Why do so many children stop playing chess? I've spoken to many people who played chess as children; some of them were very good players, playing at the national level. Around age 11 or 12 they stopped playing chess competitively and lost interest in the game altogether. I've asked them why & have received answers like "It wasn't fun anymore" or "I was forced to play older children whom I couldn't beat". While it makes sense to me that a child is likely to lose interest in a game they can't win at, reaching the national level is something to be proud of. Even if you no longer play competitively, surely you'd still enjoy following chess and playing for fun? If we compare this to, say, soccer, I know many people who stopped playing competitively after primary school but still follow the sport. Why is chess different? Why do so many young people divorce themselves from chess completely when they feel they've reached their potential and can't advance any further?

In order to prevent my answer to be misunderstood/wrongly interpreted, let me state few thing now, at the beginning:

I LOVE to play chess.
I am inactive, and doubt I will ever play on tournaments again, but I still follow the game.

Now, let us proceed towards answering the OP's question:

...I know many people who stopped playing competitively after primary school but still follow the sport. Why is chess different: why do so many young people divorce themselves from chess completely when they feel they've reached their potential and can't advance any further?

In order for someone to continue sports/mountain climbing/collecting stamps/whatever they need to have a reason for doing it - and it must be a very good and strong one!
So let us start examining this from the athlete's point of view for a start, and then we shall compare our conclusions with those for a chess player.
ATHLETE'S POINT OF VIEW:
A child athlete could like sports because he can :

Play with people of similar interest and of the approximately same age and he can be a part of something;
He can improve his health or maintain its good shape, he can get popular which can give him many social benefits;
He needs little work to do in order to improve compared to a chess player, and if he continues to pursue sports there is a chance for him to have great future (fame, money and so on).

CHESS PLAYER'S POINT OF VIEW:

Young chess player is surrounded with his peers at the beginning but as soon as he progresses he meets usually older people to play against. Imagine a child on a decent tournament (this scenario is really plausible since 12 year old can reach FIDE master/near FIDE master strength) surrounded with older people - it makes him feel awkward, like he does not belong there. He can not socialize with them since they have no common conversational topics due to age difference - which will lead to loneliness, unlike the athlete who is usually surrounded with their peers and feels great for being a part of the team, for belonging to a group.

Chess improves mental abilities (some mathematical disciplines and  memory), but spending too much time on the board neglects a child's physical development. In that age physical development is far more important on the long run than to be a spelling champion. Furthermore, a successful athlete gets the social benefits, like popularity in school and many others, while being a chess player is not being fully approved today-nobody likes to lose from a girl and guys are labeled as boring geeks. Sorry to say it, but in the long run being the athlete really has its benefits even if you do it for fun but playing chess in your free time does not.

Regarding the improving method athlete again has it easier. Let us take basketball for an example: If a tall child and a short one start training and invest equal amount of work the taller one will still be a better player because of his innate height advantage. We see this in sports all the time-physical attributes play huge roll. In chess these two will be of equal strength if they invest equal amount of work. Why is this so important? In order to be the best in sports you need both physical attributes and skill yet in chess pure skill is the only thing that counts. Let us take Shaquille O'Neil as an example - his free throws are horrible, but he is still a top player because his physical attributes combined with other skills compensate. In chess, lack of skill can not be compensated - you must work hard to remove your shortcomings.

So what is the result for our 12 year old chess player? Work your butt off to be good chess player for what - to be socially labeled by a bad stereotype? So you can get kyphosis/scoliosis for sitting on the board for too long? We all know that only few chess players ended up millionaires compared to countless athletes out there. So what is the future for a child if decides to really pursue chess? He will most probably reach grandmaster strength with hard work only to realize that there are many others like him and that he will have to work even harder just to have a chance to become top level GM. Strong memory and good mathematical abilities do not count much - we have computers/smart phones and other stuff to do that for us, yet physical fitness is still of paramount importance for us.
Also, you can find sports report on any news station/newspaper/Internet page, yet chess resources are very skimpy - again this requires hard work or maybe devotion is the true word and not many 12 year old children possess it.
To conclude: After playing chess for sometime child will reach the peak at strengthening its memorization skills and after that it decides to pursue other interests and to explore new things. Devoting oneself to one thing at this early age is something that is not seen very often - children at that age learn about the world around them and it is normal for them to want to try everything. To devote oneself to chess - and you really need to devote yourself based on the reasons posted above - requires strong characters.
I will end this quoting Mikhail Botvinnik:

"Chess is for strong people, of strong character."

How many children do you know that possess these admirable traits?
Hopefully this answer will shed some light on the matter.
Again, I do not mean anything insulting, I just state my opinion which is backed up with arguments.
Feel free to comment, I will gladly reply.
Best regards.

Online games are killing it. Plain and simple.

Every child needs motivation. If the child can see in chess that he/she can join and win many tournaments  in about every few weeks or a month, gain more ratings and progressively improving -- then it's a good investment.

But if he feels like "this is not my sport... I lost a lot" then he/she might just turn to something else like online stuffs especially online games where everything is so colorful and exciting.

This sport is for patient people who can appreciate the beauty of the game beyond the depths of the 64 squares.


What happens if a player dies at the board? What is the ruling? What happens if a player dies at the board? What is the ruling? I am interested in both FIDE and/or USCF rules.

I seem to recall about 40 years ago, when reading my first copy of the USCF rule book, that per USCF rules the position would be adjudicated (a result ruling was made based on the position on the board at the time), but of course, it was so long ago, I could be remembering that incorrectly now. I can no longer find anything about that situation for either USCF or FIDE anywhere.

The deceased person does not care, so it would seem natural to award the other player the win since eventually the flag would fall anyway.

During the game CM Kurt Meier versus Alain Patience Niyibizi at the 2014 Olympiad, CM Meier died at the board, but the game was a draw, and I am not sure why, whether it was an act of sportsmanship, or rules.

In another more publicized case, Nikolaos Karapanos played a brilliant game against Israeli IM Dan Zoler, and died during a time scramble. Remarkably, Zoler, is a medical doctor, who tried to revive his opponent, and who was lost on the very final move, graciously resigned the position later in an act of truly commendable sportsmanship.

So if anyone knows, I would appreciate any light you may shed on this situation, which has happened all too often.

Clock runs out and they lose on time if it is the   move of the dead player.
Otherwise the opponent could resign or move;  unless a draw was offered before the death in which case they could accept the draw (why?) , resign (but more why?), or move and wait for the clock to run out on the now dead opponent.

USCF rules.
This is a case that is decided by the director's discretion.

18G. Adjudications.  Only under emergency circumstances may a director permanently adjudicate a game; that is, declare a result based upon best play by both sides.

An interesting rule is:

15G.  Ownership of scoresheets  The scoresheets of all games in a tournament are the property of the sponsoring organization(s).

This means that even if you bring you own scoresheet, once you take notation, it belongs to someone else, and you taking it home is theft.


Is there a chess GUI that gives an evaluation of each move? I'm looking for a chess GUI that shows the evaluation of each possible move rather than the top move.

In most GUIs you can set up top x moves. The reason why there is no program showing all moves, is that it would be terribly slow if you would make it show a lot of moves because of the engine.

All engines use some version of Alpha-Beta Search, without getting in the details of it, the point is, if a move is outside the interval of Alpha-Beta it is not examined further, so you can't really decide if it's right out of the window, or way off. If the engine wouldn't use this filtering, than it would need to check all branches, making it way too slow.

tl;dr

I don't think there is a GUI like that, if there is than the results it shows are completely bad, they would have the strength of a chess program from the 50s.

Yes! Lucas chess gives the evaluation for all the moves you play. Download latest version.


Chess Engines that have "Deep" in their names? Why is it that some chess engines have the word deep in their names? It does seem to be a common trend, but not one that is universal.

It used to be the case that the "Deep" specified the multiprocessor version. At least for Fritz, Shredder and so on, the "old" engines. But I guess nowadays every engine is a multi processor engine …

This naming trend was surely started by Deep Thought, the first seriously strong IBM chess machine. And of course Deep Thought was named after the famous computer from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

It has to do with the way the chess engine calculates the its moves. It constructs a partial Game Tree and then runs a search algorithm to calculate the best move. The deeper the search algorithm goes (that is, the deeper are the "roots" of the partial tree), the better the move will be.


Determine ELO strength without playing in FIDE tournaments I don't play club chess or tournaments, how can I determine my ELO strength?
I often play on chess.com how well does it compare to the FIDE system? (I am aware that one cannot account for people cheating online)

This is going to sound tautological, but Elo is inherently a measure of how you do in tournaments. Your question is sort of like asking "I don't run, how can I determine how fast I can run a mile?" We could guess from how generally fit you look, but in reality you just have to go run a mile to find out.

There are correlations between various online ratings and a FIDE rating, but they're just correlations; the context of how you play online is very different from playing live (for one thing, online games are usually much faster).

I can tell you that the first time you play in a live tournament you will likely perform 100-200 points worse than you might expect from such a correlation, just because you're not used to the environment of a face-to-face tournament (moving real pieces, using a clock, writing down your moves, having your opponent right there in front of you, being distracted by other games). Luckily it does not take long to settle in.

There was one psychologists site studying such things who had a sample test that would estimate your rating.  While you really need to play enough games OTB and get a real FIDE rating you could use that site to estimate your rating.

Alternatively you could play at some online sites and subtract a few hundred points to roughly estimate your FIDE rating.

NOTE that the rating depends a lot on the time control!


Bizarre pin rule: pinned pieces do not attack I found this guy who likes playing chess, but not enough to bother reading the rules; he only plays using a physical board with his sister (she doesn't know the rules either).

The made up rule was this:

  A pinned piece is not attacking the squares he can't reach the next
  move without exposing the king.

Which means, a lot of things can happen:

A king can move to an 'attacked' square if the piece is pinned.
By removing the pin, the piece now attacks the squares he wasn't (this can result in discovered checks if the king was in one of these squares).
You can remove a check by pinning the attacking piece.

If you think about it, it requires much more thinking process to play like this. I was at a disadvantage because it is really hard to see these new threats and tactics if you never played like this before.

My questions:

Does anyone know if this is some kind of known chess variant?
Should I tell them the correct rules even when I know they are not that serious about playing?
Are these rules more complex to understand than the official pin rules?

Well, it's a variant (since it's played by your friend and his sister, and probably at least some others), but not a well-known one.  I used to think this idea would be only logical until I realized that a King moving into a square attacked by a pinned piece could still be captured by the pinned piece, and even though the opposing King would then be exposed to attack, the first side would already have lost.  Note that though Black leaves himself in check with his move, he still wins because he theoretically captures the King first:

[FEN "8/8/5k2/4r3/8/2B5/8/5K2 w - - 0 1"]

1.Ke1 Rxe1 2.Bxf6

Compare with a position in which it's a mate in one for whichever side moves first.  Say White checkmates, then Black has lost even though he can checkmate in one move.  This is due to the same reason that Black won in the previous diagram.  Theoretically, White wins because he can capture the opposing King first:

[FEN "6k1/5ppp/6r1/8/8/1R6/PPP5/1K6 w - - 0 1"]

1.Rb8# Rg1# 2. Rxg8 Rxb1

To your second question, I see no reason why you should not let them know the real rules.  You are the best judge of whether he'd be open to learning them.  Don't be overbearing and certainly be willing to play his variant if he obviously doesn't care for the standard rules.  Games are for fun.

And to the extent that it requires consideration of more possibilities, it is more complex tactically.

This is not a house rule or a known variant-is one of the original rules to chess. A piece that must defend the king can offer no attack.

A situation arose a few days ago where I lost a game and while I accepted the loss. I was rather bitter about it. The fact is I was unable to move my king through a file due to a rook blocking it, however this rook was in an absolute pin. In fact my king would have been in no danger at all to walk over the file, but the rules said I can't due to check.

I instantly railed against the rule. Why should I lose the game over a threat which any chess player can see is not a threat? The answer is once upon a time I wouldn't, but the rules have been changed. This rule is like the poster said: it adds a lot of complexity to the game and is in fact more correct. Think it over.


How to play this bishop & pawn endgame? [Title "Black to move"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "6k1/p4p2/1p2pPp1/7p/3Pb2P/1B2P1P1/P7/2K5 b - - 0 33"]

I'm Black. In the game I deliberately allowed White pushing the pawn to f6, I was expecting something like ...g5, ...Kh7, ...Kg6 to pick up the pawn. But then I realised after ...g5, White has Bc2 which forces the exchange of the bishop. Once the bishop is exchanged, white should win with the passed d-pawn after e4 & d5.

Question: What's the best continuation for Black here? Can I take advantage of the weak f6 pawn? I don't have a computer with me, so computer analysis is fine. My human evaluation is very danger for Black (thus I'd misevaluated the endgame by allowing it to happen).

If White tries to hinder your plan by exchanging the bishops he loses the pawn endgame. I have provided brief analysis in the below diagram, see the sublines. Then I have tried to play this endgame with both colors versus computer.

Computer chose 1...Kf8 as strongest but with some "only moves" I managed to save the draw. This is illustrated in the below diagram as the main line.

I played your plan with ...g5 + ...Kh7 but computer found good resource in Be8!, which secures a draw. You will find my play as Black in the below diagram as a subline.

To conclude: you can not exploit your advantage because White generates enough counterplay thanks to your kingside pawns being on the color of your bishop.

[StartFlipped "0"]
[Title "Black to move"]
[fen "6k1/p4p2/1p2pPp1/7p/3Pb2P/1B2P1P1/P7/2K5 b - - 0 33"]

1...Kf8 (1... g5 2. hxg5 Kh7 3. Ba4! (3.Bc2? Bxc2-+ 4.Kxc2 Kg6 5.e4 Kxg5 6.e5 Kf5 7.Kd3 $8 b5 $22 8.a3 a5 9.Ke3 b4 10.axb4 axb4 11.Kd3 b3 $8 12.Kc3 Ke4!-+) 3...Kg6 4. Be8!= $8 Bf3 5. Kd2 Kxg5 6. Bxf7 Kxf6 7. Be8 Kg5 8. Bd7 Bd5 9. a3 Kg4 10. e4! Bxe4 11. Bxe6+ Kxg3 12. d5 h4 13. d6 Bc6 14. d7 Bxd7 15. Bxd7 h3 16. Bxh3 Kxh3=) 2.Ba4! a6 3. Bd7! Kg8 4. Be8! Kf8 5. Bd7 Kg8 6. Be8 Kf8 7. Bd7 Kg8 1/2-1/2

Who is on move?  If it is white to move this looks won for white. If it is black you need to get the king on the Qside to hold a draw.

NOTE:  human analysis not done by computer.  It might be wrong but OTB that is what I expect to happen.


Why do most beginners play this line agains the Caro-Kann? Why do most beginners play this line against the Caro-Kann? 1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4 and 5. Nc3?

[FEN ""]
1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4 AnyMove 5. Nc3

It's not the best way to play against the Caro-Kann, but it's good enough for beginners. It follows basic opening principles: develop your pieces, fight for the center, knights before bishops, though it does violate the rule about moving a piece (or pawn?) more than once. It's true that the Knight on c3 blocks the natural c4 advance, but beginners can't be expected to know that (see below).

If you're seeing this a lot from opponents, don't worry. It will go away (but not completely) as your rating improves and you start playing stronger players. Beginners are commonly told not to study openings, which they interpret to mean don't even learn the first 3 or 4 moves.

In my experience playing chess exd5, beginners play exd5 because they usually think that taking d5 will help them. But that's my opinion.


Why was the engine giving such positive evaluations for my game with equal material? I just played a game on chess.com that was roughly equal material until the final move (I was one pawn up for most of the game) but the engine favours my position to the extent that by move 12 I had a +5.5 evaluation which steadily rose until the end of the game.
I can see that at move 32, all of black's pieces are stuck in a corner while mine are active around the king and because of that, there is a forced mate that black doesn't have time to stop, but for example, on move 22 Stockfish 12 gives me +7 at depth 22 being only one pawn up even though black's pieces are out.
What is it about this game that made the engine so happy? And more importantly, how can I consistently/intentionally play like this? A lot of the moves I made were deemed inaccuracies because I guess I just didn't understand whatever amazing plan Stockfish saw.
[FEN ""]
[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2021.01.23"]
[Round "-"]
[White "Me"]
[Black "NN"]
[Result "1-0"]
[CurrentPosition "r1b1k3/1n1q1p2/1pB1p3/4P3/1P5B/p1P1PQ2/P4P2/1K5R b q -"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "D00"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Queens-Pawn-Opening-Accelerated-London-System"]
[UTCDate "2021.01.23"]
[UTCTime "10:53:13"]
[WhiteElo "1375"]
[BlackElo "1343"]
[TimeControl "600"]
[Termination "matt2230 won by resignation"]
[StartTime "10:53:13"]
[EndDate "2021.01.23"]
[EndTime "11:03:23"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/live/game/6320705182"]

1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 h6 4. Bd3 g5 5. Bg3 h5 6. h3 h4 7. Bh2 Nc6 8. c3 e6 9.
Nf3 Bh6 10. Nbd2 g4 11. hxg4 Nxg4 12. Qe2 b6 13. Bg1 Bg7 14. Nh2 Nf6 15. Nhf3 h3
16. gxh3 Ng4 17. O-O-O Nf6 18. h4 a5 19. Kb1 a4 20. Bh2 a3 21. b3 Na5 22. Ne5
Rxh4 23. Bg3 Rxh1 24. Rxh1 c6 25. b4 Nb7 26. Nxc6 Qd7 27. Ne5 Qa4 28. Bc2 Qa7
29. Bh4 Ne4 30. Nxe4 dxe4 31. Bxe4 Bxe5 32. dxe5 Qa4 33. Qf3 Qd7 34. Bc6 1-0

on move 22 Stockfish 12 gives me +7 at depth 22 being only one pawn up
even though black's pieces are out

Black's pieces are not all out and the ones that are aren't on the right squares. Black is still several moves away from being able to castle safely. Meanwhile you have completed development, including the queenside castling safety move Kb2, and some of your pieces are on very good squares.

how can I consistently/intentionally play like this?

The best move you made was picking a patzer for an opponent, someone who develops two pieces and then starts a wild attack making pointless wing pawn moves. The next best thing you did was obey standard opening principles of developing your pieces properly. Continue doing those two things, particularly the first, and you should win all your future games.

Position counts just as much as material. Often more.
Like Brian Towers said you played a patzer.
Play some good players and learn to appreciate position more than material if you want to improve.


Uncovering the Accelerated Dragon opening I had previously heard and seen in commentaries about the Dragon opening where black plays an early g6 to develop the bishop on g7 after the typical open Sicilian starting moves c5 cxd d6. But how does the Accelerated Dragon differ from the usual Dragon and what aspect of it is being accelerated?

A short explanation of the naming and summary of the underlying opening idea would really be helpful.

Dragon

The opening is named after the Draco (Latin for dragon) constellation because if you remove all the pieces and just look at black's pawn structure with the  pawns on g6 and d6 it looks like the dragon constellation as shown below (image source):

Accelerated

Unlike the mainline Dragon Sicilian where d6 is a key early move (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6...), even though later it might still be pushed to d5, the accelerated version attempts to play d7-d5 in one go, without the inclusion of an early d6 move, and hence the name accelerated Dragon.

Here's an important move order that really typifies the accelerated Dragon, where everything black has set out to do has been achieved: safe king, healthy development, a successful early d5 push to undermine white's center, powerful bishop on the long diagonal, active play in the center and on the queenside. I highly encourage you to closely study the 3 variations that can result from either of the 3 ways white can capture the pawn on d5 on the next move.

 [Title "Accelerated Dragon, typical position"]
 [fen ""]
 [StartFlipped "1"]

 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Bc4 O-O 8. Bb3 a5 9. f3 d5

Basic plan for black:

In short, having neutralized white's central d4 pawn for our c7 pawn, black fianchettoes their kingside bishop and exerts pressure on the long diagonal from the get-go, unlike most other Sicilian variations where the dark squared bishop stands quite defensively. Additionally, the fianchetto structure is a good defensive fortress for the king.

Moreover, black's kept both central pawns (e and d) and in the future they can potentially make a better claim at central control as the central pawns are 2 for 1 in favour of black. Considering that white's only remaining central control lies in their e4 pawn, with constant threats of e5 kicking our knight to a less ideal  post, black's constantly playing towards making the d7-d5 break happen as early as possible, neutralizing white's only  central foothold.

The accelerated dragon attempts to play d5 in one move while the dragon plays d6 first so a later d5 would lose a tempo by moving the d pawn twice.

Given that the dragon often becomes a race as to which side can mate the other first, the extra tempo is a huge advantage.

However, playing the accelerated dragon allows white other options not available in the standard dragon.


slav defense, black's bishop early development punishment After:

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bf5

I want to put a lot of pressure in black's position, I used to follow the game with:

5.cxd5

And here black has two major options:

i) 5... cxd5

rn1qkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3P1b2/3P4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 5

5... cxd5 6.Qb3 Qb6 7.Nxd5 Qxb3 8.Nxf6+ exf6 9.axb3

I think it's very good for white

ii) 5... Nxd5, and here I found searching in a database a move that looks like strong, Nd2!

rn1qkb1r/pp2pppp/2p2n2/3P1b2/3P4/2N2N2/PP2PPPP/R1BQKB1R b KQkq - 0 5

5... Nxd5 6. Nd2 e6 7.e4 Nxc3 8.bxc3 Bg6

And in this position white has a solid center and looks for me a little better

I want more, how should I continue after 4...Bf5?

As far as I know it is consensus that the two variations you gave starting with 5.cxd5 are indeed the best possible way to play as White.

Now 4. ...Bf5 is a bad move, as Black is either forced to give up a pawn( in the first variation) or give up the center(as in the second variation), but despite these tactical flaws it is still a sensible developing move, so you really should not expect to gain more than you do in the given variations.

That being said, White does have different options available, but none of them is actually objectively stronger. In fact, if White is careless this variation can easily result in an equal or even slightly favorable position for Black. There is a famous game Yanovsky - Capablanca, that beautifully illustrates this danger.

You could play either:

d*5 (better defense).
Ne4 (good defense and offense).
Qd6 (to let queen out so could attack later)************personally think this is best.
e6 (better positioning).


How do you solve chess tactics? Do you just grind them, or do you save some of the chess tactics that you miss?

Do you ever annotate your chess tactics?

Do you try to remember certain patterns and main ideas? Do you categorize your tactics by forks, pins, zugzwang, etc.?

How do you recommend we train tactics puzzles?

Training chess tactics should be done by theme. This means solve a set of tactics that are based on a similar theme, like Double Attack, Discovered Check, Absolute Pin, Relative Pin, Skewers, etc. This impresses upon the mind the ideas of that particular kind of tactic and gets your brain looking for it as a matter of course. After, you will find yourself 'seeing' these tactics (i.e., imagining) in your games or at least considering them as a means to an end in your positions. This is the creativity you cultivate in your chess game.

In my opinion it depends on how well you can understand and memorize them. The next time you want to play chess try different methods, such as the methods you know before and the methods which are suggested by others and try to work out which of them is easier and more comfortable for you. It's not one method for all. Try to find what is suitable for you.

                                                           Be successful


Which chess opening to learn? I decided to start learning some opening theory, so far I have only played online and studied a couple of end games. Seems that a correct approach might be to chose one opening for white and two for black (answers to e4 and d4), and stick to those three openings for a while, since that is a fairly low number so you can keep up with the variations with some work, and also large enough so you can use your preparation in a good amount of games.

So the question would be, what do you think is easier to start with, as a first timer learning any theory, e4 or d4? (I usually prefer d4 for no particular reason). And which defenses would you start with against those two moves as black.

For a beginner, the goal of the opening is simply to avoid losing material and blundering; don't stress playing a perfect opening just yet. However, here are some general (and not at all exhaustive) distinctions between the openings:

e4

Often leads to open games
Bishops are slightly more valuable, as they have more space on the board to play
Through the midgame towards the endgame, entire files may be left open - because of this, Rook positioning is key and often can be make or break
Openings to study: Ruy Lopez, Sicilian (although I'd avoid playing the Sicilian as a beginner)

d4

Often leads to more closed games
Bishops and Rooks are relatively immobile throughout the midgames, and serve passive (but still important!) roles
Knights form the basis for strong attacks and exerting control in the center of the board
Openings to study: Queen's Gambit, Indian Defenses (fianchettoed bishop)

Ultimately, you should decide which you prefer better. However, I personally find 1. e4 to be a simpler opening to play, with less chances for blundering. Hope this helps!

I suggest two openings for white and black which I find simple and easy to study. Ruy Lopez as white

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5

and Caro-Kann as black

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5

Caro-Kann may sound difficult but it has easy patterns to learn because you can always answer white's second move with 2.. d5.


White's c5 in Semi-Slav (or Slav) Defense Lately, I've been experimenting as white with pushing the c pawn in the Semi-Slav Defence, but mostly in blitz games, so I would be very thankful if some of you could analyze a bit and point out if there are any major drawbacks compared to other moves, as longer games could look quite different.

[fen " w - - 0 1"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 c6 5. Bg5 Nbd7 (5... Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. c5) 6. e3 Be7 (6... h6 7. Bf4 Be7 8. c5) 7. c5

My prerequisite for playing c5 is that I managed to get bishop out to g5/f4/g3 and pushed a King's Pawn to e3, while my opponent didn't push his bishop to b4 (so it's on f8/e7/d6).

In the next few moves I usually play Be2/Bd3 and O-O, and later on it depends on the opponent's response.

What usually happens afterwards is that my bishop is pushed to h2-b8 diagonal (if it wasn't already there), and if black goes for pawn-exchange on Queen's side (by e.g. (X)... b6 (Y). b4 bxc5 (Z). bxc5), I have a strong b-line due to my bishop preventing opponent's Rb8.

Some other players block out Queen side pawns and try to get my black-square Bishop for a Knight, but I feel like it still leaves me stronger.

Some examples of live games:

[fen "r1bqk2r/pp1nbppp/2p1pn2/3p2B1/2PP4/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/R2QKB1R w - - 0 1"]

7. c5 a5 8. a3 O-O 9. b4 b6 10. Be2 Ba6 11. O-O Bxe2 12. Qxe2 Re8 13. Bf4 Nh5 14. Be5 Nxe5 15. Nxe5 Nf6 16. Nxc6 Qc7 17. Nxe7+ Rxe7 18. Nb5 Qc6 19. Nd6 g6 20. Qf3 Kg7 21. Qg3 axb4 22. axb4 bxc5 23. b5 Ne4 24. Nxe4 Qc8 25. Qe5+ Kg8 26. Nf6+ 1-0

OK, my opponent made a clear mistake with 14... Nxe5, it seems like not playing this position very often is one of the reasons why it happens, as this was a Blitz game. But that's exactly why I'm asking, as you can't expect such mistakes that often in classic games.

Another example:

[fen " w - - 0 1"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Bf4 e6 6. e3 Bd6 7. Be5 O-O 8. Be2 a6 9. c5 Be7 10. O-O a5 11. a3 b6 12. b4 bxc5 13. bxc5 Nbd7 14. Bg3 Ne4 15. Nxe4 dxe4 16. Ne5 Bxe2 17. Qxe2 Nxe5 18. Bxe5 f6 19. Bg3 Qd5 20. Rab1 Rab8 21. Bxb8 1-0

Again, the opponent made a blunder with 20... Rab8, but I think I was already in a considerably better position at that point.

[fen " w - - 0 1"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 h6 5. Bf4 Bd6 6. Be5 Bxe5 7. Nxe5 Nd7 8. Nxd7 Bxd7 9. c5 Nf6 10. e3 a6 11. Bd3 b6 12. b4 a5 13. a3 axb4 14. axb4 Rxa1 15. Qxa1 b5 16. O-O O-O 17. Qa7 Qa8 18. Ra1 Qxa7 19. Rxa7 Rd8 20. f3 Kf8 21. Kf2

I made a mistake later on and ended up with one pawn less, but managed to get a draw. However, at this point of the game, I'm in a clearly better position.

[fen " w - - 0 1"]

1. d4 c6 2. c4 d5 3. Nc3 e6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 Be7 6. e3 O-O 7. c5 Nbd7 8. b4 Nh5 9. Bxe7 Qxe7 10. Be2 Nhf6 11. O-O e5 12. dxe5 Nxe5 13. Qd4 Nxf3+ 14. Bxf3 Be6 15. a4 a6 16. Rad1 Nd7 17. Bg4 Bxg4 18. Qxg4 Nf6 19. Qf4 Rae8 20. h3 Ne4 21. Nxe4 Qxe4 22. Rd4 Qc2 23. Rfd1 Qxa4 24. Qc7 Qb5 25. Rg4 Qe2 26. Rdd4 Rb8 27. Qe5 Qe1+ 28. Kh2 g6 29. Rh4 Qxf2 30. Qg5 Rbe8 31. Qh6 Qxg2+ 32. Kxg2 f5 33. Qxh7# 1-0

In this game, there were significant mistakes on both sides, but once again, it's Blitz so it happens.

What I want to know is, if you were black, would you be happy with me as white playing c5, and why (or why not)? I have troubles finding games with c5, so I guess there must be a reason why it isn't popular. But I know the move itself isn't that problematic (there are better moves perhaps, but a lot of popular openings are often played with suboptimal moves), so why is it so rarely played?

This is problem 34 from The Reassess Your Chess Workbook: How to Master Chess Imbalances by IM Silman. The notes are derived from his annotations:

  White has tried many moves here: 9. e4, gaining central space, and 9. b3, preparing to fianchetto the c1-Bishop and also giving White the chance to meet ...dxc4 with bxc4, both make sense. How would you judge the aggressive 9. c5?

[FEN ""]
[StartPly "16"]

1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 c6 4. Nc3 e6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. Bd3 O-O 8. O-O Qe7 9. c5 Bc7 10. e4 dxe4 11. Nxe4

What does White achieve in the final position?

Better control over e4 and d6
Black's freeing maneuver of b6 and c5 has been stopped
Although d4 is a backward pawn, it cannot be attacked so easily and helps cramp Black

For why c5 is not as popular, Silman offers:

  At one time this move would have been the object of derision; White makes a one-move threat that's easily dealt with and... takes all the pressure off the Black d5-pawn.

In summary, c5 is played to gain space, hence cramping Black.

Its one variation.  Would work better with black B on d6.  Not that it is bad just different. And other moves seem slightly better.

B-d3  and  pxp  would both work much better statistically.

I would have played differently earlier on with black so this position would not be a consideration.  And as you note most games will vary widely the farther you get from the opening few moves.


Reasonable engines to test against (Not StockFish) I've built a chess engine in Python which I've been testing against StockFish through the use of the Python-Chess package.

Testing against StockFish seems/is problematic, and as a result I'm looking for suggestions of engines to test against.

There are two major issues with testing against StockFish (the first much more significant than the next)

StockFish is partially used in generating the training data for the engine's evaluation function.
StockFish is extremely good, and even given extremely little time will perform well.  This makes it difficult to see the changes in the engine's strategy which resulted from a change in the engine's code

The engines I'm hoping to play against need to have no serious bugs or problems, and ideally would play at levels similar or a bit below a human master, without spending too much time running them.  UCI engines are prefered so that my engine can easily communicate with them through the Python-Chess API (note that this doesn't mean my engine supports UCI).

If it helps anyone to have some context, my engine is Batch First.

Since your engine supports UCI, I would suggest checking out lichess.org. You can make a BOT account there and test against several other BOTs and people as well! Also, you can get your BOT rated in different time formats!!

I must warn you that most of the BOTs on lichess some version of StockFish or other strong engine but you can find ample other BOTs.

Among strong BOTs (apart from Stockfish ones), I would suggest checking out:

LeelaChess: A neural net based BOT.
ASMFish

There are many more BOTs on lichess, you can view them here on lichess BOT team.

You can also find many not so strong self-implemented engines that you might like testing against, for example this.

Here is a list of computer chess engine rankings.  Elo's are provided.

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


Lichess puzzle 87510: How much calculation would a strong player do before playing Bg4+ when white has a range of (all losing) responses? Lichess puzzle 87510 has this position.
[FEN "r1b1k3/pp4R1/2q3RQ/4p3/5P2/bP2P3/2P1K2P/8 b - - 0 1"]

The solution is 1...Bg4+,.after which White has 6 legal moves:

1...Bg4+ 2. Rxg4 Qxh6, which is the computer solution, possibly followed by 3. Rg8+ Bf8,

Kd3, which is mate in 7,

Kd2, which is mate in 8,

Ke1, which is mate in 5,

Kf1, which is mate in 4, and

Kf2, which is mate in 4.

I feel like a human player in a tournament would not calculate the whole decision tree, and probably just intuit that 1...Bg4+ is going to win since black can continue with a range of powerful moves Qf3, Qc2, Rd8, and Bb4 and at least one of them is with check, depending onWhite's response.
Question: How much calculation would a strong player (say an FM+) perform before playing 1...Bg4+?
It's a dangerous movem Black begins with an exposed king, with mate threats and a possible rook skewer, and queen attacked, and Black responds by creating an undefended bishop.  If the checks ended, Back would probably lose.

I'm an FM, and my calculation process would be as follows:

1) See that after 2.Rxg4 Qxh6 2.Rg8 Bf8, I'm clearly winning and White has no follow up.

2) Look at White's king moves to get out of check. Immediately Kd1, Kd2, Kd3 can be discarded since they just let me play ...Rd8+ for free. Also, Kf1/Kf2 lead to the same thing after I play 2...Qf3+. So I'd just look at Ke1 and Kf2.

3) Everything looks good, so I'm done.

If I were in time trouble, I'd play 1...Bg4+ seconds after seeing it. Since 2.Rxg4 doesn't work, there's no practical risk to playing it.

I someone who knows how to play chess, I, with confidence, would say none.  If I got into this position in a game, I would already know the correct answer before I got to this move.  If I saw this as a puzzle, I would assume that only two moves are worthy of consideration, and only one is doing more to restrict the king.

Not the answer you're looking for, and others will think that it's a bad answer, but it's the truth.


Why is 4...e5 not popular in the Smith-Morra Gambit? When I encounter the Sicilian as White, I often will play the Smith-Morra Gambit.  My opponent played 4...e5, but this does not appear to be a very popular move as there are only 2 games on www.chessgames.com that have it, one of them being here, which is apparently the first ever Smith-Morra Gambit recorded.  I didn't even see Wikipedia give it as an option, so I was curious to know why 4...e5 is not popular or in other words, what drawbacks does it have?

[FEN ""]
1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 e5

Simply stated, it's because of Black's backward d-pawn; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_pawn -- as opposed to other lines of this Gambit it gives White a definite weakness to focus on well through the opening and possibly the middle-game and beyond.

This kind of opening does not give advantage so it is not played often. The loss of a pawn does not give enough compensation.  If there is any compensation, it will be if it can be realized fast, in the opening.


English opening exchange-sacrifice compensation Evaluation of exchange sacrifice: How good is White's compensation after the exchange sacrifice on move 19?  Seems the position is about even to me but Black might have more issues to solve.  I am thinking it is Whites best winning chance as opposed to having just liquidated the queen-side pawns.

[FEN ""]
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.e4 d6 6.Nge2 c5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d3 a6 9.h3 Rb8 10.a4 Ne8 11.Be3 Nd4 12.Rb1 Bd7 13.b4 Ne2 14.Nxe2 cxb4 15.Rxb4 b5 16.cxb5 axb5 17.Qb1 Nc7 18.Rc1 Na6 19.Rb5 Bb5 20.axb5

This exchange sacrifice would be good if you could coordonate your pieces in order to support the passed b-pawn. In this given position, however, it looks like you are one tempo short and the pawn will be a target: 20...Qa5 and then

21.Nd4 [21.Nc3 is quite the same] Bxd4 22.Bxd4 Rxb5 and Black should win.

21.b6 Nc5 22.Bxc5 dc5 23.b7 [I see nothing else to hold on the pawn] Qa7 [or 23...e5 to prevent the opening of the g2-b7 diagonal] 24.e5 Bxe5 and the big passer gives practical chances but Black is clearly for choice.

Probably White would have reached a much better version of the game with 18.Nd4!? instead of 18.Rc1.

I would say that the rook sac was correct. Retreating to b3 just allows bxa4, attacking the rook with tempo and creating a very strong passed pawn that has a lot of support. The fianchetto'd bishop on g7 even controls it's queening square. Giving up a rook for a bishop and pawn, and creating a passed pawn of their own is the best option for white.


How can I remember Silman's imbalances? I can never remember Silman's imbalances when it comes time for a tournament. I can remember them any other time when I'm not all stressed out. Is there any way that I can?

At the moment you are trying to remember the imbalances using declarative memory:

  Declarative memory (“knowing what”) is memory of facts and events.

Whereas you need to have the imbalances in procedural memory:

  Procedural memory is a part of the long-term memory that is responsible for knowing how to do things, also known as motor skills.

So you need to internalise the imbalances by practicing, for example using the The Reassess Your Chess Workbook by I.M. Jeremy Silman.

SPSMCDI (Superior minor piece, pawn structure, space, material, control [of key files, ranks, diagonals], development, initiative)
You can think of this as a phonetic acronym SUPPOSE MCDONALDS DIDN'T EXIST (SPSMCDI). just spell exist with an “I” instead of an “E”


Can two Kings stand next to each other? My white King is separated from the Black King by one square (between) which is protected by my white rook.  I moved my white King next to the black King putting him in check (from the square protected by my rook).  My opponent says that this is an illegal move because two Kings cannot face each other.  I contend that my white King can threaten the black King from a protected square (by my rook). Who's right?

Your friend is right. Think of it in terms of capturing the king: check means that your king could be captured on your opponent's next move. If you could move your king next to your opponent's king, your king could be captured on your opponent's next move; the fact that after that you could capture your opponent's king doesn't change that: your king has been captured, and you've lost the game.

Two kings must always be separated by at least 1 square because 2 kings cannot check one another.


Experiences with the Steiner Variation 1.e4 e6 2.c4!? in French? How sound is 1.e4 e6 2.c4!?, the Steiner Variation in the French Defense, and would you actually recommend it? Does it work well in normal games, or is it more a surprise weapon for blitz?

It's undoubtedly sound in the sense that it does not by force lead to any sort of catastrophic disadvantage for White, but it offers very little if any objective possibility of obtaining a theoretical edge.

If you're specifically trying to reach an IQP position, it's probably preferable to play the Exchange Variation and only then follow up with c4, since Black has other reasonable options against c4 on move two besides an immediate d5 thrust. 2... c5, for example, can reach positions similar to those found in the Sicilian (i.e., various Maroczy Bind structures that crop up against the Kan, Taimanov, or Accelerated Dragon variations) and English Opening Hedgehog systems. That said, an immediate d5 seems to be the most popular response, and it's probably what one would typically expect from a French player (and what I would likely play myself).

It's certainly a viable way to play if you enjoy IQP positions and you want to avoid the well-trodden paths of main-line theory. It shouldn't lead to any advantage against correct play, however.

Я сам играю правильно  2.d5 ed 3.ed
a)cd5 +0.22
b)d4 +0.06

cxd5

4 Qd5 5 Nc3 Qa5 6.d4 Nf6 7.Nf3 Be6
4 Nf6 5 Bb5+! Bd7 6.Qe2 Be7 7.Nf3 0-0 8.Nc3


What are the advantages of the QGD over the Slav? I don't have an extensive knowledge of the opening theory of the two openings mentioned in the title. However, I do understand that, at a very basic level, in response to the Queen's Gambit the moves 2...c6 and 2...e6 have the effect of defending the d5 pawn as well as erecting a solid position for Black.

However, the move 2...c6 has a simple advantage: Black's queen bishop is more easily developed.

Why, then, is the move 2...e6 even played? What advantages does it have over 2...c6? It seems to me as though the move just impedes the development of a piece.

The same consideration applies to semi-slav type structures in which the queen bishop is still on c8. Why would one want to play e6 before playing Bg4 or Bf5?

It is not so easy to develop c8 bishop to f5 or g4 in any of these systems. You run into many tactics like Nh4 winning bishop on f5 for a knight, f3 e4 as in open Slav or Qb3 Ne5 stuff with bishop on g4. The bishop is often developed to b7 in both semislav and QGD. It is safe and effective square for him. It is better to have the bishop passive for a while than to go for long term disadvantage of exchanging it for a knight.

That being said, e6 is good developing move even with bishop on c8. Now you can look for differences in 2...c6 and 2...e6 systems. The advantage of c6 is that it threatens to win a pawn forcing white either to close the c1 bishop (meran) or to be prepared to sacrifice it (botvinik, moscow). The advantage of e6 is obvious, the active c7-c5 will be played in one move, it doesn't take c6 square from knight and it helps you develop kingside faster.

QGD had more strategic & Tactical Games in Database compared to Slav . Even it has more to learn and has wider variations. The above technical explanations also hold true .


Crazyhouse/Bughouse openings Are there any known or "standard" openings in bughouse or crazyhouse chess? Obviously, as soon as pieces start coming off the board things get less predictable, so this question is less about the existence of opening lines as it is about moves which are consistently seen to be good; e.g. White playing e4 to open development lines, or Black avoiding g6, which creates exploitable weaknesses.

I play 1... Nf6 after 1. e4.  Then 2. e5 d5 3. exf6 exf6.  I have had great scores with this opening versus Chess master.

[FEN ""]

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 d5 3. exf6 exf6

The idea is to have strong king side with 4 pawns for defence. The second advantage is the development. Bishop in c8 is ready for attacks. If white castle king side u can put pawn in h3 if gh3, Bh3 or @Nf3+.

1) e4 Nc6 2) d4 d5 is also a good choice, got great results with it.
3) ed: Qd5: and d4 is weak
3) e5 a6 (!)

have a try ;-)


When Black opens with Nf6 after e4 - Beginner question I would like to have some analysis in the following setting:
1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5.

Now, what is best for white? The move 3. c4 continues the attack, but can create a "pawn weakness".

1.e4 Nf6 is called Alekhine Defence.
It's an hypermodern opening as it doesn't directly fight for the center but more aim to provoke weakness in White camp and then counter-attack.

Also White has several option, first he can try not to push by playing :
2.Nc3
2.Bc4 as after 2...Nxe4 White get back the pawn with 3.Bxf7 Kxf7 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Qd5+

Still, it's better to take the center :
2.e5 Nd5 and now White has to decide whether or not he will push his pawns, so 3 systems are relevant :

the modern approach, White delays c4 : 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 just finishing his development without giving weakness
3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.exd6 and now Black has a choice between ...exd6 or ...cxd6 depends where he wants to put his bishop f8.
the most agressiv : 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 just taking as much space as possible, I think this is the most critical continuation.

It indeed creates a pawn weakness, that's why you should play d4. and if develops his knight, then go one with c4


Why this is the best move? I'm new here, so I just like chess and I don’t study too deeply. I could not understand the move Qxe5. Can someone explain to me?

The move exploits three things:
1. The black knight on f4 is trapped and will fall.
2. The black pawn on d6 is pinned.
3. The black King is trapped behind its own pawns allowing the threat of a back-rank mate.

Qxe5 dxe5 2. Rxd8+ Qf8 3. Rxf8+ Kxf8 and White has stolen a pawn
Qxe5 Qxb3 2. Rxd6 and White has a lovely game

This is the best move because if the pawn on D6 were to take the Queen, the following move would be to checkmate with the D2 rook.


Do the new chess AIs play gambits? Do the new chess AIs, such as Alpha Zero and Leela Zero, play gambits?

By gambit, I do not mean a merely nominal gambit like the mainline Queen's Gambit, but rather a genuinely speculative offer of opening material like Evans' Gambit, for example—or like the gambit @Akavall gives below.

Sure, this line of Queen's Indian came up:

[FEN ""]
[White "AlphaZero (Computer)"]
[Black "Stockfish (Computer)"]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. c4 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O
7. d5 exd5 8. Nh4 c6 9. cxd5 Nxd5 10. Nf5 Nc7 11. e4 d5
12. exd5 Nxd5 13. Nc3 Nxc3 14. Qg4 g6 15. Nh6+ Kg7 16. bxc3
Bc8 17. Qf4 Qd6 18. Qa4 g5 19. Re1 Kxh6 20. h4 f6 21. Be3 Bf5
22. Rad1 Qa3 23. Qc4 b5 24. hxg5+ fxg5 25. Qh4+ Kg6 26. Qh1
Kg7 27. Be4 Bg6 28. Bxg6 hxg6 29. Qh3 Bf6 30. Kg2 Qxa2 31. Rh1
Qg8 32. c4 Re8 33. Bd4 Bxd4 34. Rxd4 Rd8 35. Rxd8 Qxd8 36. Qe6
Nd7 37. Rd1 Nc5 38. Rxd8 Nxe6 39. Rxa8 Kf6 40. cxb5 cxb5
41. Kf3 Nd4+ 42. Ke4 Nc6 43. Rc8 Ne7 44. Rb8 Nf5 45. g4 Nh6
46. f3 Nf7 47. Ra8 Nd6+ 48. Kd5 Nc4 49. Rxa7 Ne3+ 50. Ke4 Nc4
51. Ra6+ Kg7 52. Rc6 Kf7 53. Rc5 Ke6 54. Rxg5 Kf6 55. Rc5 g5
56. Kd4 1-0

I got this game from chessgames.com: game

I found a few stockfish vs. alphazero evans gambits.


Are there studies showing that descriptive notation is easier to use for blindfold than algebraic notation? What studies have compared effectiveness for thinking by chess players using descriptive vs algebraic notation?

If there are studies, they'd show descriptive to be the lesser of the two because in descriptive, all the squares have two names; in algebraic, just one. So if you're having to keep a game in your head, it's easier to do so with 64 identifiers to remember than 128, right?
If you practice playing blindfolded, you'll find that your only use for notation is transmitting the moves back and forth.

descriptive is far easier for blindfold chess or blind players
the symmetry makes it easier to 'see' the board where with algebraic it is all memory and computation to really know what is where


Who is better in this endgame? This endgame can come out of the scotch gamibt, albeit there are better lines for a black player that desires a draw. However, I was wondering out of curiosity if this is good for white or black.

Komodo 9.3 evaluates the position after 1.Kd5 (after searching to 31 ply) as +2.32 for White. Playing out a few lines, White usually ended up with Q+2P vs Q+P. It's not necessarily winning (Q+P endings have lots of resources for the defender due to all the checks) but I am comfortable asserting that the position is more pleasant for White.

For what it's worth, the position has occurred 6 times in my database, with 4 White wins and 2 draws.

I got very deep and reaches the conclusion that the ending is a draw in over the board chess ( but it is nearly impossibile to defend) but a win in correspondence chess. The key position with WHITE King in c6 Queen in c1 pawn in b7 BLACK King in h2 Queen in b3 pawn in g5 Black to move, that is  indeed a mate for White, but 58 moves are needed before a pawn move or a capture. Syzygy tablebases online. Only six pieces are present at the board at this point.


What would be the Elo rating of a computer which plays all optimal moves? What would be the Elo rating of a computer which plays all optimal moves?
By playing all optimal moves, I mean that it always wins if possible, or else draws if that is the best result possible.

ELO is not an absolute measurement; it is only meaningful relevant to the ELOs of other players. This is because it is only calculated based on performance against other rated players. The "Maximum ELO", which seems to be what you're looking for, is therefore equal to the ELO of a player at such a time when his ELO is so high that he cannot gain any ELO points for defeating the second-highest-rated player.

The answer to your question, then, relies on at least the following two questions:

What is the highest-rated opponent that this theoretical machine could always defeat?
How much higher than that rating does an ELO need to be, in order not to gain any points from a victory?

The problem is this: if you play this machine against itself, the outcome is undefined. If we assume (since we don't know) that Chess is a fair game (Black and White have equal winning/drawing chances), then this machine can't raise its ELO indefinitely by repeatedly playing and defeating another version of itself, because it'll lose half the time and not get anywhere. So without hacking the system (see below), there is an upper bound somewhere.

What that upper bound is, however, is very fluid and somewhat ill-defined, because players' ratings are always in motion, and because rating systems are not equivalent. So to give you a value, let me make a couple of simplifying assumptions.

"Perfect play" is always a victory. (If draws are possible with perfect play from one side, it doesn't change the endpoint, but it does make it take longer to reach the top).
We use the FIDE ELO system, including the k-factor tiers (the k-factor will be 10 in the range we care about).
FIDE only uses integer ELO values.
The highest-rated opponent for this machine is Magnus Carlsen, currently rated at 2881.
Magnus is willing and able to play against this machine as many times as needed for the machine to reach its peak ELO. Between games against the machine, Magnus will play other humans to regain his 2881 ELO rating.

Given these assumptions, the machine will max out at about 3351 ELO1, where if it wins, its ELO will increase by less than half a point (+0.49 to 3351.49), which will be discarded (rounded down to 3351).

If a competitor achieves an ELO above 2881, than the upper bound increases. This fact allows us to pull the following (very silly) stunt, if we so choose:

We have a machine that always wins.
Presumably, we could build another one.
We pit the machine against Magnus until it achieves FIDE ELO 3351.
We disable perfect play on the machine (Machine 1). We set Machine 1 to always lose.
We build another machine, Machine 2, and play it against Machine 1 until it cannot gain more ELO points.
Repeat steps 4-5 with new machines ad nauseam to create a machine with an arbitrarily-high FIDE ELO.

1 I haven't done all the calculations myself by hand. I just plugged the appropriate numbers into this calculator. It's entirely possible that the formula used there differs from the current FIDE rules, but the basic premise is the same even if the numbers are inexact.


Free online analysis engine? Is there an online analysis engine that allows you to enter a PGN and get a game analysis, showing where suboptimal moves were made?

I know there are programs for download/purchase that do this, but I specifically want an online one. The ones I've found (e.g.) can analyze positions, but not entire games.

lichess.org has played game analysis and allows you to edit a board before AI game.

Its analysis shows wrong and right moves and percentage statistics of mistakes for both sides.

You may want to download this free Creatica chess game analyzer for Windows for your pgn games http://chessgame-analyzer.creatica.org/ Just right click on your pgn file and choose "Analyze with Stockfish". The result will be opened in your default pgn GUI; for example, in SCID vs PC or Chessbase.


Why is the queen considered lost? In this game, white just moved the queen from b7 to c6, and the computer marks this as a "critical blunder" (and suggests that the bishop should take the knight). In this position it considers the queen lost, but it doesn't say much how. It says black should move their rook to c8, but then it seems to me the queen can go to b5, and from there on it's hard to take it.
The black rook can then move to b8 and the queen can go back to c6. If the rook doesn't move, it seems to me the queen can escape: if the white queen moves then it becomes a queen trade, and if the black knight moves then the queen can play a4 and then escape to c2 (for instance).
How can the black take the white queen in this configuration? (black to move)

r2q1rk1/p3b1p1/2Q1p2p/2npp3/4P3/2PPBN1P/PP3PP1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1

1... Rc8 2. Qb5 Rb8 3. Qc6 Rb6!

Now white's queen is trapped.
As @Joffan has pointed out in the comments and as many have probably seen, immediately trapping the queen is not the end to this game:
r2q1rk1/p3b1p1/2Q1p2p/2npp3/4P3/2PPBN1P/PP3PP1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1

1... Rc8 2. Qb5 Rb8 3. Qc6 Rb6 4. Qxc5 Bxc5 5. Bxc5 Rxb2 6. Bxf8 Qxf8

A more convincing alternative seems to be sacrificing the rook for the knight.
 r2q1rk1/p3b1p1/2Q1p2p/2npp3/4P3/2PPBN1P/PP3PP1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1

1... Rc8 2. Qb5 Rxf3 3. gxf3 Rb8 4. Qc6 Rb6 5. Qxc5 Bxc5 6. Bxc5 Rxb2

A more dangerous way to handle this is for black to move Qd7, instead of Rc8, which also prevents white from escaping. Of course, this poses an opportunity to trade queens, but any move by white allows the queen to be taken.
[FEN "r2q1rk1/p3b1p1/2Q1p2p/2npp3/4P3/2PPBN1P/PP3PP1/R3R1K1 b - - 0 1"]

1... Rc8 (1... Qd7 Qe6 Nxe6 (2... Qxe6)) (1... Qd7 Qd6 Bxd6 (2... Qxd6)) (1... Qd7 Qb6 axb6) (1... Qd7 Qa6 Nxa6) (1... Qd7 Qd5 exd5 (2... Qxd5)) (1... Qd7 Qc5 Bxc5) (1... Qd7 Qb5 Qxb5) (1... Qd7 Qa4 Qxa4 (2... Nxa4)) (1... Qd7 Qd7 Nxd7) (1... Qd7 Qc7 Qxc7) (1... Qd7 Qb7 Qxb7 (2... Nxb7)) (1... Qd7 Qc8 Qxc8 (2... Rxc8)) (1... Qd7 Qa8 Rxa8) (1... Qd7 Bxc5 {And last, but not least, white makes literally any other move} Qxc6) (1... Qd7 Nxe5 {White can try to force a trade, but the queen can still be captured} Qxc6)


Is there a setting in recent versions of Fritz to turn off checkmate announcement? In one of the recent versions of Fritz, every time I analyze a position in infinite analysis mode, and hit a checkmate position, Fritz pop-ups a dialog box and a voice with German accent loudly says "Checkmate", or some variation of it. Does anyone know how to turn that off? While not a big deal, but after analysing a few combinations a day, this gets annoying more than one would imagine.

Turning off the audio announcements should be possible by going File > Options > Multimedia and then setting Audio to 'off'. I have no idea if this will disable the blunder dialog, but I cannot see anything else that would do it.

Try deleting the wav file that relates to the checkmate audio. All sounds can be modified or deleted directly from the files. There's nothing wrong with deleting these files ... I've done so for years and never had any problems.


My chess AI makes the same repeated moves I've built a chess game engine using Minimax and when I play AI against the AI, everything goes fine(for sometime) until both the AI players make the same set of moves again and again.

Observe the moves made by the AI players in the move-log(Right panel).

How do I eliminate this scenario?

Unfortunately, the only right answer to "How do I eliminate this scenario" is "fix your algorithm."  Yes, you could implement the 3-fold repetition rule, but you should also figure out what it tells you about your algorithm.

This sort of repetition happens when there is an oscillating pattern that arises in your scoring.  Think of it like rock paper scissors.  White makes move to try to achieve a rock position, so black tries to make a counter-move that turns it into a paper position.  Then white tries to create a scissors position and black replies by creating a rock position.

The only way to fix this is to look at your algorithm, and make the algorithm better.  My advice is to put your chess program into a debug mode and have it dump out an analysis of what it is "thinking" with each move.  Look at the factors which lead up to your final score, and understand how they're acting.

Once you understand why the algorithm is doing what it's doing, you can fix it.  Look at the game and decide what move you'd rather see them do, and why you like that move.  See if you can add additional scoring which encourages the type of play you want to see.

One thing in particular I've seen that can cause this sort of behavior is a discontinuity on the horizon.  If your scoring stops at your ply limit, and that position looks good from black's perspective, looking one ply further may show a good position for white instead!  This, of course, will always happen in real life, but you can try to minimize how often it happens by doing a better job of scoring each position.

If all else fails, a little randomness can help nudge the game along.  One mode I implemented when I had to write one of these programs was a variable depth algorithm.  Sometimes it would look at 100,000 positions before making a decision, other times it might make 200,000.  That decreased the probability that I would run into a simple issue just past my horizon, because my horizon kept moving.  Instead, I might blunder into the bad move, but at least the game moved forward!

Even top level engines could do this if they evaluate the position to be completely equal.  If your AIs evaluate this position to be equal, then there's nothing wrong with a three fold.  But in the position you posted it doesn't make much sense for White to go for a three fold, considering the 7 point advantage.

Do your AIs do this in every game, or does it just happen once in a while?  What you could try is to build a method in your code called "Evaluate".  It finds the rough evaluation of the position, and if one AI is better then it should not repeat moves.  You could do this by making it not repeat the move it made two moves ago.  So at: Rg7 Ke6 Rg6 Kd7, since the position has repeated itself call the Evaluate method.  If the Evaluate method returns that White is ahead, do not let the AI repeat the move it made two moves ago (Rg7).


Doubt on how move as black after pawn in e5 I am still at the beginning in playing chess, and I often encounter the following situation. Consider this sequence of moves:

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 d5 2. e5

Presuming that I am the black player, how do I respond to this? Additionally, is 2. e5 a good move to do as white?

First, 2.e5 by white is probably not the strongest pure chess move, but it does have a huge advantage in that black is likely to be suprised by it. Anytime you can take your opponent out of his element, that is a small victory. In 40 years of playing, I have never seen that move played there, so that is saying something.

There is no question that 2.exd5 is the best move. It is one of the reasons that the Scandinavian Defense, aka the Center-Counter Defense, is considered sub-standard at higher levels. It is generally just considered a "tricky" opening, but it is also tactical in nature for those, who want that type of game.

2.e5 is likely to lead to French-Defense-type positions, which is a much more solid defense for black, so playing 2.e5 is not best, but there is nothing wrong with it chess-wise other than not being the objectively best move. That is where the intangibles of the game come into play, and black is not as likely to be as well versed in the French as white is there. That can easily outweigh the fact that 2.exd5 is better. I ALWAYS strive to take my opponent into a position they are not as comfortable as I am.

As far as what you are to do from there, you will play c5, maybe get the Bc8 out first (maybe even on that very move 2...Bf5), and then play e6, Nd7, Nge7-c6, Be7, and Qb6 but that is all very general. You will need to be careful putting your king on the short side as it may come under a big attack, but that is still where you want it if safe. Lastly, if you are going to face this often, I suggest you study the Advanced French, and use an engine to see if there are improved versions with Bf5 or Bg4 early.

There are a billion branches here, but here is a sample line I just ran on the computer. Black ends up slightly better.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 d5 2. e5 Bf5 3. d4 e6 4. Nf3 c5 5. c3 Nd7 6. Be2 Ne7 7. O-O Nc6 8. Be3 Be7 9. Nbd2 O-O {With the Bf5 able to go back to g6, if necessary, your kingside is pretty safe.} 10. a3 a5 $15

Bf5 give black a big edge; Pc5 gives black a good game as replies.

whites e5 was poor.
pxp is best for white.
nc3 is least worst alternative for white instead of pxp


Why do houdini and stockfish give this seemingly stupid move? [fen "3r3k/1rp2p1p/4b2B/p3P1Q1/3q4/1P1P2P1/P4PBP/1R4K1 b - - 0 28"]

They both give Qxf2 as the best move. I used http://analysis.cpuchess.com/ with search time 10 seconds. It's black to move.

In the given position, Black ultimately has no way to avoid an impending checkmate, hence is lost no matter what. The engines you're consulting are just trying to push that unavoidable mate as far into the future as possible. 1...Qxf2+ does that the best; any other defensive tries lead to a quicker checkmate. For instance:

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "3r3k/1rp2p1p/4b2B/p3P1Q1/3q4/1P1P2P1/P4PBP/1R4K1 b - - 0 28"]

1...Qxf2+
    ( 1...Rg8 2.Qf6+ Rg7 3.Qxg7# )
    ( 1...Qxe5 2.Qxd8# )
2.Kxf2 Rg8 3.Qf6+ Rg7 4.Qxg7# *

Simply put, ...Qxf2 is a "spite check", otherwise known as a "nuisance check".  It serves no useful purpose other than to delay the inevitable and frustrate the opponent.


Can White defend and possibly win? [FEN "1nkr2nr/pppp2pp/2b2p2/3q4/3P4/1NQ5/P1P2PPP/R1B1R1K1 w KQkq - 0 1"]

Can White possibly win in this position and avoid a queen mate on g2?

Avoid queen mating on g2 is easy:

f3, Qg3, Qh3+ are decent options
Re4, Kf1 also prevent immediate mate but are not good

Winning this position is objectively speaking impossible. Black is up a piece and white does not have sufficient compensation for it. Most players would resign if playing somebody of 1800 strength or even less.
If black is a beginner and/or short on time white could try to continue the game. The usual plan in lost positions with material down is to keep the position as complicated as possible and to avoid trades. You want to activate your pieces and start to attack something, specifically the enemy king.
In this regard one possible plan could be:

Qg3 (protects g2, attacks g7 and eyes c7), also makes space for the c pawn to move (clearance),
Bf4 develops the bishop a tempo by double-attacking c7. Also makes space for a rook to move to c1 (clearance)
Rac1 and 4. c4 or even immediately 3. c4 with the idea that after Qxc4 you play Rac1 and have a half-open file with attacking chances on the king

Once you get in c4 you can follow up with d5 which limits the range of the only active black minor piece.
Of course black also makes moves in-between and could spoil this plan.
The following example continuation is not best play, but about the best white could hope for for the next couple of moves:
[FEN "1nkr2nr/ppp3pp/2b2p2/3q4/3P4/1NQ5/P1P2PPP/R1B1R1K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qg3 g6 2. Bf4 Na6 3. Rac1 Kb8 4. c4 Qf7
5. d5 Ba4 6. Nd4

The final position is still lost for white, but at least white got the more active pieces and more space than black. There could be some attacking potential along the b file as well, now that the bishop left c6.

anything is possible.
depends how good the opponent is and how bad white is.
white is down a pawn and a piece and should lose.


Psychological training I'm currently training a student (rating: ~1350 ELO, Age: 16) in my local chess club, who has been making quite some progress in his rating and playing style lately. Nevertheless, when he is playing against me or another much higher rated opponent (1700+ ELO), he always plays quite cowardly and defensively and isn't going for an attack even if it is objectively good for him. Therefore, he is quite happy when he draws a game against a higher rated player instead of taking a little risk to win a game.

How can I access this psychological problem in my training sessions and teach him some courage?

Possible reasons

Strictly speaking to content oneself drawing a much higher ranked player in tournaments, when not having a clear understanding of what the exact counterpart for aggression might be, is not a bad idea at all. This said, I would look at two main sources for this to happen:

Playing style: not all chess players encourage attack: there are many examples of ultimate GM who are notorious for their positional solid play who dismantle the opponent only one bit at a time, very often just going into endgames where they convert tiny positional advantages into wins (promoting that f pawn after 30 moves preparation). Above all I would mention Karpov and Kramnik, not ultimately known for their attacking fantasies but for sure almost impossible to win against exactly due to the hard discipline and strong knowledge of theoretical positions.
Knowledge of enough lines, variations and continuations: it is by all means true that one is more comfortable attacking in positions where one knows already many (if not all) the standard outcomes, because "well, the worst that can happen is that I will be left with a doubled pawn on the g file..."

Possible exercises

I myself am part of the above category and generally dislike attacking only for the sake of it; since it is however true though that this characteristic has sometimes held me back from better results, I tried to address the problem in two ways, so far:

chess puzzles: looking and solving chess puzzles helps giving you the "feel" of a given position, showing how tactics can help winning a piece on the short run or combining together bishop and knight for a vortex attack (or the like).
better preparation of openings and position: preparing all (well, not all, but many) possible outcomes of a given opening helps minimising the "risk" of a blunder attack; it can be helpful to practice only one-two openings and defenses to be more secure about the continuations.

You can't solve this person's problems, or teach them courage really, they might have complex psychological issues that go beyond chess.  Best you can do is just do the best you can with the mechanics of chess and leaving the rest up to the person himself.


Why are the corner pieces referred to as "rooks" in English? Various sources like those quoted in Wikipedia say that it's a mistake, or old-fashioned, to refer to rooks as "castles".  Why is this, though?  Other languages generally refer to these pieces as "towers" and when the king exchanges places with them, we call it "castling" rather than "rooking".  The pieces look like castles.  The term "rook", on the other hand, seems to come from Persian/Arabic and have a very obscure etymology.  So why is this word preferred?

Some say:

There will probably other theories about the origin of the name "rook" for this chess piece; however here is the one I believe is best.

IN the origins of the game itself, the game was called Chaturanga and it was not exactly the same as modern chess. The piece we call a rook was considered to be a chariot rather than a castle, probably because of the speed with which it moves. The Sanskrit word for chariot was "ratha". In Arabic it is still referred to as a chariot with the name "rukhkh." When the game spread to Europe, the word "rukhkh" sounded like the Italian word "rocco", which meant "tower." Since the two words sounded alike, the Italian word was used but the meaning changed from chariot to tower.

The piece is still thought of as a tower in European translations. Various European countries use their language's word for "tower" rather than their words for "chariot". In Middle English the concept of tower eventually turned into castle since most castles had towers.

Contributors are welcome to add to this answer any other theories about the name; however they should honor the rule against deleting other answers unless they are obviously wrong. Contributors are also reminded of the rules regarding minor edits.

Other explanations (the ones i believe to be true):

The rook was already known in "Chaturanga", but there, this figure was a carriage and was called "rukh". The war carriages have been a part of the old Indian army until the 5th century. At the time the game came to Arabia the name did not change but the portrayal was simplified. In Europe the English name "rook" remind us to the descent.

But how has the figure changed from a war carriage to a rook?

By the year 1527 Vida, bishop of Albay, published a poem about a chess game between "Apollo" and "Mercury". The rooks were fortifications on the back of an elephant. The European chess players took over the description. Finally they left out the elephant for the normal use.

Notes, I told you what others have said, what you're going to read now is my theory

I am from an Arabic country, Lebanon, and we don't call the bishop "Al Fil", like some website say, at least in my country we don't, maybe some other arabic country did, not us, and we still play Chaturanga (but i don't). We call it Chatarange, it's a French name, since France was the mandate for Lebanon long time ago.

Anyway lets talk about the pieces which is interesting

king = king
queen = queen
knight = horse
rook = castle, yes we call it castle, and it makes sense to castle for
us, we don't rook :)
Bishop = minister, and also makes sense, the Arabs who
played Chess were Muslims you know :) Why European call it Bishop? I
can think of 3 reasons:

Because the bishops were so powerful and involved in political life. Because Christian armies relied on them during the wars, they were the one who blessed a war (Remember the crusaders and the Pop?). And lastly, because they contributed so much to the game (Ruy Lopez, was created by a Spanish priest who later became a bishop!)

Oh so you think I forgot about Pawns? Wrong! Pawns = Some call them soldiers, and some call them stones or rocks!

Now my theory:

It is possible that by translating, a castle, became a rook, after all a castle, is built using rocks. Why didn't the European remove the term "pawn"?

By definition a Pawn is the condition of being held as a pledge against the payment of a loan. All the poor and the farmers were "Pawns".

Remember that Chess was introduced to Europe in mid centuries and only the wealthy played it, so the term pawn has a very significant meaning, the weakest on the board in a Feudal society, that would fight for the king in the hope of being promoted! So they left the name as is for that piece.

Small Edit To My Initial Answer

You might be wondering: Why the hell would Arabs call "Pawns" as "Rocks" in the first place?

That's because, Arabs play a board game called Tables, the game as we play it today, was created in Turkey, (I don't give a damn about what Wikipedia has to say about the history of the game) and the Turks have invaded the Arabic world for a long time, so that's how we got it.

The game is played by stones or rocks, rounded pieces, now they are made from plastic, but not back then. The Tables game is far more popular than Chess or whatever you call it in the Arabic world today.

The way you play the game is by pushing the pieces to the other end of the board, and you win (I'm not going to go over the rules, but that's the idea)

There's also Checkers, which originated in Iraq some believe, and is still more popular than Chess nowadays in the Arabic world.  And the pieces move very similar to Pawns and again were made from rocks. So why creating a "Pawn" shaped piece, when you can use rocks and start playing?

Sources

The history of the chess pieces
Chess Piece history: Rook
Why is a rook called a rook?

First of all, the origin of this game was India. chess should have WAR TROOPS in the battle field. what makes the logic of using a chariot as troop? It could be an Elephant that elephants were used for wars.

when this game spread to the world, people uaed their own terminologies to represent these troops according to thier custom of battle environents and imaginations.

the chess federation developed and fixed some rules and common names for the troops.

mostly animals and soldiers were involved in war. not the chariot (i dont think that people accept the chariot as troop?). it was like a leg of an elephant, for a better shape of a troop to stand on a board (look at the toes of an elephant. this upside down looked like a Tower /casle in some countries. and they named as such.

rook is not a war troop.
elehant is a troop to kill enemies.

can you imagine when the chess special moves were introduced? and what could be the time of this game invented?

the base name of rook was an elephant, not a tower or castle.

i m not against the arguements here. just to remind the logic of the art of cereberal war.

rook is elephant
king is king
queen is queen (in ancient days,  queens too warred in india)


Does some GM or notable coach consistently employ "hand and brain" as a teaching tool? I've seen some streamers do what they call "hand and brain", meaning that one person plays while the other chooses the kind of piece that they must move. All cases I've seen were intended for having fun. But it got me thinking about how effective would this be as a teaching tool.

My question, at heart, is: "Is playing hand and brain with a student an effective teaching tool?" Since this is probably too opinion-based, I only ask if there are cases of GM's/notable coaches that employ it as a teaching tool consistently. If there are references attesting to it being an effective teaching tool, those are of course appreciated.

As an IM and experienced chess coach I can say I only use it in play and for fun.
Serious training should be learning concepts and solving a lot of puzzles.
The only time I do use it is when one person is clearly stronger than the other and the weaker side needs some help. Especially absolute beginners who completely mess up all my plans are my favorite partners!
In theory of course you could use it once in a while as a training exercise, the players can learn from the plans of the others, but other than that I do not see any big use. Sorry, I do think it's fun, but fun and use are different.

Not at all effective.
In fact it would be counterproductive as a teaching tool intended to help a player improve.


Why would you want to trade pieces? To preface this, I am very new to chess. I knew the rules for years but I started actually taking the game more seriously and learning strategies just over 2 weeks ago.
One thing I consistently see in high elo games is that they trade same value pieces constantly.
What am I missing? From my point of view, they are getting no value and just wasting a turn...

There are a few classic reasons which tend to make exchanging pieces favourable. None of these are absolute; in any given position, short-term tactical considerations may dominate. But you might like to keep the following themes in mind which can favour exchanges:
(1) You have a material advantage.
(2) Your opponent has a space advantage (your position is cramped).
(3) Your opponent has dangerous prospects of an attack on your king.
(4) The structure of a position (most typically, the pawn structure) favours you in the endgame.
In addition there are many familiar patterns whereby an exchange creates an advantage for you. For example, the opponent has to accept doubled pawns by a pawn recapture; or the opponent has to give up the right to castle by recapturing with the king (this often applies to queen exchanges in the opening). Or a particular exchange favours you, because your piece is passive / badly placed, while theirs is active / well placed.
(And just to complete the answer: as several people pointed out already, exchanging doesn't typically "waste a turn" because the opponent also uses a move to recapture. If for some reason forcing an exchange does involve giving away the initiative, then indeed that will often be a factor against it.)

A simple example from 15 minutes ago.  I had his king-side knight pinned against his queen.  He put his bishop in the way, then moved the knight to h7 to drive off my bishop, or to trade bishops.  What I don't think he noticed is that after the bishop trade I took his knight with my other bishop--he has to recapture with his rook and thus can no longer castle king side.


Who were the first GMs, and how did they become GMs? In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, a player must achieve three Grandmaster norms. This is not the place to go into detail about what those are; the pertinent point is that norms can only be gained in tournaments that fulfill certain criteria, including the requirement that the entry must include at least three Grandmasters.

Therefore, it seems to me that it's impossible to become a Grandmaster if there weren't already at least three Grandmasters in existence. How did the first Grandmasters earn the title, and who were they?

In order to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, a player must
  achieve three Grandmaster norms.

That is not accurate. The regulations for the award of FIDE titles are given here.

There are two ways to become a grandmaster. Achieving norms and reaching a certain rating is one way but there are also Direct Titles. The FIDE handbook defines these like this:

  Direct title (automatic title) is a title gained by achieving a certain place or result in a tournament. For example, winning, or
  achieving a result ≥50 percent in a tournament. On application by the
  player’s federation and confirmation by the Qualification Commission,
  such titles are awarded automatically by FIDE.

The tournaments and achievements which qualify the player for the various titles are given in the Table for Direct Titles effective from 1 July 2017.

For the grandmaster title the following results give the player the right to the GM title:

Last 16 of the World Cup
Winner of the Women's World Championship
Outright winner of any of World S65, S50, U20 championships
Outright winner of Continental Individual Championship

But in any case these regulations are made by FIDE and they change with time.

  Who were the first GMs, and how did they become GMs?

The original FIDE grandmasters were awarded the title via a resolution of the FIDE general assembly in 1950. These players were:

The top players of the day: world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, and those who had qualified for (or been seeded into) the inaugural Candidates Tournament in 1950: Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky, David Bronstein, Max Euwe, Reuben Fine, Salo Flohr, Paul Keres, Alexander Kotov, Andor Lilienthal, Miguel Najdorf, Samuel Reshevsky, Vasily Smyslov, Gideon Ståhlberg, and László Szabó.
Players still living who, though past their best in 1950, were recognised as having been world class when at their peak: Ossip Bernstein, Oldřich Duras, Ernst Grünfeld, Boris Kostić, Grigory Levenfish, Géza Maróczy, Jacques Mieses, Viacheslav Ragozin, Akiba Rubinstein, Friedrich Sämisch, Savielly Tartakower, and Milan Vidmar.

In 1951 Efim Bogoljubov was added to the list via another vote.

In 1953 something similar to the modern rules was introduced with the world champion and players who qualified for the candidates having the right to the title (if they weren't already) being joined by a variation of the current norm based qualification.

These rules received major revisions in 1957, 1965 and 1970 and may have been tweaked on further occasions.

The original grandmasters were created by the Tsar at the great St Petersburg tournament of 1914. They were Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Marshall and Rubinstein, arguably the five best players of the day, and of whom three held the world championship at one time or another.


What levels should theoretical endings be learned at? When I am introducing beginners to the game, I immediately teach them KQvK, KRvK and KPvK. I follow that up with KBBvK at around the 800 level. Are any resources on when one should learn/teach the following techniques: Lucena win, Philidor draw, KBNvK, KQvKR, KRBvKR, KNNvKP? Each of these teaches valuable lessons with applications beyond just the endgame but the last two may not be worth studying seriously until the IM+ level.

The more I look at Silman's Complete Endgame Course, the more I agree with how he has organised it.

Overkill mates where the stronger side is up by at least two rooks worth of material. KQQk, KQRk and KRRk. Especially KRRk is good because it emphasises the importance of having a plan. With queen(s) on the board, mindlessly checking might let the student accidentally fall into a mate, but checking over and over again in KRRk is unlikely to produce progress.
KQk and KRk. The two basic mates. Further hammering in the importance of having a plan.
KQkb and KQkn.  Easy enough to win, but especially the latter one takes surprisingly many moves against a stubborn defender.
KPk, opposition and the square of a passed pawn. Nothing much needs to be said. This is obviously required knowledge.

These four represent what I'd call the bare minimum needed. And the third is really more of a case of "head fake learning". When one is better at chess, one can obviously figure out how to win KQk{b|n} over the board, so from the viewpoint of teaching theory this is at best marginally useful. The student is actually learning about what the pieces can and cannot do which is always going to be useful.

Beyond this, I think the most practically useful are KQkp, Lucena, Philidor (the KRPkr draw, not the KRBkr win) and a small selection of minor piece theoretical draws (wrong-coloured bishop + rook pawn, KNPk with pawn on h7, etc.).

You want to minimise memorisation while maximising useful knowledge gained for practical play. Not just in the endgame but also the ability to formulate and execute plans (try KRRkr for this) and gaining familiarity with the capabilities of the pieces.

You have to start right away.

The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin has more information about it. Students tend to become results-oriented (as opposed to learning-oriented) if time is spent studying openings.


Is it a draw by insufficient material if the board is K vs K, N & N? It isn't possible to force checkmate with King vs. King, Knight & Knight. A checkmate position, however, is still possible to achieve, so does that mean the 50 move rule applies, or does insufficient material mean insufficient material to force checkmate?

This is a complicated situation, and it is made even more complicated by the fact that USCF and FIDE rules differ slightly.

First and most importantly, the 50 move rule always applies.  If 50 moves are made without a capture or a pawn move, then the game is simply declared drawn.

The rules about insufficient material only are important when one side runs out of time.  Basically, the rule says that if a player runs out of time, and the opponent does not have enough material to mate, then the game is declared drawn instead of the side with time remaining getting the win.  For example, if black has a lone king and white flags while trying to mate with a king and queen, the game is a draw.  If there is insufficient material to deliver mate, an OTB game can also be declared drawn even with time on the clock if a tournament director is summoned.  This will only apply for cases like K vs K or KN vs K.  Usually it is not an issue because the opponent will simply agree to a draw.

So now to the specific case of KNN vs K:

FIDE

Under FIDE rules for standard tournament time controls, if the side with just a king runs out of time, then the side with KNN wins because a mating position can be constructed.  If the side with just the king avoids one move mates, however, then mate cannot be forced.

USCF

Under USCF rules, if the side with just a king runs out of time, then the game is declared drawn.  The USCF focuses on the fact that checkmate cannot be forced.

Online Play

Many online chess servers will automatically stop a game when there is not enough material left on the board to mate.  In the specific case of KNN vs K most servers do not automatically give a draw (following the FIDE rules).  One interesting case is KN vs KB when Playchess and ICC will stop the game and award a draw (not following FIDE rules) while Chesscube follows the FIDE rules and continues play.

Practical Play

Now for practical play, if you are defending with just the king, it is very easy to avoid mate for 50 moves, even if you have almost no time remaining.  Make sure that you don't move to a square where mate can be delivered next move and you will never be forced into mate.

Situations where mate is available but obviously cannot be forced are uncommon. E.g. KBvKB where bishops are opposite colours.

Under USCF rules, the game would most likely be declared a draw if time ran out for either side.


Can I resign if my opponent only has his King? Well, obviously if my opponent has only a King, I cannot lose...either a win or a draw. Suppose I also have a Queen(Forced win).

However suppose I want to lose (maybe I am winning and want to grant some points to my opponent or whatever), so can I resign under such a circumstance ?

(I understand that my opponent would have resigned before reaching such a position, but anyways is it legal to resign if opponent has only king? )

The FIDE laws of chess contain two parts: Basic rules of play (Sections 1-5) and Competition rules (Sections 6-12).

The first part is what defines how the pieces move, when the game ends, and so on. These rules indeed allow players to resign at any point before the end of the game, so you can resign right before you would give a checkmate, but not after you have released the piece after the final move. The second part explains things such as the chess clock, scoresheets, the role of the arbiter etc. Curiously this part seems to have nothing to say about deliberately losing.

So technically, one could say that resigning in a won position on purpose "is allowed" by the rules of chess.

However, the FIDE tournament rules, which are used in international tournaments, say that

  8.(f) Where it is clear games have been pre-arranged, the CA shall impose suitable penalties.

I don't have a good credible source, but I think that deliberately losing games (which has happened) are usually considered in a similar way. In addition, deliberately losing games is generally considered unacceptable behaviour in sports [citation needed]. So in my opinion, it is clear that deliberately losing a game is against the rules of a tournament (unless explicitly specified if the tournament organizers want to allow such tactical manoeuvres). You can always ask the tournament organizer if you want confirmation.

You can resign if you have enough material to checkmate. If you do not have enough material left to checkmate, you cannot resign because the game has already ended in a draw.


Opening as a Beginner: Mainlines or Offbeaten path? I am approximately 1500 OTB (Lichess Classical 1750, chess.com 1540, internal rating in my club ~1500), and of course I would like to improve. Work and family are demanding, so naturally I would like to make the most of my limited study time.

I do not think that I gain a lot by spending time on studying openings. On the other hand, I want to and like to play tactical lines in order to improve my tactical vision.

Currently I play 1.e4 as white (Evans Gambit, Fried Liver, Open Sicilian, Korchnoi Gambit, improvise on everything else), and as black I play the Qd8 Scandinavian against 1e4 and QGA against 1d4.

I wonder whether I should switch to more tactical lines as black, for example the Portugese Gambit against 1e4 as presented by Smerdon ("Smerdon's Scandinavian) or recently Vincent Moret in "My first chess opening repertoire for black". Moret also suggests the Albin Countergambit against 1d4.

I do feel however, that these openings are far from trivial. For example in the Evans Gambit, a lot of good moves come quite naturally, whereas in the Portugese Gambit there are a lot of nuances and move orders to remember (should I put the queen on f5 or on h5?) etc., and if you make one bad move you are very quickly on the losing side. And there are lots of chances to make bad moves.

So in summary: To improve my tactical vision and my game in general, should an amateur like myself invest time in studying these sharp and aggressive offbeat opening lines, or rather play more solid lines and spend the time on studying the endgame and middlegame?

I'd be especially interested in stronger players experience, i.e. how they improved.

In general, independently of playstyle, I'd advise every beginner who seriously wants to improve in the long run to favor "popular" openings over "offbeat" ones.

Offbeat openings are (usually) considered offbeat for a reason. That is, usually there is some way for the opponent to "defuse" them. Of course, that doesn't mean they are unplayable, and at a ~1500 level, most opponents won't know about that way anyways. They will at most have learned some variations of the main openings and have no real clue about playing against the Evans, Albin, etc. gambits. If you are properly prepared, you can exploit that, and these offbeat openings will often net you more wins compared to the popular ones in the beginning. However, in the long run, you will run into more and more opponents who DO know them, and some years down the line you may face the dilemma that these openings slow down your progress.

Popular openings on the other hand will usually be less impressive in the beginning, point wise. However, if you find one that you like, you will essentially have found a buddy for the rest of your life. Similar to the offbeat openings, they are (usually) popular for good reason. Having already lived under the microscope of thousands of master for decades, it's unlikely that they will suddenly be "refuted" (that risk is much higher in offbeat openings). Yes, the amount of theory may be frighteningly big, but so is the potential reward. After all, while many different lines mean that you have to have much more to learn, they also mean that you have much more to learn: You get a much broader scope of middle game positions you can potentially reach, and learning how to handle them is very beneficial for your overall chess skill. You don't have to know all little lines from the beginning (your opponents won't either), just start small and build up the tree move by move over time. Honed over the years, a popular opening is guaranteed to at some point surpass the results of offbeat openings.

My personal approach is to play popular openings, but slightly offbeat lines within these openings. That way, I still retain some surprise factor (and decrease the risk that an opponent "out-prepares" me), while still having the safety to play a very sound opening that I can fall back on. It's much easier to just switch to a different line at move 5 (that most likely uses at least some of the motives that I already know from my previous choice of line - not to mention that all side lines before move 5 stay the same) than to switch my entire opening at move 1 (that I will for the most part be completely unfamiliar with).

In your case, I agree with the other answers. Sicilian (Najdorf/Sveshnikov), Slav and Caro-Kann are all fine choices. I mean, you can play stuff like the Portuguese gambit every now and then to have a little fun, that certainly doesn't hurt ... but I wouldn't devote a lot of time into it.

Take the Fischer games collection and play twice through it.
Then try to remember what openings he has played and reproduce them on the board.
There is no better openings guide than Fischer games.


Transposition into KID I have looked at many grandmaster games where White starts off with 1.c4, which later mostly transposes into a King's Indian. However, Black could have immediately played 1...e5, which seems slightly better. Why would Black not take this opportunity?

It is a matter of choice
Many grandmasters (e.g. world champion Viswanathan Anand) have consistently played 1.c4 e5 with Black. Others favour the KID or other defenses : Hedgehog (with b6), symmetrical English (1.c4 c5), Pseudo-Nimzo (with Nf6 and e6), Pseudo-Grünfeld (with Nf6 and d5), Réti (with e6 and d5) or Slav-like (with c6 and d5) defenses...
There is no definitive hierarchy between all those schemes. You may well prefer 1...e5 and you won't be the only one (this is actually my favorite retort nowadays) but there is no objective reason to think that this choice should be "slightly better" than other reasonable defenses. What suits us doesn't suit everybody.
The case with the KID
The King's Indian Defense has many pluses and minuses: lack of space, ressources for counterplay, long theoretical lines... But one thing that makes it attractive for many players with Black is that the KID is an holistic opening solution for everything but 1.e4 : if you wanna play the KID, you can go for it whether I start with 1.d4, 1.c4, 1.Nf3, even 1.g3 or 1.b3, and there is little I can do to stop you.
As a consequence players who are confident in their KID repertoire against 1.d4 have little incentive to switch to different schemes to meet 1.c4, and prefer to transpose with 1...Nf6 and 2...g6 rather than work on the theory of the pure English 1.c4 e5.

c4 e5  is playing the sicilian an extra move behind
most e4  players do not want to play the sicilian so I doubt they would do it as black either.
I would far prefer the KID to behind a move in sicilian.
so why do you think c4 e5 is so good for black?