Is it better to start without a queen or without any pawns? I think that this question really can be answered rigorously with good analysis. It is opinion-based, but not completely since some results in this direction can be obtained, and strict and general guidelines can be given, along with good heuristics and reasons for the advantage of one or the other side. So, let us go straight to the description of a question.
Some of you wrote about some system of points I really did not know of, that assigns values to figures, according to their "strength". Of course, it all depends on the positions in the game and on the tactics and strategies, but, I have a legal question to ask.
Suppose that two players are starting the game, and that they are equally good (in this context, meaning that all the strategies that one player knows of the other one knows too, and vice-versa). One is starting the game without 8 pawns and with a queen, and the other one is without a queen and with 8 pawns. Who, generally, has the advantage?
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/8/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNB1KBNR w - - 0 1 "]

I think that this can answer this can be determined through very rigorous and sufficient analysis. It seems also that there is a tendency to favor the side with a queen and without pawns, but I do not see exactly why, and do not understand the reason for that?
Can it be explained, with sufficient analysis of the problem, the main issues of both sides, with givem heuristics about what would (or should) happen later in the game? Is there really a real advantage for one side, and why?
Edit: Now, after some thinking, I am of the opinion that this question is harder than it might seem to be, and, although much can be written and said about this starting configuration, I think that general consensus will not be so easy to establish. I am of the opinion that the White one is, generally, in advantage, but am unsure on how to prove that, and, someone with much more experience and games behind him/her could obtain some precise and thorough analysis. If someone is in close contact with masters of chess, and can ask them about an opinion, we could be closer to some conclusions. As for me, the more I think about this problem, the more hard it becomes to me.

Other than the computer evaluation proving that the Q is better, the biggest problem here is that black basically starts out fully developed since his pieces already have amazing scope, and can quickly coordinate his forces, and attack.

Black with Queen is computed as massive advantage. Therefore if white gets Queen he could get a quick or not so quick mate due to the extra tempo which counts a lot at game start. Surely this has been computed and it must give a bigger advantage to Queen team if not actual mate.


Is this a good idea for starting the game? Usually I am a defensive player. Because of this, a few years ago, I created an opening set of moves, where I moved every other pawn forward 1 space, starting with pawn A2. To be more specific, I moved pawns 2A, 2C, 2E, and 2G to 3A, 3C, 3E, and 3G, respectively.

There are ways to get through to row 1 using a queen or bishop, but except for one way (going diagonally to 1H with a queen), any piece will be immediately destroyed at almost any point in rows 1-4. That one way, using a queen to get to 1H, does do a lot of damage, because eventually it threatens the king, and is hard to be stopped.

I am an amateur chess player, so I do not know a lot about all of the tactics. To experienced chess players, this may look like a stupid question. I apologize for that.

Is this weakness enough to make the strategy not worth it, or is it still a good idea?

It's definitely not a good idea. If it were one, there would be a real opening for it. One problem with moving all your white-squared pawns 1 space forward, is that you lose so many moves developing your pieces. However, this is the 'small' disadvantage. The big one is, that all of your white squares are very weak.

Look at this position:

[fen ""]
1. a3 e5 2. c3 d5 3. e3 e4 4. g3 Nc6

Black just needs to put his pieces on nice squares like for example Ne5 or Nc4, Bg4 with Nf6. Also a disadvantage is that you lose much space. Your knights have nearly no squares, where they can move. Bc1 is completely useless.

If you lose your white-squared bishop, the black pieces will destroy you, because you can't defend all the white squares.

This is a style known as a "hedgehog" defense, but it is not a good one, because it is "random." Specifically, it allows Black to play moves like c5, d5, e5 and pieces right behind them, without interference. The resulting formation will be stronger in terms of board control than yours. Also, you have put all your pawns on Black squares, meaning that if your light squared bishop is ever lost or exchanged, you'll be very weak on light squares, as one of the other answers pointed out.

There are hedgehog defenses, mostly for Black, such as d6 and e6. As White, you can play d3 and e3, but why do so when you have the extra move. But these moves are part of a whole plan, and need to be followed up correctly. Your system doesn't do this or have much of a plan.


Flexibility over solidity? Defending against 1. e4 When defending against 1. e4, I'm a French Defense player. I enjoy the French Defense very much, and my win rate with it is fairly good. Lately, though, I've been wanting to explore new defenses, only to spice my game up (I'm getting bored of the typical positions that come out of the french, as wild as some of them may be).

I consider the french to be solid, yet not flexible. By this I mean that the usual French setups are hard to break and resilient, but offer little strategical freedom (this is, there are few logical strategical plans that actually fit the position). It is as if I'm playing all my games with the same two or three long-term plans, not because of lack of imagination, but because this are the plans that usually emerge as logical in the typical positions.

In opposition to this, I'm looking for a new defense that prioritizes flexibility above all, even if not as solid as the french.  An opening that offers a wide variety of strategical ideas and creative play. The Sicilian is a candidate, but there are too many variations to learn and I'm not interested on it at the moment. I'm considering also the Pirc Defense, which I believe to be also flexible enough.

Can anyone recommend a flexible defense against 1. e4? Comments on the mere ideas of flexibility/solidity in the defensive setup are welcome too, as of course these relates to the actual question.

It sounds like you are drawn to the pirc so try it out and see.  The pirc/modern is very flexible and if you play the king's indian that you can transpose into that if White plays c4 to make a universal system.

I like the fluidity of being able to see how my opponent sets up first and then respond.  I like the dynamic potential.  Rather than backward black's position feels like a "coiled spring" ready to lash out.  I haven't been blown off the board with e2-e4-e5 and h2-h4-h5 in a while so I think I am getting the hang of the direct assault lines.

You want too much.

Either play d6  or the sicilian.
Else just play e5   when they play e4.

in spite of erroneous claims e5 is as solid a defense as any other first move and it gives you those different positions you say you prefer over the limited french strategy type positions.


Why does a knight combine better with the queen than a bishop does? From this question, the couple queen + knight is strong in attacking the opponent's king.

I searched why the knight combines better than the bishop with a queen, and all I could find, from this article, is:

  "Knights cooperate better than bishops with the queen, as the two
  pieces complement each other and will control the position better."

Can you explain why?

It is a fairly short and simple explanation:

They can combine to attack any square, not just squares on one color. As part of that they can also shift the attack better from one square to another.

The bishop is in general, a weak end game piece.

In some end games the bishop is more valuable than a knight, but this is only if the bishop is your only piece that can move an arbitrary distance in a single move. That's an important end game function for being able to snatch pawns while still providing pressure from a distance.

As long as this "spooky action at a distance" function is covered by some other piece, the knight is generally stronger, which is why it pairs better with a queen.


Can solving lots of mate in one (or two) problems be beneficial? I am a ~1500 player on chess.com (so I'm in the online beginner-intermediate range).

There is a book titled "Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games" by Lazlo Polgar, father of Judit, Susan and Sofia. From amazon:

  Chess analyzes more than 5,000 unique instructional situations, many taken from real matches, including 306 problems for checkmate in one move, 3,412 mates in two moves, 744 mates in three moves, 600 miniature games, 144 simple endgames, and 128 tournament game combinations.

Mate in one and two problems aren't usually too difficult to solve with experience. But my question is, does the difficulty of the problem matter? Isn't pattern recognition a crucial part of studying chess? I feel like I can get a lot more from simple mate in one (or two) problems then just solving them, and going to the next problem right away.

For example, these simple situations seem to be really beneficial, if I think about them as positions I want to achieve in real games, and if I try to analyze the position.

Or maybe I am dead wrong about this, and I should concentrate on doing problems, that are difficult to solve.

Any opinions?

There's a wide array of opinions as to the debate on whether simple problems done repetitively, or more challenging problems are better for improvement at tactics.

My personal opinion is that both have their place and both improve different essential things. Getting those simple problems down cold is very good for pattern recognition and board vision, but the more challenging problems improve tactical analysis abilities, problem solving skills, and help prepare a player for tournament situations.

As for whether your collection of thousands of mate in 1 or 2's would be very helpful, I'd say that mating patterns are certainly important to practice but I don't know if you really need to train with quite so many. It certainly wouldn't hurt, but you might have faster growth practicing with the mating problems on chesstempo. They have them tagged and you can create your own sets of problems if you're a member.

I have this book somewhere, but it's been a long time since I looked at it, and I don't recall having gotten past the mate in three puzzles.

I believe the point of the book was to start off by building the pattern recognition. I do remember that the puzzles would typically be grouped with others having a similar pattern, and that the longer ones built on the shorter puzzles.

It's not a bad idea to do difficult problems, but it does help to have a good foundation in at least some of the patterns, so you have an idea of what to look for in candidate moves.


What is the most complex chess problem? There are many chess problems and studies that are very nuanced and can take ages to properly figure out.

What is the chess puzzle/problem with the longest (proven) solution?

If you're looking for the puzzle with the longest forced sequence, it would be this position ,which contains a win for white in 549 moves.
[FEN "1n1k4/6Q1/5KP1/8/7b/1r6/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

It was found by computers from the generation of 7-man endgame tablebases, and there are several similar positions with the same distance to mate.
If that seems a little extreme, then the longest mate puzzle made by a human was Otto Blathy's 'monster', which is a mate in 292 moves but contains an illegal starting position (i.e. it could never occur in a real game).
If you won't accept that, then here are the current record-holders for the longest puzzles created by a person from legal positions - A mate in 271 with 'obtrusive units' (legal, but must have come about through piece promotion, such as having two dark-squared bishops) and a mate in 267 without those. And, surprisingly, both of those were created by the same person.
As for the "most variations that don't work" as you stated, it's probably also the mate in 549 listed above, with the number of moves that would let the other player slip out or otherwise prolong the sequence even more.

I have discovered a selfmate requiring 1,351 moves to enforce. Admittedly this position consumed more than thirteen years of study, a luxury of spare time offered by a life sentence in Federal prison for bank robbery.


Two Knights Defense 4. Ng5 - Strategy? I've been trying do some research on the defence against 4. Ng5, since it has been a really big thorn in my side for a bit of time.

[FEN ""]
[StartPly "7"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5

I've firstly taken a look into the Traxler attack, but I'm unsure about it since it's such a 'hack' line and well, it's a bit unreliable in a really big match.

I am looking at mainline with Na5 and c6, but I am not quite sure how Black keeps up the initiative from there. His queenside looks a bit shattered and White seems to be fine with happily developing his queenside.

Can anyone tell me some kind of plan or theory on the classical refutation against 4. Ng5?
Thanks!

As someone who plays 4.Ng5 as White, I can tell you what I've found to be the hardest Black line against me: 4...d5 5.exd5 Na5 6.Bb5+ c6 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.Be2 h6 9.Nf3 e4 10.Ne5 Bc5!?

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Be2 (8. Qf3 Be7 9. Bxc6+ Nxc6 10. Qxc6+ Bd7 11. Qf3 O-O) h6 9. Nf3 e4 10. Ne5 Bc5!? (10...Bd6 11. f4 exf3 12. Nxf3) 11. c3 (11. O-O Qd4 12. Ng4 Bxg4 13. Bxg4 e3) O-O 12. b4 (12. O-O Qc7) Qd5!?

The theory move is 10...Bd6 hitting the knight, but as White I've found that 11.f4 exf3 12.Nxf3 gives White a comfortable enough game a pawn up.

10...Bc5!? takes f4 off the table because of king safety, and Black can attack the near-trapped knight with the queen instead. A main line might be 11.c3 (11.O-O Qd4) O-O 12.b4 (12.O-O Qc7) Qd5!?


Is the Scandinavian Defence inferior? As Black, I have never played the Scandinavian Defence, nor have I ever liked the Center Game for White.  It seems like 1. e4 d5 wastes valuable time after 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 and Black's Queen must flee, while White can comfortably develop:

The same drawback goes to White in the Center Game:

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5. 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6

But the opening, notwithstanding, appears to be still popular, and online players have often played it against me.  Is there some redeeming virtue that I'm missing in this defence?

Here are a few reasons one may take up the defense:

Despite having the Queen kicked by the Knight, the Queen is in no real danger of being trapped, its most common escape locations being to a5 and d6.
Black's pawn structure is solid, in similar ways to the Caro-Kann.
The number of lines Black needs to know are fairly limited, this makes it an easy defense to get into.
It's not played very often, so the Black player will likely have more familiarity with the positions than White.
Black is able to develop all the pieces and castle in relative safety; notable is the ability to develop with the Bishop on c8 before ...e6 is played.

The Scandinavian defense is theoretically inferior because White will gain time with his actual, and potential threats to chase the queen. Unlike the Scotch game, the threats against the queen are real, because no pairs of knights have been exchanged, and only one pair of pawns.

But it takes very accurate play by White to realize this advantage. The black queen can be placed aggressively at a5, which can cause White some discomfort. Hence, it popularity in an online or club game, where mediocre (White) players abound.


Is this a checkmate for White? [FEN "8/3RkQ2/3B4/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

Is there a way out for Black?
 My son and I finished this way (only the relevant parts of the position are shown in the diagram), but reading about stalemates now has us confused. We are new to the game and I would appreciate an explanation.

This would be checkmate, because the king is in check and has no valid move to escape. But it's impossible to get into this position if you follow normal chess rules. The most you can do is a double-check (using a discovered attack), but your position shows a triple-check.

The stalemate rule is only applicable when the king is not in check, so it doesn't apply here.

Here is explanation about Discovered Check:
Discovered check happens when one piece moved and after moving that piece the attack of anther piece touches the king it is discovered check.

Discovered Check could be happend and result maximum 2 checks Suppose an empty Chess board and if my enemy's black king on E file on E8 square and my white rook is on E1 and white bishop is on E2 then if i move my white bishop to H5 square now note the situation
My bishop is attacking from H5 square to my enemy king
My rook's way is cleared now and rook now attacking from E1 square.

this is one illustration of Discovered check many other possibilities could happen in game.

You could play with me on Chess.com my username is hasanbadshah :)

remember two rooks can never create a discovered check.
but queen+rook can create it would be like of rook move and check, which result cleared the queen's way which also threatening the enemy king so it is discovered.
If any confusion u have feel free to post.


Does Google's new quantum computer mean we will soon have a more powerful AlphaZero? According to a paper published in Nature Google has developed a quantum computer.

  Abstract

  The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks
  might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on
  a classical processor. A fundamental challenge is to build a
  high-fidelity processor capable of running quantum algorithms in an
  exponentially large computational space. Here we report the use of a
  processor with programmable superconducting qubits to create quantum
  states on 53 qubits, corresponding to a computational state-space of
  dimension 2^53 (about 10^16).

  Measurements from repeated experiments sample the resulting
  probability distribution, which we verify using classical simulations.
  Our Sycamore processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance
  of a quantum circuit a million times—our benchmarks currently indicate
  that the equivalent task for a state-of-the-art classical
  supercomputer would take approximately 10,000 years. This dramatic
  increase in speed compared to all known classical algorithms is an
  experimental realization of quantum supremacy for this specific
  computational task, heralding a much-anticipated computing paradigm.

On a cautionary note, Google's central claim, that they have performed in 200 seconds computation that would take current state-of-the-art supercomputers 10,000 years is disputed by IBM in a blog post which claims that:

  We argue that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on
  a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity. This is
  in fact a conservative, worst-case estimate, and we expect that with
  additional refinements the classical cost of the simulation can be
  further reduced.

3 minutes 20 seconds to perform what would take 2.5 days is still pretty impressive and presumably up-scaling would produce (exponentially) better results.

Note that quantum computing is not so well suited to linear processing, such as would typically be used to generate tablebases, but is ideally suited to highly parallel processes like those used in AlphaZero.

Does this advance mean we can look forward to a vastly improved AlphaZero?

TLDR: No

Reasoning: Quantum Computers in the short to medium term only have some very specific things efficiently (factoring and discrete log and a few others). The algorithm google showed "quantum supremecy" on is basically simulating a random quantum circuit to generate random numbers, which is

about as favorable an algorithm as you could imagine
completely useless as an algorithm since there are plenty of simpler random number generators
probably not even quantum supremecy achieved IBM paper

For general tasks, quantum computers achieve a quadratic speedup assuming a large enough quantum computer (compared to exponential or more speedup for the demonstrated problem). Furthermore, to even run a basic chess evaluation function on a quantum computer you would need at least an order of magnitude more qbits than state of the art (probably way more, but I'm hedging).

Overall, quantum computers now are at about the same stage as computers were in the 1800s. It will be a while before they are useful for anything, and chess is highly unlikely to be something they are ever used for seriously.

No! But maybe someday. Quantum computers are overhyped as much as AI. For the near future, they are a hope on the drawing board somewhere.


A variant in the French defence advance variation Consider the following beginning, quite typical of the advance variation of the French defense:

[fen ""]

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3

On what I have seen on the web, the recommended black's next moves are
6. ... Nh6, or 6. ... Bd7. But what about 6. ... f6 ? Lately this has been played
regularly against me with the white pieces, and I don't know what to do. Any idea?

Thanks,

Joël

Actually, the GM who taught me (Vladimir Kosyrev) plays c4! closing the structure then Na5 then Bd7 then Nb3, after Nxb3, you pin the N on b3 with Ba4! and you can leave the pin until the queen moves, of course castle long and f5 to break through on the king side

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Nf3 Qb6 6. a3 c4 7. Nbd2 Na5! 8. g3 Bd7 9. Bg2 Nb3 10. Nxb3 Ba4!

Feel free to look up Vladimir Kosyrevs french games in this position after 6... c4!


Can 5D chess be solved? An interesting new variant of chess has emerged, showing that chess will always be fresh-5D chess.
I mostly play the 5x5 version, but the positions do not rocket out of control like in the standard 8x8.
Given its uncomplicated nature, with current computing power, could it be possible to solve this variant of chess?

This link explores a way that white can force a draw. Perhaps this is game-breaking and makes the solution process much easier.
I am only an casual chess player and I’m mainly transcribing “5D Lexi”’s analysis.
My attempt at transcribing it (there’s no standard notation for 5D chess)

e3 Kf6
Bb5 c6
c3 ...

The idea is for white to go for Qb3 and then Queen to f7 to move 1. Black should not play cxb5 because he needs active counter play against this idea.

... Qc7
Qb3 d5 (defending this timeline)
Qf7 to turn 1 (check) Kxf7 (the following is all in this new timeline)
Kf3 Kf6
Ke5 one move back in the same timeline (critical move)

Note: the new timeline is an inactive timeline, so Black doesn’t have to play here. This might be the reason that it’s a forced draw, not a win.
Now, black has difficulties creating another timeline without losing. Because if Black time-travels to a location after move 2, then the present is shifted to move 2, but white’s Knight is checkmating Black’s King on the adjacent timeline.
Black can conceivably travel further back, to turn 1, to defend.
Honestly just watch the video :)

In theory, someone could create a computer program that could log every possible set of moves up to a certain amount of moves; however, it might take a great while to build and run such a program.


For white's next move, should it be recorded as Nge2 or Ne2 as there is only one knight which can legally move to e2? [FEN "rnbq1rk1/ppp2ppp/4pn2/3p4/1bPP4/2NBP3/PP3PPP/R1BQK1NR w KQ - 0 6"]

If white move his king knight to e2 in the next move, should this move be recorded as Nge2 or Ne2 in the algebraic notation?

After all, the other knight cannot legally move to e2 in this move.

It doesn't matter. The purpose of algebraic notation is to produce an unambiguous record of the game, not a canonical representation that you could compare character by character.

This is not spelled out on the official rules, but I believe it is the inescapable conclusion considering that some parts of the notation are explicitly optional (here I'm talking about the FIDE Laws of Chess); for example:

  [...] each player is free to use the name which is commonly used in his country [...]

  A longer form containing the square of departure is acceptable.

  [...] an x may be inserted [...]

  [...] ‘e.p.’ may be appended.

  [...] The last four [capture, check, checkmate, and en passant] are optional.

That said, the rules are clear that disambiguation is only needed when two identical pieces can move to the same square, so the "correct" notation would be Ne2.

The correct notation stays Nge2 irrespective of the fact that Nce2 would be an illegal move in this position.

In such cases, always remember that the notation should be as complete and self-contained as possible, such that everything that happens in the game remains reproducible, even errors such as illegal moves. These things become more relevant when conflicts arise and an arbiter has to resolve it based on the record of the game. So by writing Nge2 you'll have left no room for uncertainty.

Chess notation serves merely as a way of recording the state and evolution of a game in a fully reproducible manner, it is not an implementation of the rules of the game per se.


What can I play against 1.d4? I've been playing chess for some time and I've studied lots of theory, but I don't know what to play against 1. d4. I'm searching for something with good chances for black but without much theory.

Note: If someone has some videos or theory on Chigorin that would work really fine.

Unfortunately for you, there is no such opening.

You see, the problem with 1.d4 is that d pawn is protected from the very start, unlike his "colleague" e pawn. While it is possible to cut down on theory learning against 1.e4 by simply attacking the e pawn ( Alekhine's defense, Scandinavian defense, Petroff defense in a way ) thus forcing White's response, you can not use the same method against 1.d4 since the pawn is protected as I mentioned earlier.

So your only chance is to find an opening that has the least amount of theory to learn, but be warned--all good defenses against 1.d4 have lots of theory worked out to move 30 and sometimes beyond. Just because the number of branches is small does not mean that the sub-variations are short.

Yet another problem with 1.d4 and an important one--I use this all the time to quickly demolish opponents with weak opening knowledge--most of the good defenses to 1.d4 can be dodged by careful move order transposition!

Your problem is far more complex because of this. Currently Nimzo-Indian scores very well against 1.d4 but can be dodged if White plays 3.Nf3 instead of 3.Nc3. Then you are forced to adopt Queen's gambit declined or Queen's Indian defense and both of those openings give slight advantage to White, which severely reduces your chances to win.

King's Indian defense still holds but is prone to become "refuted" from time to time, only to be revived again with some great novelty. Still this defense, along with Queen's gambit declined does offer you one benefit other defenses do not:

White can not use transpositional tricks to kick you out of your opening!

You can play both openings against anything White throws at you, whether it is 1.c4/1.Nf3 or 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3/g3 or whatever. Still, if White is a weaker player he can exploit the King's Indian defense to exchange early and try to draw--he has good chances to fulfill this goal as things currently stand.

Queen's gambit declined is also immune to transpositions and has that benefit that its exchange variation is everything but a draw! It leads to some exciting positions and both opponents must know what they are doing. It is highly theoretical but the number of lines is fairly low. They are not razor-sharp but you need to know them or else you will be "smothered to death". Black usually parries White's threats first, and "shoots" later. Most of the time you get the king side attack but it usually draws. Queen's gambit declined lines without the exchange variation are also theoretical, but the number of lines is relatively small there as well.

If we compare King's Indian defense and Queen's gambit declined then KID gives you better winning chances compared to QGD, but you will benefit more as a player from playing QGD since its pawn structure can arise in many other openings ( Nimzo-Indian, Caro-Kann to name just a few ). Also, QGD lines have withstood the test of time while KID is always in some kind of crisis from time to time.

To make the choice between these two, you should see what type of pawn structures you play against 1.e4 and base your choice on that:

If you play Caro-Kann/French defense/Alekhine's defense... then go with the QGD, but if you play the Sicilian/Ruy Lopez/1...e5 in general then go for KID since the pawn structure is similar. That way you will shorten the amount of time you need to learn the opening and its middle-game.

A SMALL NOTE REGARDING YOUR EDIT:

[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nc6!? 3.g3!

and "bye bye" Chigorin! You will enter a Catalan if you are lucky or will get smashed by the pressure White's light squared bishop will exert on your center.

If you still need something on Chigorin defense seek games of A.Morozevich. I think he also wrote a book on the Chigorin defense as well-Google and you shall find it!

Still, be prepared to learn another opening as well just in case wHite "kicks you out" of Chigorin with the move order I posted above.

END OF NOTE

This is my Achilles heel as well, and this is what I did to solve it.

If you have questions leave a comment and I will reply.

Hopefully this answer will help you to solve your complex problem.

Guh. Theory - theory - theory - you throw that word around like it is a light blanket in a blizzard.
Play something you are comfortable with. If 'theory' you are trying to avoid, run away from the Nimzo-indian, Catalan, Slav, King's Indian.
What is your rating? Do you even know what opening 'theory' is? If you are not 2200+ then it's a moot discussion.


Is a "Strong King" handicap really as powerful as is claimed? Wikipedia quotes an analysis by GM Harry Golombek (from Golombek’s Encyclopedia of Chess, Crown Publishers, 1977, p. 218. I do not have access to the source) where he lists possible handicaps, in order of increasing severity.

The last item in the list is "Strong king", where the king is given the ability to move up to two squares in any direction. It appears further down (that is, a bigger handicap) than "Queenside odds" where the stronger player gives up a queen, rook, knight and bishop.

I can understand that this is powerful because a strong king is harder to mate (AFAIK, even K+Q can't mate a strong king. Not only does he have more escape routes, the normal king can't get too close to the action) and in general is hard to put pressure against.

But seriously, more powerful than Q+R+B+N? Is this a mistake? If not, where can I find an analysis that supports this claim?

Edit: I've played a few games of this with friends. The jury is still out on the exact strength, but my estimation: This is probably on the same ballpark as queen odds, but nowhere near QRBN.

It depends on how we measure the effectiveness of a handicap. Here's what I mean by that:

If we are trying to increase the likelihood that the weaker player wins, queen-side odds are more effective than the strong king, because the weaker player has so much offensive potential in queen-side odds (and the stronger player doesn't have much defense).

If we are trying to decrease the likelihood that the weaker player loses, the strong king is more effective than queen-side odds, because the weaker player has so much more defensive potential in a strong king. Checkmating that king is one heck of a job.

A strong king has a few less moving possibilities than a queen and a knight combined, so its strengh would be close to that, maybe a little less


Bullet rating fluctuations I play on chess.com and I noticed that at some times I am getting beaten by 1700 pretty easily but other times I can beat 1900 with almost no effort. I broke my record and passed 2000 in bullet recently, now I am fighting with 2000 and 2100+ bullet players. Also, I nearly broke 1900 in blitz.Can I say my game has improved? I recently started to do tactics on chess.com, and it might have to do something with it.

But the problem is when I play my brother OTB, I am slightly better, but he is 1300 blitz rated on chess.com. What is going on with my game?

Bullet is completely different from OTB game. In bullet what tells is your experience, your ability to spot hanging pieces and combinations very fast to make natural moves and not to blunder. Also time management and focus is very important.

In an OTB game things like positional knowledge, and long term thinking are very important, and if it takes you a few minutes to notice, that the move you want to make hangs your queen, it's not a tragedy. Also you can get away with holes in your opening knowledge.

Another point: in bullet setting traps can earn you a lot of points, but in a long game traps are a lot of times counter productive.

I think you have proven to yourself that bullet ratings are garbage and not in any way, shape or form an accurate way to measure "mouse skills" - because, that is all bullet is...


Recommended mobile app or website to memorize openings? I'm looking to improve my game's opening.
Just wondering if any of you could recommend an app or website dedicated for this?

Chess PGN Master and pgnmentor.com are how I study openings. Download one of the large PGN files on the opening you want to learn, open it up with the viewer and autoplay through games during your downtime. I tend to stick to the games of only the players I recognize so that I am not learning from 1300s (there are a ton of high-level games in each file). This is great for learning the common themes of an opening. You don't have to understand every move but sometimes I will pause it and try to work out a particular tactic.

To memorize specific lines, I make openings files in Chessbase built from the games of today's top players (I consider anything that a 2600+ FIDE has played and my computer doesn't immediately hate to be playable for me). I then play through them, forcing myself to remember the options available for each side in the position before I make the next move.

As others have mentioned, focusing on openings is not going to help you improve very much below maybe 2000 FIDE. However, the first method I described can be used to improve at any level-you can retrieve all of the games of a great player (I started with Capablanca) and watch their moves zip past. This in my opinion is the best way to learn pawn structures. Jeremy Silman has recommended this method (though not this specific configuration) many times in his chess.com articles.

Give Chess Repertoire Manager a try. You'll be surprised on how big a help it can do to your quest of improving your opening game play. By the way, it is an Android app from Google Play Store. With this app, you can create and manage your opening repertoire and train with it. It has built in chess engine for analysis or playing chess games with it using your opening repertoire as opening book of the game.


Which is the smallest chess engine with ELO at least 2000? Preferably written in javascript, but the language really doesn't matter.

I'm not aware of any "small" chess engine written in JavaScript, but there's a "small" engine written in C. Micro-max has about 1900 to 2000 rating, depends on the rating list and testing condition.

http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/cgi/engine_details.cgi?print=Details+%28text%29&eng=Micro-Max%204.8

Note that it's not the smallest engine, but the engine that is even smaller than Micro-max plays awful chess (dropping pieces) and even walk into check (illegal move).

t seems like garbo was a little stronger maybe 2670 but anywhoo.

https://jtiscione.github.io/chessboard3js/play.html is a nice online interface for playing p4wn -weak lozzo -strong!! and stockfish -godlike

http://op12no2.me/toys/lozza/play.htm


Is this endgame (sort-of Q vs K) a draw? I think the following endgame is a draw.

[FEN "7k/5BpP/3K2P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1"]

My reasoning: I'm playing white. I will only move my king, always. Black's king cannot move. If the queen decide to capture any of my pieces, I will take back, so that won't work. And the queen alone cannot checkmate me, but black cannot bring a piece to help, so it looks like it is a draw.

Is there any flaw in my reasoning, and if yes, what is the flaw? Is this endgame really a draw?

According to the Lomonosov tablebases, it's mate in 40 for black. While the queen can't force mate by herself, she can force a zugzwang. In this case, when the bishop is forced to move to e8. Then, it's a matter of giving checks until the queen forks the king and bishop.

One of the longest variations given is as follows:

[FEN "7k/5BpP/3K2P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. Kd7 Qb1 2. Be8 Qb8 3. Bf7 Qb7+ 4. Kd6 Qc8 5. Kd5 Qc7 6. Kd4 Qc6 7. Ke5 Qd7 8. Ke4 Qd6 9. Ke3 Qe5+ 10. Kd3 Qf4 11. Kc3 Qe4 12. Kb3 Qd4 13. Ka3 Qd6+ 14. Kb3 Qc5 15. Kb2 Qe3 16. Kc2 Qa3 17. Kd2 Qf3 18. Kc2 Qe3 19. Kb2 Qd3 20. Ka2 Qc3 21. Kb1 Qd2 22. Bb3 Qb4 23. Ka2 Qa5+ 24. Kb2 Qb6 25. Kc3 Qxg6 26. Bc4 Qd6 27. Bd3 g5 28. Be4 Qc5+ 29. Kd3 g4 30. Bh1 Qa3+ 31. Kd2 Qb2+ 32. Kd3 Qb1+ 33. Ke3 Qxh1 34. Kf4 Qe1 35. Kxg4 Qe3 36. Kh4 Qg1 37. Kh3 Kxh7 38. Kh4 Kg6 39. Kh3 Kf5 40. Kh4 Qg4# 0-1

If black takes the bishop when it's on f7, white wins. If the king is on f7, the bishop on e8, and the queen on the a1-h8 diagonal, then black wins. The bishop has to be protecting the g6 pawn, otherwise, black takes that pawn and wins. If anything else, it's a draw.

EDIT: the starting position is in black's favor
FEN: 7k/3K1BpP/6P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - - 0 1
PGN:[Variant "From Position"]
[FEN "7k/3K1BpP/6P1/8/8/8/8/4q3 w - -"]


Where can I find a big chess database? I am searching for a big chess games database, in PGN or CBH or SCID format.
ICOfY Base is no longer available, I think. I found nothing in torrent sites (I am searching for something that is legal).

I use the games published by The Week In Chess, which are published in a weekly basis. These games make a superb database, although maybe you'll miss some historical games. It takes some effort to build the database with all games published to the date, but from then on it's easy to keep it up to date.

It is also possible to download the Million Database and then to keep it up to date with TWIC games.

I think there is no such database with several millions games in PGN file public on the Internet (and free). You can download it from some sources such as this and combine them, or use online database such as chesspack.com


How to deal with time-control pressure? I find myself frequently running into time trouble. Even though mentally it feels like I didn't use that much time, when I look at my clock it says otherwise. When this happens I start rushing to try and make up for 'lost time' with blunders soon to follow.

I have an idea of where the time is going -- usually it's when I'm analyzing a critical position and I'm calculating the moves out. Many times I can't seem to find a clear plan to carry out because of time pressure.

Are there any techniques or ideas to try out and practice to help with this problem? What do you guys do to tackle this issue?

Edit: To answer Akavall's comment on when it happens. I certainly don't run into time-pressure in every game -- eg. if my opponent made a big blunder and I'm up in material. Usually it happens when the position is about even. I take too long coming up with a plan and the most accurate candidate move. Other times it happens when I'm in an inferior position trying to size up a defense.

The two main things I do to avoid time trouble are:

I write down the remaining time for each player after every move. This both keeps me very aware of the amount of time I have left, and lets me know how much time I have spent thinking so far on the current move, so I can take appropriate action if I've already been thinking for 5 minutes. I also try to have a few checkpoints; for example, if the first time control is at move 40, I try to have at least half my time left at move 20.
This one is harder: in a non-critical position, I am willing to take less time than I'd like and just make a decent move in 2 minutes instead of spending 10 minutes looking for the best possible move. Of course you don't want to do this when the difference between the best move and second-best move is very large, which you don't know in advance, so you have to use your experience and intuition.

Instead of trying to calculate positions, just count the pieces.

  "If he takes, then I take, then he takes, then I take, then..."

Try this instead.

I've got 2 pieces attacking and he has 3 defending. Doesn't work.

I've got 3 pieces attacking and he has 3 defending. Doesn't work.

I've got 3 pieces attacking and he has 1... 2.. pieces defending. That works! I win.


Feeling cramped in the Najdorf I played this game recently at a tournament, and lost pretty decisively. I thought about it a bit, and I think it's representative of something that happens somewhat often in my games when I play the Najdorf: I get really cramped and white launches a successful Kingside attack.

More concretely:

Is my assessment correct - that misplaying the Najdorf and not creating enough space led to my loss?
Are there any particular moves that stand out as blunders?
How could I have played this differently?

Game as follows:

[fen ""]
1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 d6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 Nf6
5. Nc3 a6
6. Be3 e6 {I don't know any theory past this point.}
7. f3 Be7
8. Qd2 Bd7 {Premonitions of a Kingside attack, but I feel safe at the moment}
9. Bc4 O-O
10. O-O-O Ne8 {I was trying to launch a Kingside attack myself, and get my knight to a better square eventually}
11. g4 Nc7
12. h4 Bxh4 {Maybe I was too greedy here - it ended up allowing him to clear out some clutter and really get his pieces working together}
13. g5 Bg3
14. f4 e5
15. Nf5 Bxf5
16. exf5 exf4
17. Bxf4 Bxf4
18. Qxf4 Re8
19. g6 hxg6
20. fxg6 1-0

I resigned here.

Let's forget for a moment that it's a Najdorf.

You were cramped because you never gave yourself space. Instead, you spent a lot of time wandering around with your knight and bishop and opening lines against your own king. You didn't develop. You didn't counter-attack.

When White castled on the opposite side to you, they were making a simple declaration: I will checkmate you unless you checkmate me first.  This is absolutely typical in the Najdorf and it requires Black to carefully balance counter-attack and defence. Attacking on the queenside usually requires ...b5 (kicking the bishop with tempo), ...b4 (kicking the knight with tempo) and ...Rc8 (aiming at the king).

There's a good lecture by Jonathan Schrantz at the St Louis Chess Club that covers a lot of the Najdorf-specific ideas. ...b5 and ...d5 are the big breaks that you need to try to get in.

Control of the center allows you to conduct your kingside attack easier. (Pick up Nimzowitsch's My System for examples.)

You're worried about a kingside attack but you never fought for the center.

6...e6? allows the knight to stay on d4, a central square. White's position is therefore easier (he threatens Nd4-Nf5.)


What does "+-" mean in algebraic notation? I'm familiar with chess notation, but this has left me scratching my head. Looking at this answer, I see two games ending with moves marked as "+-" or "-+" (plus-minus or minus-plus). What does this annotation mean? Is it standard? And why are the two games using it with the symbols in different order?

Wikipedia does not mention this symbol, and I find searching for it quite difficult. Looking at the two boards allows me to rule out plenty of things - it's not check, checkmate or stalemate - but doesn't decisively reveal what it is. Is this perhaps some indicator of positional advantage (which I can see on both boards)?

What does “+-” mean in algebraic notation?

This symbol means "White has decisive advantage", which means that White's advantage is big enough to secure him victory. As for symbol -+ it means "Black has decisive advantage".

  What does this notation mean?

This notation is introduced to bypass the language barrier so any reader ( Japanese, English, Arabian, Marsian, it doesn't matter! ) can understand the comment behind the move. In the old days before this notation, commentaries were given in words, which required the reader to know commentator's native tongue or to find the translation of those commentaries. This way, when commentator writes +- behind the move, everybody ( Japanese, English, Arabian, Marsian, it doesn't matter! ) know what it means. It is shorter and cleaner this way.

  Is it standard?

Yes, it is. The symbols were invented by Chess Informant and accepted as a standard. You can find out more about chess notation here.

  And why are the two games using it with the symbols in different order?

Because the positions in those games are different -> in one White has the decisive advantage while in the other it is Black who should win.

Hopefully this answer helped you. If you need further clarifications leave a comment. Best regards.

It means checkmate. For example, if black was to checkmate the king with his Queen, it would be written: Q__+ , the _ indicating which move black played with the queen in order to checkmate the opponent's (in this case white) king.


Source on common ways to make draws I was recently surprised by the following drawing idea, black to move:
6k1/pR3pbp/6p1/1Q6/8/5nP1/PP1r3P/5K2 b - - 0 1

In this position black can play Nxh2+ and, no matter white's king move, move the knight back with Nf3 and make a repetition (or win!).
It is a win if white decides to run to the h1 corner because for example 1...Nxh2+ Kg1 2. Nf3+ Kh1 3.Rh2#. If instead white goes for the rook, then 1...Nxh2+ Ke1 2.Nf3+ Kf1 (only legal move) and we have repeated the position.
Is there a source where I can find a collection of drawing ideas like the above?

there are different books that cover this topic,
for example Neishtadt book on tactic " Improve Your Chess Tactics: 700 Practical Lessons & Exercises" has a chapter dedicated to miracle saves, which is stalemate and perpetual.
On John Speelman tactic book as well there si chapter on that,
I'd say many chess tactic books have a chapter on this topic generally.

Look at mikail tal's games. They are one of the most aggressive chess games played in the history of chess. It is quite splendid. Check it out.


Can Grandmasters beat computers when given time-odds? For eg., if a grandmaster is given 10:1 time odds, will he be able to beat a computer? For eg, if the GM is given 120 minutes for the entire game and the computer is given 12 minutes? If not 10:1 times odds, then please mention what time odds would be required for a GM to beat a computer.

Yes. A grandmaster or a team of grandmasters can hold a draw or win against an engine when given time odds.

I think that there is a minimum time control at which an engine can perform equally good or better than a grandmaster (without time odds). I guess this number is somewhere around 2 or 3 minutes for the whole game.

Let's say for simplicity that it is 5 minutes. So the engine needs 5 minutes for the whole game to perform at a decent level. Now, how many minutes does a grandmaster need to match an engine that has 5 minutes?

It depends. In the opening, the human player needs to be well prepared. Otherwise, it doesn't matter too much if the player has 5 or 50 minutes for the opening part. In the middlegame, my guess is that the player should avoid sharp positions and go for calm waters to reach an equal or slightly better endgame. Try to keep a healthy pawn structure and find long term advantages.

The endgame is where the player has a good chance of holding a draw or winning the game. In general, the more time for middlegame and endgame, the better. I would say that around 20 minutes for the opening, 40 minutes for the middlegame and 40 minutes for the endgame should give the human player a fair chance. That gives a 20:1 ratio (engine has 5 minutes).

This is a rough guess and it needs to be tested in practice. Such a test would be interesting! If the player has a chance to practice against the engine, then the player will of course be even better prepared for a match. I guess such a preparation is pretty normal for human versus machine matches.

My guess would be that the engine's strength grows faster per additional minute than the human strength per additional 20 minutes. When the engine has 15 or 20 minutes for the whole game, it might already be difficult for the human player to match its strength, despite having extra time. Yet, a team of grandmasters should cope pretty well (given time odds).

Sorry to state the obvious but you do realise human engineers designed the computers and human programmers and chess experts wrote the programs.when a computer writes and designs a chess program that it cannot itself defeat then the machine awakes!


The London System: Can it be broken? I've faced the London System several times so far, and just don't know what strategy to adapt against it (I exclusively play Nf6 in response to 1.d4). I'm a highly tactical player, so I try following up with d5, c5, Qa5, Nc6, Rc8 etc. in order to break open the queen side when possible. But white just plays c3, e3 and curls up into an unbreakable shell. Then I end up getting outplayed positionally because I get frustrated and sac a pawn or two to get some activity.

So, is it possible to play both soundly and aggressively as black, with 1. ...Nf6 against the London System? Is there a way to entice white into doing something reckless? Or does white have complete control over keeping the game boring? What are the main strategic ideas for black (in general, with preference to aggressive options)? Also, I heard that the Colle system has the same reputation as the London system, and they are quite similar strategically as well. Is there a common way to deal with both of these systems?

The goal for Black in breaking the London System is to remove White's dark bishop from the game. This is present in almost every losing London System. Hikaru Nakamura plays the London, and makes it very clear he is not willing to trade his dark bishop - even going so far as to play h3 with the sole intention of hiding the bishop on h2.

To break the London, trap / trade the dark bishop.

Warning: This may contain multiple diagrams to display a progression of attacks and also possible positions

Your Example

With regards to your exact example,

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 c5 4. e3 Qa5

Let me just stop you there. You are down a decent amount in this position, and are looking at dropping a pawn. I understand that you want to get into a game which is not closed, but that is still possible without being hyper aggressive.

My Suggestion

Lets get back to where you have a chance to start being aggressive and make a move which is subtly aggressive. I know it may not seem like it, but e6 here is very strong

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6

e6, but whhyy

e6 allows you to begin to exert some control over the dark squares (which are White's weakness as their bishop cannot contest on them). It allows for a responsive aggression. Let us look at a few of the responses available.

...

4. c4

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. c4 Bb4+

Nice, White tried to play into the Queen side and you got in a check (potentially White will trade their dark bishop in defense, but don't count on it). More than this, you gained a tempo, and can castle before White can; all while White's kingside is all locked up.

4. e3

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 c5

White was trying to keep a closed position but this actually results in a torn open one. Now if White defends with 5. c3 Black can begin to really open this up, and hopefully trade off White's dark bishop. 5. c3 Nc6 will open the board up and still be in Black's favor positionally.

Remove White's dark bishop

Consider this situation:

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 c5 5. c3 Nc6 6. Nbd2 Be7 7. Be2 Nh5

White's dark bishop is toast, the game is open, and you have sacrificed neither material nor position. Game on!

Even if you do not choose to be so aggressive here, you have most certainly opened the board up and prevented a closed position.

I recommend using the Queen's Indian defense. I posted my own comment, entitled "Battling the London System" I copied and pasted a game between my two computers using the Queens Indian defense against the London system. The program using the Queen's Indian defense won.


Could black have saved the rook-endgame? [Event "FIDE Women's World Chess Championship"]
[Site "Sochi RUS"]
[Date "2015.03.27"]
[Round "4.2"]
[White "Dronavalli Harika"]
[Black "Meri Arabidze"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D03"]
[WhiteElo "2492"]
[BlackElo "2374"]
[PlyCount "189"]
[EventDate "2015.03.17"]
[FEN ""]
[StartPly "46"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bg5 c5 4. e3 d5 5. Nbd2 Be7 6. c3 Nbd7 7. Bd3 b6 8. O-O
Bb7 9. Ne5 Nxe5 10. dxe5 Nd7 11. Bxe7 Qxe7 12. f4 O-O 13. Qh5 f5 14. exf6 Nxf6
15. Qg5 Rae8 16. Nf3 Nd7 17. Bb5 Qxg5 18. Nxg5 Bc8 19. Rad1 Re7 20. Bxd7 Bxd7
21. Nf3 Be8 22. Ne5 Bg6 23. Nxg6 hxg6 24. g3 Rd8 25. Rd2 e5 26. Rfd1 exf4 27.
exf4 Red7 28. Kf2 Kf7 29. Kf3 Kf6 30. h4 Rd6 31. Rd3 R8d7 32. Kg4 Rd8 33. Re1
d4 34. cxd4 cxd4 35. Kf3 Kf7 36. Re5 Rc8 37. Re4 Rcd8 38. b3 R8d7 39. a4 Rd5
40. b4 a6 41. g4 Rd8 42. Re5 R5d6 43. Ke4 R8d7 44. f5 gxf5+ 45. Rxf5+ Kg8 46.
h5 Kh7 47. Rg5 Kh6 48. Kf4 Kh7 49. Re5 g6 50. Ke4 Kg7 51. Rg5 Re7+ 52. Kf4 a5
53. bxa5 bxa5 54. Rxg6+ Rxg6 55. hxg6 Rd7 56. Ke5 Kxg6 57. Rxd4 Rb7 58. Kd5 Kg5
59. Kc5 Kh4 60. Rc4 Rb8 61. Kd5 Rb7 62. Rc5 Rb4 63. Rc4 Rb8 64. Ke5 Kg5 65. Rc5
Rb4 66. Rxa5 Rxg4 67. Ra6 Kh5 68. a5 Rg5+ 69. Kd4 Rg4+ 70. Kc5 Rg5+ 71. Kb6
Rg6+ 72. Kb7 Rg7+ 73. Kc8 Rg5 74. Kd7 Rg7+ 75. Ke8 Rg5 76. Kf7 Rc5 77. Kg7 Rc7+
78. Kf6 Rc5 79. Ra8 Kh4 80. a6 Rc6+ 81. Kf5 Rc5+ 82. Kf4 Rc4+ 83. Ke3 Rc7 84.
Rb8 Kg5 85. Rb7 Rc4 86. Kd3 Ra4 87. Rb6 Kf5 88. Kc3 Ke5 89. Kb3 Ra1 90. Kc4 Ra2
91. Rh6 Ra1 92. Kc5 Ra2 93. Kb6 Rb2+ 94. Kc7 Ra2 95. Kb7 1-0

62...Kg4 was not enough to draw and white could win with 63.Ra5. After 66.Ra5,
the position was theoretically drawn. Black slipped with 73 ...Rg5 ? and White
slipped with 74.Kd7 ? (Correct moves were 73...Rg8 and 74.Ra8) . Finally,
black slipped with 77...Rc7 and white did not allow a drawn position anymore.

Beginning with the double-rook ending, could black hold the position, or where did Black make the decisive error?

Black's 34 ...cxd4 is probably a bad choice. Taking with the rook seems good if also they could have exchanged a pair of rooks, because the pawn is blocked by the white rook. Also Black's doubled pawns on the g-file from move 24 to 43 gives an advantage to white. So i think black couldn't have saved the game unless White blundered.

On my analysis, with Stockfish 6, yes the losing misstep was failing to use the forcing move 52...Rf6+ to keep the white king back. Active kings are decisive in otherwise equal endgames. Once that white king got to e5, the game was (technically) decided, and 52...Rf6+ was the best chance to prevent that. The only other way was to try 55...Kxg6 56.Rxd4, which just barely possibly might be a technical draw; my opinion is not, but we'll have to wait for 7-piece tablebases to prove it one way or the other.

Up until 52...a5 black was completely holding the draw.


White's Response to the Norwegian Defense In the Norwegian Defense of the Ruy Lopez

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 b5 5. Bb3 Na5 6. O-O (6. d4 exd4 7. Nxd4 c5? 8. Bd5!)

Neil MacDonald suggests 6. O-O as a response. Why isn't 6. d4 suggested in the book?

Edit: 6... exd4 7. Nxd4 c5? does not work because of 8. Bd5! when White enjoys a comfortable lead in development. I ask what are the repercussions behind playing 6. d4 possibly followed by 7. O-O. Is this variation sharper?

The author suggested 6. O-O as a solid choice compared to the sharper 6. d4, but I don't see what's so sharp about it. White is simply challenging Black in the center. I guess it gives less information away about the central pawn structure. Is that the answer?

If you choose 6.d4 you must consider it either as a gambit or as a prelude to a queen sortie, since after 6...exd4 7.Nxd4?! Bb7 [not 7...c5? 8.Bd5!] 8.Nc3? c5! followed by c4 traps the Bb3.

7.Qxd4 is possible, but after 7...Bb7 you have to take 8...c5 into account again. (the immediate 7...c5? doesn't work because of 8.Qd5.) White queen will probably lose some tempi, and in the long run the open center may favour Black's bishop pair. For instance, 8.0-0 c5 9.Qe5+ Qe7 10.Qxe7 Nxe7 (10...Bxe7 12.Bd5!?) looks like Black is grabbing a pawn.

[fen "r1bqkbnr/2pp1ppp/p7/np2p3/4P3/1B3N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. d4 exd4 2. Nxd4?! (2. Qxd4 Bb7 (2...c5? 3. Qd5) 3.O-O c5 4.Qe5+ Qe7 5.Qxe7 Nxe7 (5...Bxe7 6.Bd5!?)) Bb7 (2...c5? 3. Bd5!) 3. Nc3? c5! 4. null c4

In case of 8.O-O, 8.c3 or other moves, you would have to demonstrate what the idea behind the gambit is.

Depends how good you all are.

At the highest GM level o-o has the highest winning statistics by far.
At lower levels it fairs much worse where d3 or nxe5 results are better.

Can you play the rest of the game like a GM then go for 0-0  but if not then perhaps you should still play d3 as d4 does not do well in actual play by all players.


Theory: Things NOT to do in a concrete opening My sources of opening theory are mostly focuses on things to do in it, and some ideas about why.

What are good sources about things to avoid, and ideas that can't be developed in an opening?

This site has some material. Things like don't block your center pawns with your pieces, and don't play into fool's mates, etc.

Then there is a series of beginner-ish books from Pandolfini: Chess Openings: Traps And Zaps

also,
Win in the Opening: Opening Mistakes and How to Punish Them
by Yakov Neishtadt

Just look at a bunch of master games (300 or so; maybe 100 per day) and you'll recognize the patterns.

I'd say just look at the first 15 moves and no more. Take no longer than five minutes a game.

When you're really good, you'll be able to take one minute per game. Remember, you're only looking at the first fifteen moves. The patterns are always the same.


Is blindfold chess bad for the health? From Wikipedia,

  While blindfold chess has been recommended in moderation by many sources as a method of increasing one's playing strength, simultaneous blindfold exhibitions were officially banned in 1930 in the USSR as they were deemed to be a health hazard. Mikhail Botvinnik also warned against it.

Should I actively not play blindfold chess? Are there any health risks?

No.

The main reason behind this train of thought was that they thought that blindfold chess may contribute to going crazy. They looked at Morphy and Pillsbury as their primary examples. Lasker, specifically, thought that blindfold chess made Pillsbury go mad, but we now know it was syphilis. Other than just plain incorrect assumptions like Lasker's, this is an incredibly small sample size no matter how you cut it, and we are talking about judging this on 90+-year-old "science", if you can call it that.

This not only does not make any sense in the modern day, but it has been debunked by at least USCF NM, and noted psychologist, Christopher Chabris from Harvard. The paper can be found here.

Blindfold chess is good for your chess vision, so feel free to practice it in moderation.

P.S. We have in more recent times, from 1992-2011, had the Melody Amber blindfold tournaments for the the top players in the world including Karpov, Kramnik, Anand, and Carlsen. If modern science even remotely believed that blindfold was bad for you, these guys would not have played.

No.  Not the way the Russians thought anyway.   It may raise your BP as you have trouble playing well.

I have played, and won, blindfold games. They do not increase your strength. But they are harder and not in a  useful way.

The truth is that you have to play well first, to be able to do blindfold chess at all.


FIDE tournament rules: Is a player allowed to scribble notes on the scoresheet while the game is in progress? Do FIDE rules allow a player to make notes on the scoresheet like

  Here, I wanted to play c4, but thought it would be better to play d4
  first.

  He played Nc6. I think he should have played Nbd7.

No. Notes could help you during the game, and therefore they aren't allowed. The Laws of Chess say:

12.3.a During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes, sources of information or advice, or analyse on another chessboard
[...]
12.4 The scoresheet shall be used only for recording the moves, the times of the clocks, the offers of a draw, and matters relating to a claim and other relevant data.

First off, I don't actually know whether it is allowed or not, but I have a number of reasons to believe that it may be allowed, or at least be somewhat allowed.

Although the rule technically states that "During play the players are forbidden to make use of any notes...", it is not entirely clear from that section of rules by what is meant by "a note". The obvious interpretation is that it points to "crib notes". Does it include annotations you make as you play? This is not clear to me.
I have personally played in an ECF rated chess tournament where there was a prize awarded to the player with the best annotated score sheet. It is strange to me that the tournament organizers would endorse a practice that is forbidden by FIDE.
I fail to understand the logic of such a rule. Making personal annotations of your thoughts and ideas during a match does not, as far as I can see, assist you in any way during the actual match, as it still amounts to your personal ability to play the game. To me it seems analogous to making personal notes while writing a maths exam - why would this practice be forbidden?

I think there is enough doubt about the interpretation of this rule to require of us to get some clarification. I will most certainly ask an arbiter at my next tournament.

Update: The Wesley So incident in the 2015 US champs probably settled this once and for all - it is not allowed. But in my defence - even Kasparov thinks this is a stupid rule [ http://www.chess-news.ru/en/node/18625 ].


Anti-cheating: should there be a limit to a number of toilet breaks per game per player? With the advent of smart phones, cheating in chess tournaments has become rife to the extent that if unguarded it will kill the spirit of competitiveness. There has been several such cases, accussations and allegations including the infamous Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov toiletgate. In some cases a player can make perpetual toilet visits; move-after-move which might seem suspicious. This is partly due to unlimited "freedom of movement" during the game.

For instance in other sports like soccer - even though there's no computer cheating - halftime breaks are timed and controlled. Should chess adopt a limit to a number of toilet breaks per game per player, say in a standard game, a player can only go to the bathroom after making a certain number of moves 10, 20, 40?

What would be the advantages or setbacks to this limited breaks?

No, there shouldn't and if you live to be 80 you will probably understand why.

A few years ago in a tournament where I was one of the arbiters a 16 year old boy was playing an old guy in his 80's in round 2, both of them were rated about 1950. There had recently been the case of the Bulgarian phone cheat who had consulted a phone hidden behind one of the toilets.

The 16 year old came up to me and said "Can I have a word with you outside?" It sounded very serious so I agreed. He then explained that his opponent was getting up regularly to go to the toilet even once doing it when it was his turn to move. The boy was worried his opponent was a phone cheat.

Had I been the boy's coach and not the arbiter I would have been able to explain the reasons. The old guy had just recently come out of hospital where he had had prostate surgery. The truth was he should really have been at home recovering with his feet up not playing chess but who is going to tell an 80 year-old how to live his life? In the previous round he had blundered his queen against a player rated about 1750. I would have told the boy to just keep playing good moves and the old guy was sure to blunder sooner or later. That is what happened in the game, by the way.

Of course as the arbiter I couldn't give him helpful information like that. Instead I told him I would check the toilets for mobile phones and keep an eye on the old guy for the rest of the round, which I did.

Note that the toilets are generally in the bounds of the playing venue but not in the playing area so going to the toilet when it is your turn is not allowed unless you get the permission of the arbiter. If you have a medical condition which makes this likely then you can speak to the arbiter before play to explain to the arbiter and get this permission.

If you are a woman then you can't have prostate problems but if you have children you may experience similar problems with needing to make regular visits to the toilet for some time after giving birth.

In short imposing limits on toilet breaks would be inhumane.

I fully agree with Brian Towers' answer, but want to point out an alternative to having a limit: ask for an upfront estimate. Before the game starts, ask each participant to estimate how many toilet breaks he/she estimates will be needed. This number is communicated to the opponent1.

People that needs to go often will have no problems in justify a higher number, while people that go to the bathroom to cheat will not. Some of the cheaters might not have planned to cheat beforehand, but will just take the opportunity when feeling the need to during the game, and having given an estimate beforehand will create some accountability that most likely will deter some cheating.

1
Probably after the game is over. Otherwise it might result in "oh, my opponent has double my number, well then I can throw in a couple extra visits" thinking.


Does depth (number of ply) still matter once it is high enough? This isn't real, just imagine this happening.

Computer A is supercomputer. It can calculate 30 ply deep within 20 seconds.

Computer B is supercomputer. It can calculate 15 ply deep within 20 seconds.

They play against each other chess.

Does these 15 depths really matter? I guess that within these 15 depths there may be trillions way to escape a checkmate or capture of important piece. Sure, Computer A knows more. But Computer B is able to predict future quite far too, in my opinion, far enough to defend himself really well.

Yes, those 15 depths very much matter.

Consider this position that occurred in Kasparov's Immortal Game vs Topalov.

  [White "Kasparov"]
  [Black "Topalov"]
  [FEN "b2r3r/k4p1p/p2q1np1/NppP4/3R1Q2/P4PPB/1PP4P/1K2R3 b - - 0 24"]

I tested this position with several engines. Some engines, at depth 15, failed to detect that 24...cxd4 is a losing move and thought it was winning. Those same engines, at a greater depth, played the correct move 24...Kb6!

For example, even an engine as powerful as Stockfish 4 initially at depth 21 thinks the losing move 24...cxd4 is correct.

Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 24...cxd4 25. Re7+ Kb6 26. Qxd4+ Kxa5 27. Qc3+ Kb6
28. Qd4+ Qc5 29. Qxf6+ Bc6 30.Qxc6+ Qxc6 31. dxc6 Rd1+ 32. Ka2 f5 33. c7 Rc8
34. Rxh7 Rxc7 35. Rh6 Rc6 36. g4 f4 37. g5 Rd2 38. c3 Rxc3 39. Rxg6+ Kc5
40. Bg4 Rcc2 41. Rxa6 Rxb2+ 42. Ka1 Rbc2 43. Kb1
(-1.45/21)

The same engine, when kept on for a little more depth, shows 24...Kb6 to the correct move.

Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 24...Kb6 25. b4 Qxf4 26. Rxf4 Nxd5 27. Rxf7 cxb4
28. axb4 Rhe8 29. Rxe8 Rxe8 30. Nb3 Re1+ 31. Kb2 Re2 32. Rxh7 Nxb4
33. Kc3 Nd5+ 34. Kd3 Rxh2 35. Rh4 Ne7 36. Nd4 Nc6 37. Nxc6 Bxc6 38. f4 Kc5
39. Be6 Rxh4 40. gxh4 Bd5 41. f5 gxf5 42. Bxf5 a5
(-0.78/26)

Fritz 11 SE, at depth 15, also failed. But it found the correct move at depth 16!

Fritz 11 SE: 24... cxd4 25. Qxd4+ Qb6 26. Re7+ Nd7 27. Qe5 f6 28. Qc3 Qg1+
29. Ka2 Bxd5+ 30. Nb3 f5 31. Qc7+ Ka8 32. Rxd7 Rxd7 33. Qxd7 Bxf3 34. Qd6 Qa7
(-1.44/15)

Fritz 11 SE: 24... Kb6 25. b4 Qxf4 26. Rxf4 Nxd5 27. Rxf7 cxb4 28. axb4 Nxb4
29. Nb3 Bd5 30. Rf6+ Nc6 31. Nd4 Rdf8 32. Rd6 Kc5 33. Rxc6+ Bxc6 34. Ne6+ Kd6
35. Nxf8
(-0.59/16)

Also consider this incredible problem like position that I found here.

Stockfish was not able to find the winning line 1. Be2+! until depth 31 and up until then it thought it was a bad move. I demonstrate the win here. The point is that Black is in zugswang because of mate threats and has to either give up the queen or move the a pawn which would allow White to create a passed pawn and win.

   [FEN "8/2p1q3/p3P3/2P4p/1PBP2kP/2N3P1/7K/8 w - - 0 1"]

   1. Be2+ $1 Kf5 2. Nd5 $1 Qxe6 3. Bd3+ Kg4 4. Be4 $3 Qh6 (4... Qxe4 5. Nf6+)
   5. Nf4 Qg7 6. Nd3 $1 Qxd4 7. c6 $1 a5 (7... Qxe4 8. Nf2+ Kf3 9. Nxe4 Kxe4
   10. Kg2 Kd4 11. g4 hxg4 12. h5 Ke5 13. h6 Kf6 14. Kg3 Kg6 15. Kxg4 Kxh6
   16. Kf5 Kg7 17. Ke6 Kf8 18. Kd7 Kf7 19. Kxc7) 8. b5 $1 a4 9. b6 cxb6
   10. c7 Qxe4 (10... Qc3 11. Nf2#) 11. Nf2+ Kf3 12. Nxe4 1-0

Here's the engine log from Stockfish 4. As you can see, it detects that 1. Be2+ is winning, only on depth 31!

Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 1. Be2+ Kf5 2.Bc4 c6 3. Ne2 Qf6 4. Kg2 Kg4 5. Nf4 Qxd4
6. Bd3 Qe3 7. Be2+ Kf5 8. Bf3 Qd2+ 9. Kh3 Qxb4 10. e7 Qe1 11. Ne2 Qf1+ 12. Kh2 Qf2+
13. Kh3 Qe3 (-1.05/22)

Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 1. Be2+ Kf5 2. Bc4 Qf6 3. Ne2 c6 4. Bxa6 Qxe6 5. Bd3+ Kf6
6. Nf4 Qe1 7. d5 Qxb4 8. dxc6 Qxc5 9. Be4 Ke7 10. c7 Kd7 11. Nd5 Kd6 12. Kh3 Qc4
13. Bg2 Qg4+ 14. Kh2 Qc8 15. Be4 (-1.15/26)

Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2: 1. Be2+ Kf5 2. Bc4 Qf6 3. Ne2 c6 4. d5 cxd5 5. Bxd5 Qb2
6. Bc4 Kf6 (-1.01/28)

Stockfish DD 64 SSE4.2:  1. Be2+ Kf5 2. Nd5 Qxe6 3. Bd3+ Kg4 4. Be4 Qh6 5. Nf4 Qf6
6. Nd3 Qxd4 7. c6 Qxe4 8. Nf2+ Kf3 9. Nxe4 Kxe4 10. Kg2 Ke5 11. Kf3 Kf5 12. g4+ Kf6
13. gxh5 Kg7 14. Kf4 Kf6 15. h6 Kg6 16. h5+ Kh7 17. Kg5 Kg8 18. h7+ Kxh7 19. Kf5 Kg7
20. Ke6 Kh6 21. Kd7 Kxh5 22. Kxc7 Kg5 23. Kd7 (6.06/31)

+1 ply is estimated +55..70 ELO gain (a lot of researches on this topic)

  I guess that within these 15 depths there may be trillions way to escape a checkmate or capture of important piece.

The thing is that all this "trillions" were calculated by A @ D=30, and if A choose move with winning eval, it mean that it calculated all this "trillions" and no matter which of "trillions" moves opponent reply - move is still winning


Alternative approaches to chess engine programming As far as I understand, roughly speaking, chess engines work by:

calculating all possible variations (game tree) up to some depth
evaluating the final position based on some criteria (material, piece activity...)
based on this evaluation decide for the best move

I fully understand that to have an efficient engine there are ways to prune certain lines, limiting the depth, etc; but this is not my question.

Question is: Are there any alternative attempts to program a (not necessarily strong, but not random either) chess engine, which does not follow this scheme?

In the beginning years of computer chess, people have actually tried to teach computers chess in the same way as they do with humans, explaining strategic concepts like a healthy pawn structure or the initiative. These attempt were soon abandoned because the method you describe was much more successful.

Recently, there has been another attempt to let an engine teach itself chess via Deep Learning (probably encouraged by the success of Google's Go AI). According to the article I linked to, they were quite successful and managed to reach IM strength.

Certainly! IF you truly just mean.... "in theory, are there other methods to code a chess engine?"... Then, yes!!

For instance.... one could store a copy of every possible position in chess (a huge number, I know), and have an evaluation for each one. Then, it's answer to any given question (i.e., "best move for white in X position"), will be known immediately just by looking up that board. Is the current state of computer hardware such that this would make any sense? Nah. But you didn't ask that.


How to determine objectively if a move is passive or aggressive? I'm doing research about how different conditions or situations affect the decision making process in chess. For example if the opponent's ELO ranking affects the average time used for every move. In the example, both variables are numerical and easy to obtain. However I struggle when it comes to define if a move is more passive or aggressive (specially after the opening theory).
I noticed that, independently of playing style, there are some external factors that make us play more actively (aggressively, taking more risk) or passively (defensively, taking less risk). I read some articles that say it depends on the current position and the analyzer "strength" to determine with certainty, but that is too subjective for my purposes. There must be some some objective cues to help me.
I was thinking about the mobility (as in how many moves the player or the specific piece have after the last move) or/and if it is making or stopping a threat. Are there other cues or methods I could use to define if a move is passive or aggressive?
Is there software where I can analyze a complete game and give me this kind of output? Perhaps not if the movement was aggressive, but maybe if it is making a threat or reaching more mobility than before?
I also know that some software like Chessmaster, uses AI "personalities" and some make passive or aggressive moves as their traits. Can someone explain how the software chooses a move that may not be optimal but a passive one?

Let me answer your questions precisely and technically:

Q: I also know that some softwares like chessmaster...?

Nobody knows for sure because Chessmaster is closed source. Fortunately, it's not hard to replicate Chessmaster personalities. There're several ways to do it:

Define different piece-square-table (PST) for each personality
Define different tuning parameters for each personality
Scale the attacking parameters and/or defending parameters with a constant
Give an appropriate Contempt value

It takes some work to create a new personality, but it should be just minor changes to a working chess engine.

The Stockfish engine had an UCI option for optimizating attacking and defending parameters. This was done by scaling the evaluation score accordingly. For example, if you scaled your own king safety score by a positive constant greater than 1, the engine would be more defensive.

Q: How to determine if a move is aggregative or defensive?

Tony, Brian and others gave good suggestions, but their suggestions are for human players and too abstract for a computer. If you want a computer to tell you whether a move is aggressive or defensive, you may need:

Null move
Monte-Carlo tree search

Null-move is simple and it's been implemented in various chess softwares. The idea is simple - if the move doesn't threaten anything, it should not be an aggressive move.

Monte-Carlo tree search goes even further. You can use it to determine the distribution of your payoff. If a move is aggressive, the margin error should be smaller. If a move is defensive, the margin error should be bigger.

You want to define it for some automat system? This will be very hard work to do if it should reflect the real meaning of passivity.

If you want some easy parameter not very concerned about precision of result, these come to my mind:

Some function of target rank of piece.
Some function of long term material imbalance in games.

For more complex logic you should probably ask some engine developers but this is closer to science than to everyday work and without good reason they will probabbly not be very cooperative.

Edit: even though I like Tony Ennis answer more, this one is still viable as it will do the work with waaaaaay less CPU resources.


How can I improve my knowledge of pawn structure theory? What resources (books, videos, websites) are there to help me improve my understanding of pawn structures?

The old classical book by Hans Kmoch, Pawn Power in Chess is almost entiely devoted to this subject.

It is often used as a reference because of its numerous useful examples, but also mocked for the author's tendency to over-theorize every principle and forge neologisms that have not made their way, half a century later, into common chess vocabulary.

But as long as you don't mind skipping some sophisticated words like 'leucopenia' or 'melanoarchia', it remains an excellent ressource for studying pawn structures.

"My System" and "My System In Practice" by Aron Nimzowitsch are classics with strong emphasis on pawn structures.


Traps and tricks for White in the 4.Bf4 variation vs the Grunfeld I read in a book (I no longer remember what book) that there are a few traps for White in the 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 variation vs the Grunfeld, and that the line is somehow popular among GMs, Black has no easy equality, etc. etc. Is anyone aware of what a few of these tricks / traps for White might be?

For example please notice GM Kavalek's comments after Bf4 in this article:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lubomir-kavalek/the-most-treacherous-defe_b_991426.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9Ax29jZ1k is video 1 of 4 explaining this system.  Mike Virgo has the links to the rest of the series.
One of the comments is:  "It is a good video, however, Roman makes one mistake. at 15:45, he forgot to place pawn on h3 back to h2."  Many minor errors show in most chess videos, so ensure you understand the moves.

There are always tricks and traps, in every possible chess opening, not just the Gruenfeld.
It has to be noted, though, that 4.cd5 Nd5 5.e4 is much stronger than Bf4, white has tremendous performance with that at the highest level, namely the TCEC top engine chess competition.

From what one might infer the Gruenfeld is an altogether dubious opening with perfect play(not so many KID lines).
Of course, if you miss the best continuations, the Gruenfeld might also score well for black.


Quintuple repetition and the FIDE's 2014 rulebook revision How does the new quintuple-repetition rule work, please?

To be clear: my question does not concern how likely the rule and its cases are to arise in practical play, but rather just what the rule is, in cases in which it might theoretically apply.  Technically precise answers which (i) illuminate possible misunderstandings and (ii) consider edge cases merit extra appreciation.

Also, if you happen to know:  Have authors, masters and/or tournament directors concurred (to the extent to which they care) in the meaning of the new quintuple-repetition rule?  Or does the rule as written admit technical ambiguity?

References:

FIDE.  Laws of Chess, July 2014.  Refer especially to sect. 9.6.
Geurt Gijssen.  Arbiter's Notebook.

UPDATE: EXAMPLE

In light of @dfan's comment, an example:

[Title "White to move, illustrating sect. 9.6"]
[FEN "2b2rk1/5ppp/8/8/8/8/5PPP/2B2RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Bb2 Bb7 2. Bc1 Bc8 3. Ba3 Ba6 4. Bc1 Bc8 5. Bd2 Bd7 6. Bc1 Bc8 7. Be3 Be6 8. Bc1 Bc8

Drawn?  Why or why not?

First note that your link to Geurt Gijssen. Arbiter's Notebook. is broken. ChessCafe.com have put almost all their stuff behind a paywall.

The purpose of this rule and of the related 75-move rule (after 75 moves with no captures or pawn moves the arbiter can / must step in and declare a draw) are for the benefit of arbiters. In summary they are the "I've got a home to go to and a warm bed waiting for me" rules. The key point here being that these two rules do not require a player to make a claim but instead the arbiter can intervene to stop the game.

Your example is not a draw under the rule. Here is how it works:

White's alternate moves must be identical.
Black's alternate moves must be identical.
For 5 consecutive, alternate White's turns the position must be identical.
For 5 consecutive, alternate Black's turns the position must be identical.

If that gobbledygook sounds confusing here is an example of a drawn game under the new rule:

1) Nc3 Nc6
2) Nb1 Nb8
3) Nc3 Nc6
4) Nb1 Nb8
5) Nc3 Nc6
6) Nb1 Nb8
7) Nc3 Nc6
8) Nb1 Nb8
9) Nc3 Nc6
10) Nb1 Nb8
11) Nc3 Nc6

Note that after Black's 4th move White could have claimed a draw under the 3-fold repetition rule and after White's 5th move either player could claim a draw on their turn.

If either player deviates from the strict repetition then the conditions are not fulfilled. For instance if White's 3rd and 4th moves are Nf3 and Ng1 then the strict sequence required for the satisfaction of the rule is broken.

Note that the rule says "for at least five consecutive alternate moves by each player". If it said "either player" instead of "each player" then the position and sequence in question would be a draw. But the example fails because it is only identical before alternate White moves and not before alternate Black moves.

Since 3-fold repetition draws can only be claimed when the moves are recorded they cannot normally be claimed during rapid and blitz games. The new rules allow the arbiter to intervene and stop the game provided he has witnessed and noted the moves and continue with the next round or go home to bed.

30/12/2014: There were two International Arbiters at our club annual rapid championship last night. I asked one of them and he was very clear. The rule:

  the same position has appeared, as in 9.2b, for at least five
  consecutive alternate moves by each player.

according to him means that after 5 alternate white moves the position must be the same in the meaning of 9.2b and after 5 alternate black moves it must be the same in the meaning of 9.2b and that this sequence of moves must be consecutive i.e. the first repeating black position must come immediately before or immediately after the first repeating white position and not part way through the sequence.

PS It's probably worth noting the answer he gave to a supplementary question.

Question: What happens if after one player wins through resignation / checkmate / flag fall it is discovered that there was an earlier 5 fold repetition? Should the result be changed to a draw?

Answer: Emphatically no. Just as the 3 fold repetition rule is for the benefit of the players, they may choose to claim by it or not at the specific time the incident occurs, so is the 5 fold repetition rule for the benefit of the arbiter, he may choose to enforce it or not at the time the incident occurs. He may not enforce it retrospectively. The win stands.

Edit: Well, it seems that the IA I consulted was wrong. Hidden away in section 6.2a of the FIDE Handbook it says this

  A move is also completed if: 1.the move ends the game (see Articles
  5.1.a, 5.2.a, 5.2.b, 5.2.c, 9.6a, 9.6b and 9.7)

9.6a and 9.6b are the two new draw rules, 5-fold repetition and 75 moves with no captures or pawn moves. So, they are elevated by this throw-away clause to the same level as checkmate, stalemate, resigns and agreed drawn. The arbiter has no more choice than he does with checkmate, etc.

this seems to be quite academical, because after 6... before intending Bc8 which would get into a threefold repition of position the black player may request a draw.


Is there a binary of Scid vs Mac which works on macOS Mojave? I had ScidvsMac 4.19 running on my Mac - ScidvsMac-4.19.dmg from https://sourceforge.net/projects/scidvspc/files/mac/ - but after upgrading to macOS Mojave (10.14.1) it doesn't run - the icon just bounces forever.

I have been trying to use macports compilers to compile the latest source but I am just lost in dependency hell right now because I can't seem to install libgcc7 or libgcc8 properly. I might try to blow everything away and start a fresh install ... but wondering if anyone has overcome these problems?

Your question is pretty old. Did you succeeded to resolve your problem? I am running scidvsmac 4.19 on Mojave without any problem. You may download it here:

http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/#toc3

Best greetings

marek

macOS Mojave still supports 32 bit apps. So it should run Scid vs. Mac.


Better moves-game analysis Aside from the blunder 27 Nh3, what moves should have been made to make this game winning for white?

    rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

   1. d4  Nf6 2. c4  g6 3. Nc3  Bg7 4. e4  d6 5. f3  O-O 6. Be3  Nc6 7. Qd2  a6 8. a4  e5 9. d5  Na5 10. Ra3  b6 11. b4  Nb7 12. h4  a5 13. b5  h5 14. Be2  Nh7 15. g4  hxg4 16. fxg4  f5 17. gxf5  gxf5 18. Bg5  Bf6 19. Bh6  Bxh4+ 20. Kd1  Bg5 21. Bxg5  Qxg5 22. Qxg5+  Nxg5 23. Nf3  Nxf3 24. Bxf3  f4 25. Ne2  Rf7 26. Ng1  Rh7 27. Nh3  Bxh3 28. Be2  Bd7 29. Rg1+  Kh8 30. Ke1  Rg8 31. Kf1  Rh3 32. Ra1  Rxg1+ 33. Kxg1  Nc5 34. Re1  Rg3+ 35. Kf2  Nxe4+ 36. Kf1  Bh3#  0-1

You don't seem to know the kind of plans that arise out of the way you played the opening. You lined up the Be3/Qd2 "gun" and then never fired it! You needed to play Bh6 at an early stage and look at the possibility of h4,h5 and maybe even sacrifice the exchange if conditions are right if he plays Nxh5.

"Winning" is another question, but you never really made him struggle and fight. Your hand was never anywhere near his windpipe!

Ne2 isn't great. I know you are already a pawn down at this stage, but leave the knight there to protect the pawns and instead look at Ra2-h2 to build a rook battery on the h file. It's a much quicker attempt to get at his exposed king while he is still a bit disorganized.

White winning at when? After a pointless 8. a4 Black has an upper hand. 15. g4 is a blunder, but White already is in a pretty bad shape (19. Nf3 might give White some fighting chances). At 20. ... Bg5 White may resign.


Is this opening a joke or serious? I was watching Daniel Naroditsky's speedrun on YouTube and in his 1870 video (https://youtu.be/3UqPa5eV2e0?t=987) his opponent (rated 1889, playing black) played a very bizarre opening by pushing almost all his pawns before developing any of his pieces. It appears to be someone trolling, but they seemed (to me) to play a really good middlegame/endgame. Is this considered a serious opening, or does it seem like more of a joke opening? Or was it a trap that throws lots of players off?
[White "SenseiDanya"]
[Black "ions26"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 a6 5. Bd3 h6 6. O-O b6 7. Be3 Bb7

Stockfish 10+ (depth 20) disagrees with the other answer, because it thinks that White's opening here is sound and evaluates the final position as +1.4. I would be very interested to see anyone play as Black starting from that position and beat Stockfish 10+. If nobody can, how can one consider White to have played badly?

Not a joke.
White often is careless and lets black break the center to win a pawn and have an advantage.
White did not play well at all in the given diagram.
When someone plays an opening like that I invariably win because I will have better development, more space, and only  need to be sure that I can break without getting the pawns locked up too much.
Sometimes that takes a sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece but with the space  and development and better mobility I come out ahead


Why is Carlsen being praised for his tie-break play, when Caruana made several game-losing moves? I followed the three games live on chess24.es (for live commentary from GMs) and chess.com (for actual real time computer analysis).

As per my understanding:

Game 13 was mostly balanced until 19... Nb5? (GMs were expecting Nb7 if anything), and then after 34... Rc3? it was definitely over.
Game 14, Caruana was in a better position until 21. c5? which brought it back to balance, followed "shortly" after by 26. c7? which was definitely a losing move (live commentators went nuts here).
Game 15, there were no "obvious" errors (not that the GMs noticed on-air, at least), Caruana was even leading, but in the last half of the game the computer was marking several of Caruana's moves in red.

As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves. Yes, he played great and made very few errors, but my feeling is that Caruana lost the game, more than Carlsen won it.

So, why is everybody praising Carlsen for his play? What moves or strategies did he apply in the tie-breakers that show how good he is?

Carlsen crushed it, made almost no mistakes whatsoever in rapid. It is as if he was playing at classical time controls.

Chess is about not making mistakes. If your opponent doesn't make mistakes then you're only going to get a draw even if you play like an engine.

He did play good moves as well. Example on move 37 the position is a draw but he gave himself winning chances with 37. Rc7!. Caruana now blunders with Kxe4 instead of playing Ra2+. Now Carlsen plays the accurate Re7+! instead of Rxg7? and obtains a winning position.

As far as I can tell, Carlsen didn't make any winning!! or distinctly good moves.

In chess, only results count not the moves... Carlsen is being praised because he won the match. Winner takes all.


What should be the next move in this position? [FEN "2r1r1k1/pb5p/1pp1qb2/3p1p2/3Pn1p1/1Q2P1P1/PP2NPBP/2RRB1K1 b - - 0 1"]

What is the best move for Black in this position. Everything seems defended here.
What method is applicable in such situations? Method of imbalances?

All black pieces are currently defended but that does not mean there is nothing to do as if you play aimlessly white will eventually gain an advantage.
On analyzing the game the first thing you can notice is that the kingside is completely locked down by pawns so our attack needs to be on the queenside. Ba6 and Be7 are good moves to start gaining control on the queenside. Double rooks on c- file with a c5 pawn break is one option (but it sacrifices the d5 pawn).
Exploiting White's cramped position is essential for any strategy you employ on the queenside side. White will probably outpost his knight on the f4 square so BxN eventually will open up the e-file. Even though this is a drawish game it is far from over and inaccurate play from either player might lose the game.

have to attack on the king side
advance krp  and also put horsie on kbishop 6 square for black
move rooks and q to kr file


Bishop sacrifices to prevent castling I have neen playing a higher amount of online chess as opposed to club chess  lately and something I have noticed is a significant increase in Bishop sacrifices to prevent kingside castling. Here is an example.
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. O-O Bc5 5. Bxf7+

The above is probably the most common instance I have come across of this "tactic" being used..Is sacrificing the minor piece really worth it? Is there name for this tactic, eg "Fianchetto"?

Not worth it.
Tactic used by low rated players which might work against other low rated players but would fail to a halfway decent player.
Run the position through an engine of your choice and see what it says.
No official name but patzer fish rookie beginner could work.
Can not comment.
@David Bateman:  If those ratings are online then they are barely getting out of the beginner rating class.

The reason bishops are sacrificed is that they are the least likely to be stopped from being sacrificed, compared to a knight or a pawn for whom the a6 / h6 takes 4 moves. The bishop sacrifice is usually not stopped from a direct threat to the king (except for the French Defence),
Another reason: a bishop sacrifice opens up the opponent's king more. Also your pawns in front of the opposing king when they are active and the opponent's pawns on the other side passive it can be successful because you have compensation.

Is sacrificing the minor piece really worth it?

As long as it will be possible to stop the attack without any damage, it is clearly not worth it. In the example above it's a really bad sacrifice. Your pawns are not threatening the king and neither side has completed development.


How do I increase my chances to win as black in the Ruy Lopez? The Ruy Lopez is one of the most difficult lines for me to play against.  I just can't hold my position when I play as black. If I move 3... Nd4, I always get a draw at best, and usually take a loss. How can I improve my chances of winning in this situation?

EDIT :
After I looked up the answers which were given to me, I found one solid win for black with the Cordel Defence that I found in Shredder Computer Chess if you insert this FEN to it.

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 Bb6 5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Nce7 7. d5 Nf6 8. Nc3 O-O

Can someone show me, at which point does black take the initiative from white??

Thanks,
Ahmad

The Ruy Lopez is probably one of the most analyzed openings in chess. You can find plenty of resources on the Internet. (Wikipedia's article on the Ruy Lopez is a good point to start).

I would recommend that you not go searching for "winning lines". You first need to understand the principles that lie behind each move of this opening. Once you have that understanding it is easier to examine variations and choose the one that best suits your needs.

For example, if you are an aggressive player and your chess level is average, you might wish to consider the Open Defense and the Marshall Attack.

After 3. Bb5, black plays

a6
Nf6

a6

a6 puts the question to the bishop. If he takes your knight, recapture with the d pawn. Black has a very strong game at this point. Normally you capture toward the center, but in this case, you can play c6 to c5 and control the d4 square. d4 is very important to control in the Ruy Lopez.

What you see most often after a6 is the bishop retreating to a4. White may play c3 later in the game to give his bishop a square (c2) to back up into. You see the same thing happening on the other side of the board with f3 in the Queen's Indian, giving white's bishop on g5 the option to back up to Bh4 and then retreat to Bf2.

(White playing c3 also prepares for the d4 push, common for white in the Ruy Lopez. c3 protects the d4 pawn.)

Nf6

You're probably going to see Nf6 eventually. After Bb5 you might see it right away. Or you'll see it after 3. Bb5 a6  4. Ba4 Nf6. What does Nf6 do for black? It attacks the unguarded e4 pawn with the knight. But white doesn't have to worry here. Instead, white castles O-O. Why?

Take a moment to play this out on a board:

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6  5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1

Black is screwed after Re1. Notice that the rook is staring down the king. The pawn/knight are pinned. If black retreats the knight back to Nf6, now white takes the knight. Black recaptures the bishop. Now the pawn on e5 is unguarded. Nxe5 and you have a deadly discovered check on black's king when the knight moves.

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6  5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 Nf6 7. Bxc6 dxc6 8. Nxe5

it's all over for black.

That's how Capablanca describes the Ruy Lopez in his book Chess Fundamentals (if I remember correctly).