it possible for 2 rooks to put a king in check at the same time? Personally, I don't think that it's possible.

Double check is a fine tactic. An example would be a bishop lined up on the same diagonal as the king with a rook or knight in the way blocking the check. The rook or knight moves giving check to the king and also uncovering the check from the bishop. The king must move since there is no way to block two different lines or take two different pieces at the same time.

In standard chess, you can illegally can check a king 8 times at once. Consider 8 knights a that are leap away from the enemy king.

[FEN "4k3/8/3n1n2/2n3n1/4K3/2n3n1/3n1n2/8 w - - 0 1"]

The king still has his orthogonal moves left, and is now 1 move away from attacking 2 of the knights. Since both of them are unprotected, one of the 8 knights may move to where the king was, to protect all 7 other knights. The King is not necessarily trapped, but certainly not free.


What is a more efficient thinking process? I'm a bit of a perfectionist and strive to make the best move every game. As a result I think I expend too much brain power throughout the game and get burned out or overwhelmed by the possibilites, for example in the opening I would try consider all my opponents responses of which there are many in the opening, sometimes I feel habits such as these are unnecessary and are just a waste of energy. What is the most correct way to expend your mental energy in a chess game?

When you learn an opening you learn sequences of moves and the ideas behind those moves. If your opponent follows "book" then you don't have too much to think about. Probably just "Which variation am I going to play today? Am I feeling like a quiet strategic game or a wild tactical game?"

If your opponent plays a move you are not familiar with then there are two questions and two situations to cover.

1) You are playing a sharp, tactical opening where there are lots of threats and he didn't counter your threat and isn't counter threatening anything. In that case carry out your threat!

2) You are playing a quieter opening in which you are both just developing your pieces. In that case, after checking for threats, ask yourself if his move stops you developing the way you wanted. If it doesn't then carry on. If it does then work out how you now need to develop the rest of your pieces.

In the middlegame it is a bit different. When it is your turn you do need to calculate what you evaluate are your opponent's best replies.

When it is your opponent's turn it depends how many good looking possibilities he has. If it looks like just one or two forced or "best" replies then stay in your seat and calculate those. If it is a complicated position with lots of equally likely looking possibilities then either take a step back and look at the position from a long term strategical point of view or save your energy, go get a cup of coffee or glass of water or relax looking at other games whilst keeping half an eye on whether your opponent has moved yet.

The more efficient thinking process is definitely not to take too much time on the chess board during a Tournament Game .

Openings you need to choose by yourself and there are lines till 20th moves where you need to remember and that is absolutely up to you .

In the middle game you need to find out always Opponent's which piece is crossing half of the board .
You might need to find out the Opponent's most aggressive reply .
When you are getting attacked "Always thing that Counterattack is the best defence.
When you do not have a plan in the middle game always try capturing the centre squares . This will always help you to attack on any part of the board .
Plus you sometimes need to sac material to gain activity on any part of the board .

Above are some of the examples that you need to follow to have the best of the thinking .


Why not fight off a bishop on row 5 with pawns? Oftentimes a bishop will move to b5 or g5 early in the game.

I personally never do this because I see a6 coming, and if I move the bishop back to a4, then b5, nearly trapping the bishop, and certainly having made it a waste of time to move it to b5 in the first place.

However, when I watch games by top-level players, bishops get moved to the 5 row all the time, and nobody ever fights them away with pawns like I think they will. Why not?

Here are a couple of relevant questions and answers that might help to explain why the bishop move happens:

Morphy Defence in Ruy Lopez
Why is the Ruy Lopez such a common opening?

In summary the main points seem to be that:

Black loses as much time chasing the bishop as White does retreating it
White can gain a long-term advantage from Black's weaker Queen side pawn structure

As you might expect in such a popular opening though it's very finely balanced for both sides.

If as you say you are not seeing a6 and b5 in the games you're looking at, you might be looking at games where Black plays the Berlin Defence: 3... Nf6. This is quite popular at the moment in very high level games.

If you want to see some games where the pawn move a6 is played, "putting the question to the bishop", here's a link: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessopening?eco=C70

"Spanish Bishop" can become very useful and strong piece, especially when it arrives on the c2 square sometimes.


How to resign when my opponent is not at the board? This happened to me yesterday.  It was unreasonable for me to play on, so I was going to resign but my opponent was not at the board.  They probably left the board to watch another game, waiting for my next move.

Question:  What is the correct way to resign if my opponent is not at the board?

I stopped the clock, wrote 1-0 on my scoresheet (I was black), and started resetting the pieces.  But this doesn't strike me as an officially correct thing to do.

I agree with Cleveland that what you did is probably sufficient. One other thing you can always do if you can't find the opponent and are concerned that you might be seen as doing something suspicious is to call the arbiter and announce your resignation to them.

find the TD and give them your scoresheet and say your opponent is MIA.


Aggressive variation against Queen's Gambit Declined? My style favors aggressive, complicated openings. I have constructed a suitable repertoire with White beginning with 1. d4 with one exception. I have so far been unable to find a satisfactory response to

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6.

I would prefer not to play the Exchange Variation because it is extremely popular among my regular opponents, but if it is the only option I would consider it. However, this would mean also finding something against the Alatortsev (3... Be7).

Can anyone give me a good suggestion? I'm willing to go into less popular lines if they have been tested by a 2700+ at least once.

Edit: To be clear, I'm already set vs. the Slav/Semi-Slav. I'm purely concerned with situations where Black does not play c6 at some point.

Maybe the 5.Bf4 lines are a good fit. In the 5.Bg5 lines, black can often exchange bishops with the Lasker/Capablance maneuver, involving an early ...Ne4 or ...Nd5 forcing the bishop exchange, and it is hard to get aggressive play against that. 5.Bf4 avoids that, with the drawback that there is less pressure on d5, allowing ...c5 by black. Usually white takes the pawn.

There's an all star list of top players who have used it -- Kasparov, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Kramnik, Gelfand, Korchnoi, et cetera.

I should probably add an example game here but I don't know one from the top of my head and I don't have much time...

A recent book that advocates this line is Burgess' "A Cunning Repertoire for White", which is a generic 1.d4 opening repertoire book.

For your style my suggestion is e4 followed by f3 if he capture with the pawn, if he capture with the knight,take knight and then f3!


What Chess board companies are the most reputable? As a follow up to my original question What are the characteristics of a good chess board? I was wondering what companies are the most reputable for Chess board construction.  Since I am just a beginner I am curious at lower cost beginner boards, but also in other boards that I might want to splurge on one day if I really get into Chess.

The standard vinyl board is hard to beat for everything except showing off a chess set.  You can get them for cheap from the USCF or from any other purveyor of chess gear.

Here's one from Cajun chess for $4.  I bought a few sets from them. I like them.

Looks like tournament-sized wooden boards begin at $50.

"Caveat Emptor"

A lot of the chess sets out there look pretty nice, but frankly most of the manufacturers invest all their effort into attractive molds and durable plastic.  Very few of them offer even the most basic features that you would expect in this day and age - the features that would most enhance your game.

I just spent over $50 for a tournament set for my son.  Yes, it has hefty, triple-weighted pieces for stability and an attractive Staunton design, and the pieces seem very durable.  The set even came with extra queens - a nice touch for those four-queen positions you get every once in a while.  But look at what it doesn't have:

Undo.  This feature has been in cheap word processors since the '80's, but is totally missing from the set.
Syntax Checking.  The set allows illegal moves without so much as a warning. This has been a feature of programming editors since the '90s.
Speed Regulation.  The set allows me to make moves as hastily as I want, even though my game always suffers as a result.  For goodness sake, the escapement has been a part of clocks since the 13th Century!
Drink Holders.  Ok, this one is just a personal preference, but my minivan comes with about 16.  You would think that a chess set would have space for at least two.

The upshot:  It doesn't seem to matter how much you spend, you aren't going to get these sorts of features.  So if you ask me, all the companies out there are ripping us off.  The USCF has been doing it the longest - I suppose there is some merit to the thought that if you are going to be swindled, get swindled by someone who has been at it for a long time and has swindled lots of others.  It's less embarrassing.