How much time should be spent playing versus studying? I have been learning fairly rapidly lately (will probably go about 400 points in about a year), although I am sure that pace will slow with time.

However, my learning is actually slowed down because I like to play too much. That sounds silly because the whole point is to play and have fun. But what happens is I start playing a few games to try to apply what I have learned and then I just keep playing until I get tired and forget about whatever study I was doing.

As much as I like playing it's not as satisfying as learning. I know some like to win, some like to play, but I like to understand.

So, knowing that my goal is to understand as much as possible, how do I get the right balance between studying and trying to apply my studies with games?

I think you are already on the right track.  Obviously the more you play the more you learn, so even though you may think you are not learning when playing, you are in fact learning something new with every game.  Finding the right balance is subjective, but what I would do is I would learn small things and try to apply them in as many games as possible, basically lather-rinse-repeat.  For example, if you study checkmating pattern(s), you can try to apply some of the patterns you learned to some games.  I would not try to study too much and then apply everything you learned.  In a nutshell, learn a little bit, try to understand it, if you have trouble, just ask here for more clarification and play some games and try to apply what you have learned.  I did this with the Scotch Game, basically applying what I had studied over and over again until I basically became one with the Scotch and comfortable with it.  I was later able to come back and answer a question on here pertaining to the Scotch due to playing, learning, and understanding the opening that I would not have been able to answer before.


What are good books for learning Queen's Gambit opening I am looking for book recommendations on the Queen's Gambit.  I already own some general opening books, which cover many openings and also many variations in each opening.  However, I am not advanced enough to figure out the strategic plans attached to the many variations by myself.

So what I am looking for is something that is less broad than e.g. Fundamental Chess Openings.  On the other hand, if possible, I would not want to delve only into the details of a single reply, e.g., QGD.  So what I am looking for is a book that somehow covers a reasonable amount of different defenses in reply to the Queen's Gambit.  Of course I understand that this is a huge topic.  But at least a book that covers roughly QGA, QGD and the Slav would be nice.

The best for QGD is Mathew Sadler-Queen's Gambit declined in my opinion. Every line in the Queen's Gambit declined has been explained. It is dated, so you will need to do your own research to find latest theory. Still, QGD is "stable" opening so theory rarely changes here...

For Queen's Gambit accepted, you could try a book from Starting Out series, or Semko & Sakaev-Queen's Gambit Accepted. QGA is simple, its all about not letting Black to finish development. You just need the moves to survive the opening. Maybe you will need to learn how to play against Isolated pawn. If that is the case, you can start with this post on Chess SE.

As for Slav defense, again Black aims for solidity and White tries to hinder his harmonious development. The lines are sharp but easy to understand, and you need to know theory. Maybe sometimes you will end with "hanging pawns" but there is a book about this type of middlegame. The best book I found on Semi-Slav is one from David Vigorito. As for Slav, again you can Google for one of the Starting out series.

  Of course I understand that this is a huge topic. But at least a book that covers roughly QGA, QGD and the Slav would be nice.

Lars Schandorrf-Playing the Queen's Gambit 2nd edition could be what you want. It gives you most up to date theory at this point. Combine it with the above books and you should be fine. For latest opening theory you could consider getting 2 volumes from Avrukh ( Grandmaster repertoire 1 and Grandmaster repertoire 2 ).

CONCLUSION:

Shandorrf and Avrukh give opening moves but don't explain basic ideas. I have listed them so you can survive opening as there were recent novelties in the Semi-Slav and Slav. For basic ideas get Starting out series and Sadler's book, they should be enough for you to start.

In my opinion this is the best you can do to solve your problem at the moment. If you need further help leave a comment. Good luck!


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You say -

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


What is the percent of players in the top X that are women for different values of X? I have already found some numbers thanks to this website: http://www.ferimex.com/icc/frl.php?list=0&country=0&title=0&sex=0&year=0&old=0&cat=0&size=9&update=yes

Top 50: 0 = 0%
Top 100: 2 = 2%
Top 200: 2 = 1%
Top 300: 3 = 1%
Top 400: 4 = 1%
Top 500: 6 = 1.2%
Top 600: 12 = 2%
Top 700: 15 = 2.14%
Top 800: 16 = 2%
Top 900: 19 = 2.11%
Top 1000: 29 = 2.9%
Top 1100: 33 = 3%
Top 1200: 36 = 3%
Top 1300: 43 = 3.31%
Top 1400: 45 = 3.21%
Top 1500: 45 = 3%
Top 1600: 49 = 3.06%
Top 1700: 54 = 3.18%
Top 1800: 57 = 3.17%
Top 1900: 61 = 3.21%
Top 2000: 65 = 3.25%

And I plotted the graph:

It's clearly increasing.

But I couldn't go higher than top 2000. I hope that someone will be able to extend the graph for higher values (for higher values the graph should be smoother because there will be less statistical fluctuations).

What I would suggest you do which will allow you to get these statistics for yourself is to go to the FIDE ratings advanced search page. There you can choose options like:

rating 2400 - 3000

sex: both

exclude inactive: tick

and you will get the answer "2184" followed by a list of players and their details. Repeat this with "sex: female" and you will get 66 followed by the list.

Repeat this for 2300 and you get total: 5073, female: 185, so percentage is 3.65%.

For 2000 you get 1473 / 31866 = 4.62%

For 1500 you get 7167 / 100730 = 7.12% and so on.

This way you can go as far as you want and in whatever detail you want.


Chess PhD topic in machine learning? I searched this online and couldn't find sufficient answers.
Is there a topic in chess that includes machine learning and would be sufficient for a PhD thesis? I was thinking of utilizing a CNN that tells you the correct move based on the current position (and previous couple of moves) without calculating all the tree branch moves ahead. Would this be feasible?

You have little chance in your dissertation of surpassing state of the art chess engines. Perhaps you could find a hook which hasn't been explored so much. One idea is to train your program to play amateur chess in a convincing way. Can a program pass a sort of chess Turing Test where a human-player couldn't tell if they were playing an AI or playing a player rated e.g. 1600? When I play computer chess programs with a level setting at a level that I can actually beat, there is something not quite right about it. The program is deliberately hobbled (so I can beat it) in such a way that it sometimes makes blunders that a human player of the target level is unlikely to do, but at other times it still makes moves which seem just too good for that level. Trying to imitate human chess-playing rather than targeting optimal chess-playing seems like an interesting AI problem.


Which is the 200 move won position? In "How Life Imitates Chess", end of chapter 16, Kasparov says that positions needing 200 moves to win have been discovered with the help of computers. So I am wondering which such position is, which the moves are and who discovered it.


Can the total number of possible wins/draws/losses be calculated? http://s13.postimg.org/miyhhh113/chess_finite_graph.png

I'm trying to imagine the finite graph of all positions in chess. Due to the sheer number of possible positions, it is impossible with current technology to build an exhaustive database. Such a database would require more than 100 zetabytes of storage.

But even if we can't store the positions exhaustively, would it be possible to count winning lines for each side? That is, can the number of arrows going to Draw, to Black Won, and to White Won be determined mathematically? And if so, would White have more winning arrows than Black?

Theoretically, we don't know, because we can't calculate it yet. Chess is not solved as an universal and general problem and we don't know that if two gods play chess in an infinite manner, which color wins or maybe it's just a draw.

Statistically, you can gather data from chess databases in websites, tournaments and computer tools to have an estimation. For example see this online databases.


Why might this supervised engine make mistakes based on an example game? I am developing in my free time a python-based supervised chess engine. It is trained on past games to detect who wins (only games without draw), then it proceeds as follows:

1) find the top 4 moves based on static evaluation

2) search until depth four with minimax-algorithm

3) evaluation = 1/2 *( probability of white winning the
game + probability based on the material difference)

The first probability is based on supervised learning.
I play occasionally chess and when I played on Xboard against this engine, then me and the engine make mistakes. I wanted to ask you, based on your experience if you could look at one game (me=white, engine = black) and maybe find some explanation for the mistakes the engine makes or even maybe suggest an approximate elo of the engine, if this is possible with only one game?

Thanks for your help.(I am not sure how to correctly tag this question)

[fen ""]
1. d4 Nc6 2. Nf3 e6 3. e4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Bb5 Nxe4 6. Qd3 Nxc3 7. bxc3 Bd6 8. Bxc6 dxc6 9. O-O f5 10. Bg5 Be7 11. h4 Qd6 12. Bxe7 Kxe7 13. Ng5 h6 14. Nf3 Bd7 15. c4 c5 16. Rab1 Bc6 17. Ne5 cxd4 18. Ng6+ Kf7 19. Nxh8+ Rxh8 20. Rb4 Be4 21. Qa3 a5 22. Qxa5 b6 23. Qa3 Ra8 24. Qb3 Bxc2 25. Qb2 Be4 26. c5 Qxc5 27. Rb5 Qc4 28. Qb3 Qxb3 29. axb3 Ke7 30. Rc1 c6 31. Rxb6 f4 32. f3 Bd5 33. Rb7+ Kf8 34. b4 Kg8 35. Rd1 c5 36. Rc7 Bb3 37. Rd2 Ra1+ 38. Kh2 cxb4 39. Rxd4 Bd5 40. Rxb4 Bxf3 41. gxf3 Ra2+ 42. Kh3 Rd2 43. Rc8+ Kh7 44. Rbc4 Kg6 45. Rxf4 e5 46. Re4 Kf6 47. Re8 Rd4 48. R4xe5 Kg6 49. R5e6+ Kh7 50. R6e7 Kg6 51. Rg8 Kf5 52. Rexg7 Ke5 53. Rh7 Rd2 54. Rxh6 Kf4 55. Rf8+ Ke3 56. Re6+ Kd4 57. Rd8+ Kc3 58. Rc8+ Kb3 59. Rb6+ Ka3 60. Ra8# *

Well done for your engine. I think a positional mistake was 9...f5. It weakened the king position, and without any compensation in return. The move also seriously made the e5 square weak.

Why your engine didn't make a simpler 9...h6? Probably, your engine put too much focus onto material differences into your NN network? You'll have to spend some time on debugging. Your engine needed better understanding of king's safety. Your search depth was also too low.

I estimate FIDE 1600 for your engine.


Are chess players getting better, given the same rating? Chess ratings are a relative thing at a particular time, just like boxing. It is not absolute, compared to weightlifting for example, in which the records keep getting broken. How would say a 1700 rated player of say 50 years ago who is no longer around go against a 1700 player of today? Does this mean that chess ratings over time have grade deflation?

How would say a 1700 rated player of say 50 years ago who is no longer .around go against a 1700 player of today?

Speaking as a player who was around 50 years ago and was rated the equivalent of 1800 in 1973 (my BCF grading was 150 with a generally accepted conversion formula of ELO = BCF x 8 + 600) and is rated 1718 today I'm pretty sure I would beat my 17 year old self.
OK, the me of 2021 is probably not very objective but I am sure that if I managed to reach an even endgame against my 17 year old self I would be a very strong favourite. The reason being that in 1973 almost all the chess I played was at a time control of either 30 moves in 75 minutes or 36 in 90 with adjudication after 3 hours play. The 17 year old me hardly ever played an endgame and so wasn't that good at endgames.
That kind of time control was the norm in England 50 years ago and probably in much of the non-Soviet world. Weekend tournaments where large numbers of people played 3 full games a day with a time control of all the moves in 1 hour didn't come in until the mid to late 70's.

Does this mean that chess ratings over time have grade deflation?

From my personal view absolutely, yes. However my single example of personal experience is highly subjective and one case is meaningless.
To get a more objective view of whether there has been rating inflation or deflation I think we have to look at historic data. There is FIDE rating data available going back to 2001 on the download page of the FIDE rating website and back to 1971 (unofficial data back to 1967) on the Olimpbase site. These data can be downloaded and analyzed to get more meaningful evidence.
Comparing today with 1971 is problematic because in 1971 there was a rating floor of 2200 (nobody under 2200 was listed) so there were only 547 players and obviously nobody with a FIDE rating of 1700. However we can try and maybe also, more meaningfully compare today with 10 years ago.
The January 1971 list is here on Olimpbase. There we can see that the highest rated player, Bobby Fischer, is at 2740, more than 100 points lower than today's number 1, Magnus Carlsen on 2847. There are 16 players at or above 2600, 82 at or above 2500 out of 547 at or above 2200.
The comparative figures for March 2021 are 264 above 2600, 946 above 2500, 3111 above 2400 and 17334 above 2200.
January 1971
Players above 2600 = 16 (2.9% of over 2200s)
Players above 2500 = 82 (15% of over 2200s)
Players above 2400 = 278 (50.8% of over 2200s)
March 2021
Players above 2600 = 264 (1.5% of over 2200s)
Players above 2500 = 946 (5.5% of over 2200s)
Players above 2400 = 3111 (17.9% of over 2200s)
To me that looks like it is comparatively much harder today to get to GM / elite level than it was 50 years ago but the difference in sample sizes detracts somewhat from the percentages. And, of course, it doesn't say much about what is happening at the 1700 level.
If we go back 10 years and compare numbers and percentages (using total rated players) at 1700, 2150 and 2600 we get:
March 2021
Total rated players = 363590
Players rated above 2600 = 264 (0.07%)
Players rated above 2150 = 29392 (8.1%)
Players rated above 1700 = 169425 (46.6%)
March 2011
Total rated players = 126693
Players rated above 2600 = 223 (0.18%)
Players rated above 2150 = 29575 (23.3%)
Players rated above 1700 = 111529 (88%)
Again it looks like it is relatively harder today to get to a higher rating than it was 10 years ago but that might just be a reflection of the expansion in the number of FIDE rated tournaments for lower level players. But, yes, it does look a bit like rating deflation to me.


Why grandmasters play giuoco pianissimo less often than the ruy lopez? White players in search for the win are sometimes annoyed when people play the berlin defense against their ruy lopez. I notice that the italian game often reaches position very similar to the ruy lopez middle game. So my question is why grandmaster do not switch to the italian game as the new E4 main line?

In italian game black put his bishop easily to c5 while not making too many concessions. In Ruy-Lopez prospects of that piece are usually worse. Berlin is not the main choice for black in the first place and it isn't horrible to play with white either. Many black players just stop thinking about Berlin the first time they see Re1 line. No fun at all. Endgame, while interesting, also not to everyone's taste. And white can settle for d3 systems. Black positions seem perfect by machine eyes, but still people prefer a6. The more people play a6, the less you worry about Berlin. And you can still make your opponent suffer in Berlin.


Tips for converting my advantage in the middlegame and the endgame I'm fairly new to chess. I'm practicing against 1500~ rated opponents/engines on chess.com. My openings and middlegame seem to go well. After every game, the engine analysis says I'm always up +1 ~ +3 for the majority of the game. But at the end, I always seem to lose by a blunder. Every game is a "giveaway" according to the analysis engine.
It seems my trouble is actually converting positional advantages. Do you have any tips or areas I should study to avoid this? Is this a stamina issue, as in I start to lose concentration as the game goes on?

Is this a stamina issue? (as in I start to lose concentration as the
game goes on?)

No. If you are consistently reaching the endgame then it is a "lack of endgame knowledge" problem.
Do you know when KP v K is a win and when it is a draw? Do you know how to win the Capablanca pawn endgame as white? Do you know what you have to do as black to draw (if white goes wrong)?
[title "Capablanca Pawn Endgame"]
[fen "6k1/7p/8/8/8/8/6PP/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

In short, do you actually know how to win a won endgame when it isn't just trivial?
If you are not consistently reaching the endgame then you need to work on tactics.
Actually, you probably need to work on both endgames and tactics.


What should be Black's next move? In this game, the last move made by white was Bg5 . Now it's black's turn. A software analysis shows that black is winning in this position with -2.51 evaluation. I am unable to spot the black's next best move ? Any kind of hint is appreciated !

This seems to be a bug in the chessboard's engine. If you look at the engine's main line, you'll see that it is bogus. After 11... h6, White will never sacrifice his bishop.


What is considered a decisive evaluation of a board in chess? Following on from this question, it was suggested in answer and a discussion in the comments that an evaluation of a board of +1.5 is 'decisive' in the sense of allowing an estimation of which side would win with reasonable certainty.

However, this was debated as to whether it would hold at a professional or amateur level as a rule of thumb. Thus, my question:

What evaluation at the amateur and professional level is sufficient to make a reasonable determination of the outcome of the game, barring highly anomalous moves by either party?

You need to realise that any number given as answer (including the 1.5) is just a rough estimate which depends on many factors. Professional players were  mentioned because their play will be close to that of computers so that blunders/mistakes do not affect the statement. An evaluation around 1-1.5 in the midgame often means that the player can make use of his advantage further improving the evaluation. On the other hand in an endgame with few pieces on the board a similar evaluation can be a lot more drawish because there are few options to improve.

And there are many other reasons why you can't really give absolute numbers.

If you want to discuss the situation for amateur players it gets really vague as you need to make assumptions about the blunder rate. Perhaps the following is useful....

When analyzing a game in lichess, the engine knows three levels of error: blunder, mistake, inaccuracy corresponding to a change in evaluation of 3, 1, 0.5 respectively. So for instance if you start from an advantage of 5, you can make a blunder and still have a won position.


Collusion in a simultaneous blindfold exhibition When a blindfold expert plays several players simultaneously, there is a tacit assumption that the players will not collude.  But suppose that the players are allowed to collude, and their goal is to maximize the chances of making the expert lose track of or forget the exact configuration on at least one of the boards.  (I'm assuming that they do this not by indulging in unsportsmanlike behavior unrelated to chess itself, but only by judicious move selection.)  What strategy should they adopt?

I suspect that a good strategy would be to choose very similar but slightly different moves, like playing b6 and g6 and then shuffling the bishops back and forth in some random manner.  If the expert is using memory palaces or some such technique then it will be challenging to come up with mnemonics that accurately distinguish between such similar positions.

Have any blindfold experts prepared for the possibility of such collusion?  What strategies worry them most?  How many simultaneous blindfold games would be possible if this kind of collusion were allowed?

Partial Answer

Just in case it gets deleted, @shivksy left a helpful comment that seems to partially answer the question. It would make a good answer in itself in my opinion.

Here is the comment in it's full glory:

"Fascinating topic. An answer may lie within the book amazon.com/Thought-Choice-Chess-Adriaan-Groot/dp/4871877582. One of the observations made in this very scientific treatise on chess thought process is that Grandmaster memory/recall for non-standard/weird positions that cannot be chunked and recalled is surprisingly no better than lower rated players. In other words, they are pattern-recognition geniuses who are a bit more helpless with statistically infrequent patterns. Perhaps one could stress our expert to store (without the power of chunking) a ton of weird positions?"


How to view contents of database in ChessBase ChessBase has never had a very intuitive interface, but it seems to just get worse and worse. I just got the latest version and I can't even figure out how to view the games in a database. I did find the "next game" and "previous game" buttons on the menu. How do I just view the games in the database in a list, so I can select one to view?

(That I even have to ask this question, seems idiotic. All the more so that I am a software developer.)

Ok, I'll handhold you, but I have CB 13. I doubt it is much different.

When the program loads, you get a tree at the left side. Select Database Path/Bases. this should load a file list of the databases you have. Find the one with the largest number of "Games". For me, it is Big database 2002, but I think I loaded that from a previous version. Otherwise, you can click the "Board" icon at the top and open a new board. At the top of the Board is an icon labeled "Online". That will open a subwindow of games from the online database.

If that does not help, hit the help files.

You can also go to This Week In Chess and get weekly games from most major tournaments without annotations. I do this every month or so. It is roughly 4000 games a week.

Good luck. Help files are your friends.

~Professional Software Engineer


If I touch a piece with my forearm by accident, can my opponent call touch-move? If I touch a piece with my forearm by accident, can my opponent call touch-move?
If the answer is "no", what if after my opponent calls touch-move, I believe him and move the touch piece before calling the arbiter - can I take it back?

According to the 2018 FIDE Laws of Chess (emphasis mine):

  4.2.1 Only the player having the move may adjust one or more pieces on their squares,
  provided that he first expresses his intention (for example by saying “j’adoube” or “I
  adjust”).

  4.2.2 Any other physical contact with a piece, except for clearly accidental contact, shall be considered to be intent.

  4.3 Except as provided in Article 4.2, if the player having the move touches on the
  chessboard, with the intention of moving or capturing:
  4.3.1 one or more of his own pieces, he must move the first piece touched that can be moved

Touching with a forearm seems to be "clearly accidental contact", so it shouldn't trigger the touch move rules.

In the scenario where you move the piece because your opponent said you must, and then want to take it back, it's less clear. You generally cannot take back moves (and, if you've moved, then obviously you have now touched the piece with the intent of moving it.) However, your opponent has acted inappropriately; at the very least they've distracted you during your move. It's possible the arbiter would give some sort of penalty for this, especially if your opponent knew touch-move didn't really apply. You should summon the arbiter as soon as possible to get a ruling.


Your time is up on an online correspondence game but your oponnent has only his king; is it a draw? If your time is up on a timed game, but your opponent has only a king, the game is drawn.

Does this rule apply to online correspondence games?

Note: This was answered before the OP edited the question, and specified it was an online competition.

According to ICCF (international) rules, yes, it is still a draw.

6.7 Except where one of  the Articles 5.1 or 5.2 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that  the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.

The USCF rules are more convoluted. First, there is a special rule 11 in national events that if someone oversteps the time limit, they are not forfeited, but rather penalized five days reflection time on the succeeding 10 moves/30 day time control. They lose the second time this happens. (Plus there are entire sets of rules for specific national events linked on that page)

Otherwise, they also follow the traditional USCF rules of chess, so yes, it would also be a draw in that case too.

14D. Insufficient material to continue. The game is drawn when one of the following endings exists as of the most recently determined legal move, in which the possibility of a win is excluded for either side.

14D4. No legal moves leading to checkmate by opponent. There are no legal moves that could lead to the player being checkmated by the opponent.


Which rule was recently introduced/modified in chess officially? Chess has lot of interesting rules such as castling, en passant, 50 move rule, stalemate, etc.  I am interested in knowing the history behind the introduction of chess rules.

Can anybody explain which rule was recently introduced/modified in chess officially?

Do you mean what rules have been changed the most recently? FIDE, the international federation of chess, just changed some rules four days ago (2014 July 1). Changes include:

You are now officially allowed to promote a pawn by removing it from the board while it is still on the 7th rank and then placing a new piece on the 8th rank, rather than moving the pawn to the 8th rank and then removing it. You may also place the new piece before removing the pawn. (The move has not changed, just the list of allowable ways of executing it.)
If 75 consecutive moves have been played without a pawn move or a capture, or the same position has occurred for 5 consecutive alternate moves in a row, the arbiter is allowed to step in and declare the game drawn (without a player claiming a draw).
Players may not bring cell phones into the tournament hall at all.


1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6 4.Bg5? Please let me know the issue with 4.Bg5 in the position after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6.
I have check the FICS Games Database - Opening Explorer and it seems it's not a popular move. But I cannot understand the reason for this

The issue is that 4. d5 is a much better move; White establishes a strong center with tempo and drives the c6 knight to a bad position.

Besides, 3... Nf6 isn't that popular either (probably because of 4. d5); 3... exd4 is the main line of the Scotch Game.


How can I get Elo ratings? How do I get Elo rating done for myself officially?
Do I contact a FIDE area representative?
Many of the users of this site mention their Elo ratings, how did you get these?

To get an official FIDE rating, you need to compete in tournaments which are FIDE rated. At least in the US, it's more common for tournaments to be just USCF rated, while larger events will also FIDE rate the top section(s).


Does FIDE have rules governing online chess? FIDE has its Laws of Chess which have governed over-the-board chess for almost 100 years. During the Covid pandemic OTB chess has almost stopped in many countries and more and more chess is being played at a serious level online.
Some federations, which have had to cancel their regular national championships, have replaced them with an online version. Example - the English Chess Federation. Their online national championships have just finished with Micky Adams winning the first place playoff.
Does FIDE have regulations for online chess which can be used as a standard by the member federations?

According to an announcement on the FIDE website today, 4th January 2021,

The FIDE Council has approved a new set of rules to be applied to official online chess competitions. The document, which will be incorporated into the laws of chess, is the result of a joint effort by a dedicated task force, in which several FIDE Commissions were involved

According to Article 1 of the new FIDE Online Chess Regulations they build on the existing FIDE Laws of Chess:

Article 1: Application of the FIDE Laws of Chess
1.1 Articles 1 – 3 of the Basic rules of play from the FIDE Laws of Chess are fully applied, except Article 2.1.
1.2 Article 2.1 of the Basic rules of play from the FIDE Laws of Chess is superseded by Article 3.1 of
these Regulations.
1.3 Articles 4 and 5 of the Basic rules of play from the FIDE Laws of Chess are superseded by Articles 3 and 5 of these Regulations respectively

The new Article 3 deals with the mechanics of moving the pieces in online chess and so covers things like pre-moves and auto promotion.
The new Article 5 on completing the game is particularly interesting as it changes the repetition and 50/75 move rule to reflect the way online platforms currently operate. Here is what it says:

Article 5: Completing the Game
5.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his/her opponent’s king.
5.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he/she resigns by pressing button “resign” or
by another method available on the playing zone.
5.3 The player can offer a draw in accordance with any method provided by the playing zone. The offer cannot be withdrawn and remains valid until the opponent accepts it, rejects it by playing a
move or the game is concluded in some other way.
5.4 The game is automatically drawn when:
5.4.1 the same position appeared for the third time (as described in Article 9.2.2 of the FIDE Laws of Chess);
5.4.2 the player to move has no legal move and his/her king is not in check. The game is said to end in
‘stalemate’;
5.4.3 a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves;
5.4.4 the last 50 moves by each player have been completed without the movement of any pawn and without any capture.

There is much more,including rules covering disconnection, and it is worth examining in detail. I have to admit that, although I'm a non-smoker myself, I find article 9.9 over-authoritarian -

9.9 Smoking, including e-cigarettes, is not permitted when visible on camera.

There is, quite rightly, nothing about eating or drinking on camera. FIDE should not be legislating on other non-disturbing behaviour in players' own homes.
Finally it is noteworthy that FIDE has adopted the more inclusive he/she, his/her


The Game of the Century - why didn't Byrne take the rook after he forked Fischer? I'm guessing that there's a pretty simple explanation for this, but I can't seem to see it.

[White "Donald Byrne"]
[Black "Robert James Fischer"]

[fen ""]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. d4 O-O 5. Bf4 d5 6. Qb3 dxc4 7. Qxc4 c6 8. e4 Nbd7 9. Rd1 Nb6 10. Qc5 Bg4 11. Bg5 {11. Be2 followed by 12 O-O would have been more prudent. The bishop move played allows a sudden crescendo of tactical points to be uncovered by Fischer. — Wade} Na4! {!} 12. Qa3 {On 12. Nxa4 Nxe4 and White faces considerable difficulties.} Nxc3 {At first glance, one might think that this move only helps White create a stronger pawn center; however, Fischer’s plan is quite the opposite. By eliminating the Knight on c3, it becomes possible to sacrifice the exchange via Nxe4 and smash White’s center, while the King remains trapped in the center.} 13. bxc3 Nxe4 {The natural continuation of Black’s plan.} 14. Bxe7 {Forking Black's Queen and Rook - Brandon_J} Qb6 15. Bc4 (15. Bxf8 Rxf8 16. Bd3 (16.Be2)(16.Bc4)) Nxc3 16. Bc5 Rfe8+ 17. Kf1 Be6!! {If this is the game of the century, then 17…Be6!! must be the counter of the century. Fischer offers his queen in exchange for a fierce attack with his minor pieces. Declining this offer is not so easy: 18. Bxe6 leads to a ‘Philidor Mate’ (smothered mate) with …Qb5+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Ng3+ 21. Kg1 Qf1+ 22. Rxf1 Ne2#. Other ways to decline the queen also run into trouble: e.g., 18. Qxc3 Qxc5} 18. Bxb6 Bxc4+ 19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Nxd4+ {This tactical scenario, where a king is repeatedly revealed to checks, is sometimes called a “windmill.”} 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1 Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6 24. Qb4 Ra4 25. Qxb6 Nxd1 26. h3 Rxa2 27. Kh2 Nxf2 28. Re1 Rxe1 29. Qd8+ Bf8 30. Nxe1 Bd5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Qb8 b5 {Every piece and pawn of the black camp is defended. The white queen has nothing to do.} 33. h4 h5 34. Ne5 Kg7 35. Kg1 Bc5+ 36. Kf1 Ng3+ {Now Byrne is hopelessly entangled in Fischer’s mating net.} 37. Ke1 Bb4+ 38. Kd1 Bb3+ 39. Kc1 Ne2+ 40. Kb1 Nc3+ 41. Kc1 Rc2# 0-1

Why is 15. Bxf8 not played?

Here is the chessgames link to the game.

Short answer: Since after the bishop recapture on f8 (and not the rook recapture!) white is tactically and positionally completely busted, with 5 active black pieces against a completely exposed king in the centre and no foreseeable chance of consolidation in order to eventually benefit from the material advantage.

First observations:

15...Bxf8 is with tempo as it attacks the queen on a3
White king is still stuck in the centre and being at least two tempi away from castling, not even sidestepping from the open file with Kf1 is possible.
With the bishop recapturing on f8, Bb4 becomes a constant threat, which means Nxc3 is unstoppable for white as Qxc3 falls to Bb4 winning the queen in all ensuing lines.
Although white is an exchange up temporarily, one of their rooks and the f1 bishop are completely out of play still and therefore it is in fact black who effectively appears to be material up (with last piece being the a8 rook that comes into play with check in fact Re8+), not in the raw count of pieces but most definitely in terms of the positional compensation.
Most important consequence of all these observations: black is well in time to prevent white from ever consolidating, which means even without concrete assessment of the different lines we can safely bet that everything's about to fall apart for white quite shortly after 15...Bxf8 as black's initiative on the white king seems to lead to tactically and forcibly winning variations in every scenario.

Brief concrete assessment:

Now let's look at a few candidate lines concretely (by no means exhaustive, please make sure to check these and the connected sidelines with an engine on your own)

 [title "after 15. Bxf8 Bxf8"]
 [fen "r4bk1/pp3p1p/1qp3p1/8/3Pn1b1/Q1P2N2/P4PPP/3RKB1R w K - 0 2"]

 1. Qb3 Nxc3 2. Bc4 (2. Ra1 Re8+ 3. Kd2 (3. Ne5 Rxe5+ 4. dxe5 Bb4 {and the mating net is set, white's completely defenseless.}) Ne4+ {and black's at least winning the f3 knight after for instance Kc2 and Qa5}) (2. Qxb6 axb6 3. Ra1 Bb4 4. Bc4 Ne4+ 5. Ke2 Re8 {only way to avoid the discovery is to play Kd3 but after Nxf2 Nxh1 we're back to a quite similarly lost endgame compared to the 2...Nxd1 Qxb6 line}) Nxd1 {and black is up a clear piece as white cannot in any way recapture the knight} 3. Qxb6 (3. Qxd1  Qb4+) (3. Kxd1 Qxd4+ 4. Qd3 Qa1+ {and the h1 rook is lost, notice the Bxf7 trick doesn't lead to anything for white.}) axb6 4. Kxd1 Ra4 5. Bb3 Rxd4+ 6. Ke2 Re4+ 7. Kd1 Bb4 {and black's clearly winning considering the bishop pair, the 2 pawns up and a passed one already, the exposed white king under constant threats and the out of play white rook.}

these lines clearly demonstrate why the f8 rook is in fact not hanging and why white's best chances lie in Bc4 creating Luft on f1 for the king (or even short castles if black allows on a good day) side-stepping (at first glance) most of the tactical shenanigans we just witnessed after 13...Bxf8.

 [title "15. Bc4 only attempt at consolidating"]
 [fen "r4rk1/pp2Bpbp/1qp3p1/8/3Pn1b1/Q1P2N2/P4PPP/3RKB1R w K - 0 1"]

 1. Bc4 Nxc3 2. Bc5 Rfe8+ 3. Kf1 {and the rest is as you see in the real game, with Fischer's devastating attack despite the tucked away king on f1, which is just too little too late.}


Analysis of Viswanathan Anand vs Vladimir Kramnik in the 2013 Zurich Chess Challenge? I was taking a look at the game between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik in the 2013 Zurich Chess Challenge which can be found here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1711735.  A few things sparked my interest, one being that I have been practicing the Ruy Lopez, so it was nice to see it played and to put it nicely, Kramnik got spanked, so I was trying to do some analysis on my own, but I am not sure that my analysis is correct and there were some moves that were not immediately clear to me.  Here is the complete game with my analysis questions below:

[FEN ""]
[White "Viswanathan Anand"]
[Black "Vladimir Kramnik"]
[Result "1-0"]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. Bxc6 dxc6 6. Nbd2 O-O 7. O-O Re8
 8. Nc4 Nd7 9. Kh1 a5 10. a4 b6 11. Be3 Bb4 12. Nfd2 b5 13. axb5 cxb5 14. c3 bxc4
15. cxb4 cxd3 16. bxa5 Ba6 17. Qb3 Nf6 18. h3 Nh5 19. Rfc1 Nf4 20. Rc6 Ne2 21. Qd5 Qb8
22. Rxa6 Rxa6 23. Qxd3 Qxb2 24. Rb1 Rd6 25. Qxe2 Qa2 26. Qb5 c6 27. Qb2

Why was 5.Bxc6 played?  Was the c6 Knight strong at this point
and would this be an even trade?  Basically, why did Anand
trade his light-squared Bishop?
I always hear that you should capture toward the center, so was
there a reason why Kramnik played 5..dxc6 instead of 5...bxc6?
I know 5...dxc6 opens up the file for the black Queen, but that
is all I see.
Is the point of 6. Nbd2 to develop a piece and to add another
defender to the e4 square?
On move 9, Anand played 9. Kh1, but I did not see his King in
immediate danger. I only saw that his f2 pawn was pinned by the
bishop, so is it common practice to move your King away from pins
or similar situations even if they are not in immediate danger?
I don't see the point of 9...a5. I see that it prevents 10. b4.
Anand followed up with 10. a4 and I see this prevents 10...b5,
but couldn't have Kramnik just played 9...b5 initially?
Apparently Anand sees his dark squared bishop not as strong and
wants to trade it with Kramnik's dark-squared bishop with the move
11. Be3, but Kramnik wants no part of this and rejects the trade
with 11...Bb4.  Can someone elaborate on why Anand wants to
trade bishops here and if it was good or bad for Kramnik to
reject the trade?
I don't get the move 12. Nfd2 except that it adds a defender to
c4 and e4?
22. Rxa6 surprised me as a beginner. To me it looks like Anand is
just giving away his Rook for a Bishop?  The only thing I see is
that if Kramnik captures which I believe he did with 22...Rxa6, it
removes the guard of the d3 pawn allowing Anand to make a skewer
(is that what this is called?) with 23. Qxd3. Was my analysis
correct?
26. Qb5 threatens mate, but Kramnik stops this with c6. Anand
follows up with 27. Qb2 and Kramnik resigned, but it is not
immediately apparent to me why he resigned?  It still looks like it
could have been a draw if Kramnik decided to fight it out. What is
the continuation that I am not seeing?

Disclaimer:  I am a beginner and all answers on this are very much appreciated, so my analysis might not be correct, hence my reason for asking. In particular, my last question about why Kramnik resigned is one that may be apparent to some, but to beginner's it is not, so an answer such as "Black knew he was losing" is not sufficient.  I only mention this because I have asked a similar question before and that is the response I got.  All I am asking for on the last question is a possible continuation.

I'm no pro but I can offer my (potentially incorrect) thoughts.

  I always hear that you should capture toward the center, so was there
  a reason why Kramnik played 5..dxc6 instead of 5...bxc6? I know
  5...dxc6 opens up the file for the black Queen, but that is all I see.

Black gains development of both the queen AND the bishop. It's a free tempi which is important in the early game. I personally choose that much more often than taking with the Knight's pawn.

  Is the point of 6. Nbd2 to develop a piece and to add another defender
  to the e4 square?

Doubt it for e4 nothings bugging that square for a while. I think he wanted to attack e5 or just develop the knight in a fashion where the black bishop couldn't exchange for it?

  Apparently Anand sees his dark squared bishop not as strong and wants
  to trade it withKramnik's dark-squared bishop with the move 11. Be3,
  but Kramnik wants no part of this and rejects the trade with 11...Bb4.
  Can someone elaborate on why Anand wants to trade bishops here and if
  it was good or bad for Kramnik to reject the trade?

I can provide two reasons. If Kramnik takes then white gets to open the file for the rook and has an extra pawn to cover the center. If Kramnik allows Anand to take he has a triple pawn stack. He doesn't like either scenario so flees.

  I don't get the move 12. Nfd2 except that it adds a defender to c4 and e4?

Blocks the bishop pressure on D1, allows white to pressure king side threatening the development of the King's Bishop pawn (which possibly explains the king move as well if he was intending to do that for a while) and the queen.

  Rxa6 surprised me as a beginner.... Was my analysis correct?

I think so. I'm thinking its the game winning move. It's a fork btw. A skewer is like a pin but the piece of greater value is the first attacked in the line.

The resignation might be to do with his lack of options for dealing with the A pawn. He can't immediately take it due to the potential fork by the knight and white has options to both push and defend it. The only long term solution is to blockade it with one of his pieces and all his pieces are expensive. A blockade would then leave him with a queen and a rook against a queen a rook and either a bishop or a knight on the rest of the board.


I need help understanding this puzzle With White to play, I have trouble understanding what goes on in this puzzle. First of all, how exactly Kh1 is preferable to Kxh2? I know that Black can give checks after Kxh2, but there really is no mate threat anyway and White gets rid of a pawn that way. Also, why does Black follow up with Qe3, which leads to them losing a piece? Is there not a better move for them to play?
[fen "1r5k/1p5p/p5p1/2P1rRq1/P2Q4/8/1P5p/5RK1 w - - 0 2"]

1. Kh1 Qe3 2. Qxe5 Qxe5 3. Rxe5

1. Kxh2 allows Black a forcing sequence exchanging off the pieces and White loses his big advantage: 1... Qh6+ 2. Kg2 now Black can capture the Rook on f5 and force a trade of queens: 2... gxf5 3. Qxe5+ Qg7+.


How do I promote my pawn when the king blocks it? I was playing ChessEndGames and ran into this position (white to move):

[fen "5k2/8/4PK2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

I can't get my pawn to promote. As soon as I do e7, black follows with Ke8. If I do Ke5, black does Ke7. If I do Kf5, black does Ke8, and if I follow it with Ke5, black does Ke7.

I am in deep trouble. I don't get it how to promote my pawn.

This position is a draw with White to move. However, the same position would lead you to win if it was black to move (Zugzwang).

The basic theory for you to promote the pawn when the opponent king is having the opposition is you need to have your king in front of your pawn 2 ranks ahead of the pawn, (i.e. if pawn's on e3 King needs to be on e5) (opposition means - being right in front of the king when its his opponent's turn to move, for example- in your position black has gained the opposition with white to move), lets say in the same case, its black to move, that means white has the opposition and after black moves to lets say Ke8, e7 wins you the games as the king now has only 1 square to move that is Kd7, now as it is your turn to move, you play Kf7 and gain the opposition again in front of black king Kd7(sideways), so now black can't play Ke8 and you can promote the pawn and win the game.

In this game it's White to move and he gains opposition and put Black King in Zugzwang. (Make sure to read comments for the moves appearing in the box below each game)

[Date "????.??.??"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "8/8/8/4k3/8/8/3KP3/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Ke3 { Gaining opposition and putting Black king in zugzwang, so black king has to move and give up one of the key squares which is d4, e4 or f4. } ( 1.Kd3 {This is a blunder as now it will just be a draw } Kd5 2.e3 ( 2.e4+ Ke6 3.Kd4 Kd6 4.e5+ Ke7 ) 2...Ke5 3.e4 Ke6 4.Kd4 Kd6 5.e5+ Ke7 6.Kd5 Kd7 7.e6+ Ke8 8.Kd6 ( 8.Ke5 Ke7 9.Kf5 Ke8 10.Kf6 Kf8 11.Ke5 ( 11.Kf5 Ke8 12.Ke5 Ke7 ) 11...Ke7 ) 8...Kd8 9.e7+ Ke8 10.Ke6 ) 1...Kd5 { If Ke6, then white plays Ke4 and gains opposition again. } 2.Kf4 Ke6 ( 2...Kd6 3.Kf5 Kd5 4.e4+ Kd6 5.Kf6 Kd7 6.e5 Ke8 7.Ke6 ) 3.Ke4 Kf6 4.Kd5 Ke7 5.Ke5 Kd7 6.Kf6 Ke8 7.e4 Kf8 ( 7...Kd7 8.e5 Ke8 9.Ke6 Kf8 10.Kd7 ) 8.e5 Ke8 9.Ke6 Kd8 10.Kf7 Kd7 11.e6+ Kd8 12.e7+ Kd7
*

Here White King is only 1 rank ahead of the pawn and if black can gain the opposition, game will be a draw. It is Black To move and Black gains the opposition and draws.

[Date "????.??.??"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "8/8/8/3k4/8/4K3/4P3/8 b - - 0 1"]

1...Ke5! { Now White has no way to gain back the opposition while being ahead of the pawn. } 2.Kf3 Kf5 3.e4+ Ke5 4.Ke3 Ke6 5.Kf4 Kf6 6.e5+ Ke7 ( 6...Ke6 { Also Playable } 7.Ke4 Ke7 { Both the same. } ) 7.Kf5 Kf7 8.e6+ Ke8 9.Kf6 Kf8 10.e7+ ( 10.Ke5 Ke7 ) 10...Ke8 11.Ke6
*

But if White is 2 ranks ahead of the pawn, then he can win the game even if black has the opposition as he has to give up the opposition soon as shown below.

[Date "????.??.??"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "8/8/4k3/8/4K3/8/4P3/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.e3 { Now Black has to give up one of the key squares which is d5, e5 or f5. } 1...Kd6 2.Kf5 { And after this White wins as shown in above example. }
*


Generate an entire chess game up to a position I recently found a chess problem YouTube video with this position.
[FEN "r4rq1/5p1p/p5kn/R1B1Q1b1/6p1/5p2/PNP2P2/1K6 w - - 0 1"]

I want to turn this position into an entire game of chess. Does anybody know of a way that I can generate moves that would lead up to that position to make a full game? I don't want to find out the exact moves that were played if this position ever happened. However, I want to find out if I could make this into an entire chess game that looks legitimate.

It is very easy to generate a "proof game" for this positions (and if you are too lazy, you can use problemists tools like Natch or Jacobi, but I think it will be very hard to make the proof game look "natural". (It gets worse as the position itself is rather unnatural. Did the Kg6 have a death wish? Maybe if the last move pair was Rf6xg6+!, it looks a bit more believable, but still the Qg8 is ridiculous.)


Which White piece moved only once? Here is a chess problem that uses retrograde analysis. I’ve also posted it on the “France-Echecs” chess forum, which is in French of
course, and on my blog.
[FEN "3qk3/3pp3/8/8/8/3PP3/1PP2PP1/RNBQKBNR w - - 0 1"]

Each of the eight White pieces on the first rank has made exactly three movements, except one of them who made only one. Which piece is it?

According to the pawn structure, one of the white bishop must be a promoted one. The knights have switched place, the other pieces can easily make three movements.
The only ones that can make a single one are the rooks, either by

Castling
Taking the other rook's square
By coming from a promoted pawn on a8 or h8

All possibilities seems doable as white can promote two pawns, and can use a captured piece to capture all black pieces.
Here is an example:
[fen "rnbqrnbq/ppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w - -"]

1. d3 a5 2. e3 h5 3. Bd2 b6 4. Be2 g6 5. Bxa5 Bb7 6. Bxh5 Bg7 7. Bxb6 Qc8 8. Bxg6 Kf8 9. Bxc7 Nc6 10. Bxf7 Nf6 11. a4 Nd8 12. h4 Ne8 13. Bxd8 Qxd8 14. Bxe8 Kxe8 15. a5 Qc7 16. h5 Kf7 17. a6 Qd8 18. h6 Ke8 19. axb7 Qc7 20. hxg7 Kf7 21. bxa8=B Qd8 22. gxh8=B Ke8 23. Nc3 Qc7 24. Nf3 Kf7 25. Qd2 Qd8 26. Ke2 Ke8 27. Ra5 Qc7 28. Rha1 Kf7 29. Rh5 Qd8 30. Rhh1 Ke8 31. Qe1 Qc7 32. Kd2 Kf7 33. Qd1 Qd8 34. Ke1 Ke8 35. Ne2 Qc7 36. Nd2 Kf7 37. Nb1 Qd8 38. Ng1 Ke8 39. Bf3 Qc7 40. Bc3 Kf7 41. Bd2 Qc8 42. Be2 Kf8 43. Bc1 Qd8 44. Bf1 Ke8

In this example rook h1 makes a single move while other white pieces on the first row make three moves.


Alternatives to chessbase on OS X Most of my chess preparation and studying used to revolve around ChessBase products.  I stored my databases and notes in .cbh files, used computers with the ChessBase interface to study and do preparation, and used the tools that Fritz 12 gave as an aid.

Unfortunately, ChessBase doesn't seem to make these products for the OS X operating system.  What software is there that lets me study chess, open .cbh files, and use chess computers on a Mac?

I highly recommend Scid ("Shane's Chess Information Database"). Here's a screenshot of the Mac version (more to be found at Softpedia):

It is completely free, has lots of functionality, and is fast (handles my 5.2M game database quickly and fluidly). I have only used Scid in its Linux and windows versions, not the Mac. But from what I understand there are no appreciable differences in the software across these operating systems, and I've certainly never noticed any real differences between the Linux and windows versions in my own use. A few notes:

1. Scid cannot open .cbh files directly, but you should be able to use the ChessBase products you've been using to export to PGN, which Scid can then import into databases in its own format.

2. This doesn't apply to you, but for those who have never owned ChessBase but do have some ChessBase files that they'd like to import into Scid, there is a way to do so without buying any ChessBase products, at least on a PC. The old Fritz 5.32 is now freeware, and can be used to convert ChessBase files to PGN. (Amazingly, I know of no other free program that can do this; maybe someone else does.)

3. Scid plays very well with chess engines for use in analyzing games. I have Houdini 1.5 (the free version before it went commercial with 2.0), some version of Stockfish (free), and some version of Crafty (free) in use with my Scid.

4. One potential drawback, but only if you're on an older OS X: you can download the Mac version here, and it is pointed out there that the executable is available only for Mac OS X 10.5 or later; if you're using an older version, you'll have to build the program from its source code. They have instructions for doing so though, so it might not be too big of an issue anyway.

5. While I'm at it, I'll point out that some other developer made a free android app called Scid on the go, which I have used on my android tablet. It's scaled down from regular Scid quite a bit, and I've really only used it in a read-only way (data entry's not really fun on a tablet anyway IMO). But I have my big games database synced across devices using Dropbox, and it's nice to be able pull up games when I've only got my tablet with me.

I'll end by adding that Scid is the only database program I've ever really used, so do know that my recommendation comes without me having much experience with ChessBase or other commercial alternatives to compare it to. But that's also because I've never had any reason to; Scid really is great, and again, all the software I've mentioned here is completely free.


How can black exploit this lead in development? 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 Nf6 5.Ng5 O-O 6.Bxf7 Rxf7 7.Nxf7 Kxf7

I understand that black should aim for d7-d5 to open up the game, but what else? Are piece exchanges good or bad? Can I get a winning endgame? How and where to attack?

I understand the theory for positions like these, but the advantage always just fizzles out into nothing for me.

I don't see why you should go for d5. Generally speaking opening lines is beneficial for the side with the rooks. And your pieces will get or already occupy nice active squares without d5. I'm not saying it is necessarily bad, but it strikes me as a plan that can definitely backfire. Just imagine you have an isolated pawn on e5 and white's rooks are lined up on the e-file ...

Right now you are up material and you have better development. I would just get my king back to safety with Kg8 and then proceed to develop my pieces (d6,Be6,Rf8, maybe Qe8-g6). My longterm plan would be to build an attack against the enemy king, because rooks are bad defenders and you will be able to have a more pieces in the attack than he can bring into the defence.

Going for an endgame entails a certain amount of risk, because in position where there aren't many pawns left, the rooks gain power. Right now you are significantly better, but if you would take two pieces and three pawns and maybe the queens away from the board for both sides, the fight would be much more even.


Is there retrograde analysis puzzle like "Point on the incorrectly drawn chess piece"? Does anybody know a nice chess puzzle, where question states: "Exactly one piece is drawn incorrectly on this diagram, another piece must be drawn on it's position. Find incorrectly drawn piece."? One needs to make retrograde analysis of the given position and find, which from all pieces is drawn incorrectly.

I really would like to find such a puzzle.

P.S. I would rather like to find Old puzzle like this than to see you creating a new one, because:

I understand that it is easy to create a simple puzzle like this. But this would be too simple.
When you try to create it, it is easy to miss some combination. Meanwhile old puzzles are checked "by time".

But if you really would like to try to create a nice puzzle like this - you are welcome.

Raymond Smullyan's Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights has some problems where one of the pieces is actually a different piece; you have to figure out which piece.

The problems there which fit this description appear to be these:

3 5 23 28 29 30 39 41 42 43


Sharp pawn endgame - can it be calculated to the end? With Computer engine? White to move, here is a brief summary of my analysis where I attempted to determine exact evaluation. Number of pawns is equal but White's 2 pawns on the queenside are held by one Black's pawn, so in a sense Black has an extra pawn on the rest of the board.
1. a4 with pawn breaks on both sides of the board by both White and Black (!) leads to a difficult queen endgame for White.
1. Kc3 (played by me in the game) is a blunder that should lose after 1...f4! since then Black puts pawns on e4 and f4 and goes to the kingside with his king to pickup White's pawns.
1. Kd3 is possibly best as now 1...f4 is met with 2.Ke4. But Black instead plays 1...Kf7 and manoeuvres, waiting for zugzwang. Can Black win? Can a computer engine be used in this day and age to determine exactly if this position is a draw or win for Black?

This is a pawn endgame - which are supposed to be evaluated precisely... I feel this is likely a draw, but can't prove exactly. Is there Mr. Grigoriev in the audience?

8/7p/4k3/1p2ppP1/1P5P/8/P1K5/8 w - - 0 38

It's clear that Black has the following advantages:

1) His king is better centralized.

2) He has two connected passed pawns.

3) White has no passed pawns because one Black pawn holds up two White ones on both the queen and king sides.

White's main advantage is that he has two rook pawns, which could lead to "outside" passed pawns. Even so, it might take the sacrifice of a pawn for White to get a passed pawn.

So I would give Black the advantage overall, and say that he should win with proper play. White should draw with great difficulty if at all.

I'm basing this judgment on "pattern recognition," because I am a only a 1500 player.


Did Indian systems really have fianchettos? Wikipedia quotes:

  The Indian Defences by g6 coupled with d6, or b6 coupled with e6, were
  largely taught to European players by the example of Moheschunder and
  other Indians, to whom the fianchetto developments were a natural
  legacy from their own game.

(The "their own game" in this instance meaning the older variant.)
However, my understanding of Shatranj/Chaturanga rules do not allow fianchetto movements at all.

Is there another older variant that allows fianchetto movements that these people played?

The page you linked to mentions that "Mohishunder originally played traditional Indian chess, in which pawns did not have the option of moving two squares from the starting row." I think that reference to traditional Indian chess refers not all the way back to shatranj/chaturanga, but rather to this 18th and 19th century variant, which has some significant differences from chess as we know it today, but seemingly does not in any way preclude a fianchetto. And since those rules do preclude any advance of a pawn by two squares, it seems reasonable that systems combining g6/d6 or b6/e6 would naturally arise as methods to develop the bishops in that variant.

Updated References: As the OP noted in a comment, the wikipedia entry I linked to doesn't indicate any source material. I found another page which describes this variant under the name Hindustani Chess, and it includes a helpful pointer to the 1913 book A History of Chess, a 900-page tome written by H.J.R. Murray, which details this particular chess variant in its Chapter IV. As it turns out, it appears that Skyhorse Publishing will be reissuing the book later this year. From their blurb:

  An epic work that took over a decade to complete, A History of Chess, originally published in 1913, was a historic undertaking that shattered preconceptions about the game upon its release. Over a century later, Murray’s research, in which he argues that chess originated in India, is still widely accepted by most chess historians.


How should I play the Old Benoni Defense as both White and Black? [FEN ""]

1. d4 c5 2. d5

A lot of people play it against me as black, and I am also interested in it for both sides.

What are some of the main lines?  Also, what are some of the key positions and ideas?

As white I have had a pretty easy time following up with the moves c4 - Nc3 - e4 - f4. Black will usually play e6 and exd5 - respond with cxd5. White ends up with a ton of space in the center. Look up the Taimanov variation in particular.

Basically I got this from MCO15 - the author mentions that many players use a different move order to reach the Benoni just to avoid this setup (they wait for white to play Nf3 blocking the f pawn).


How to reach an open position in the 4 Knights Game without exchanging too much material? I believe that 4 knights opening is the most popular opening, especially among average players. I play it a lot, that's why I want to analyse it. I'm an average player, so I hope you can help me.

Some people like to play 4 knights game like this

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bb5

But I don't like to exchange my bishop for a knight, early on, so I play something like

[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.Be2 Be7 6.O-O O-O

This is just an example where both player are trying to control the center, develop their minor pieces and castle. So you can think of any position, since most of the 4 knights game positions will most probably look a lot like that.

Both sides castled, now, how to continue without exchanging too much material? I'm just an average player, what I would do is

[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 d6 5.Be2 Be7 6.O-O O-O 7.d4 exd4 8.Nxd4 Nxd4 9.Qxd4

That's what I would do but I don't like this position, black is going to chase my queen, which happened to me a lot of times, and I'll end up moving the queen, losing space tempo, space and advantage of being one move ahead. If black played c5 I'll have to bring back my queen, if Qc4 then Be6. Materials are equal, black gaining tempo while developing his pieces. And both sides lost too much material to open the position.

I don't see anyway to continue the game if white didn't play d4. And in many games you'll end up swapping queens too early in the game if the d file was open.

So is it possible to play the 4 knights opening without trading too much material in order to open the position? (I'm asking about black and white.)

There isn't really anything wrong with what you show as an example in my opinion. White is in the superior position. Just because the queen is attacked once does not mean that you are going to lose a tempo. If Black moves c5 to attack your queen on d4 then that is a blunder in my opinion, and can be countered with qd3. In this position stockfish gives White a +0.64 advantage with 23 moves of depth. So I would say that you are on the right track. Continue to dominate that center, and then look towards exploiting Black's weak pawn on d6 by getting your f rook involved and developing your other bishop. Game on!


Finding checkmate sequence / Successful attack completion Among my weaknesses (which I am aware of), the most irritating and the most important for me, at this point, is "checkmate blindness", whether because of time pressure or because of any other reason.

Most of the time I am able to develop a pretty tough attack that forces my opponent to defend and not letting him to seize the initiative.

The problem is that I can't see, too often (!), a forced checkmate sequence and sometimes even mate in 1. Despite the fact that I am familiar with all checkmate patterns and easily checkmating a lonely king with knight+bishop etc.

My question is what is a good way to improve those checkmating skills when the board is not empty and the checkmate is not obvious?
Solving checkmate puzzles doesn't help me too much because I know that the checkmate is unavoidable and I am able to find it.

For example, this is a game I played yesterday (white). Eventually, I won this game but I did not find the checkmate sequence 5 times!
https://en.lichess.org/B6FRwado

It's one thing to be aware of the checkmating patterns, but it's another to have them fully cemented in your mind.  The key here would for you to develop pattern recognition, which happens when you practice these checkmating tactics so much you can almost instantly see them in a real game.

I would suggest just solving countless checkmating tactics day after day.  Do problems that have lots of pieces on the board - the checkmating patterns against a lone King, for example, won't help you much in a complex middlegame.  Probably the best idea would be to buy a tactics book that either focuses on checkmate tactics or at least has an entire chapter dedicated to it.  The other option would be to do online chess tactics, although I don't know of a site that allows you to pick which kind of tactics you want to do.

One chess book you could check out is: "1001 Deadly Checkmates by John Nunn".  It's a fairly well recommended book.


How to reply to an early c5 in the London System? I've played the London System for about 3 months and am liking it alot, however I have run across several games where Black played a weird, but good, move early in the opening, c5.

example:
1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 c5

Here, c5 is threatening to take on d4, a key position in the London System.

How does one play with a threatening move such as this with the London System, or what style of play has generally come of this move.

My last question, when Black plays c5, does this generally spell the end for typical London System lines, if played out with typical responses?

How you respond depends on your tastes.

If you like tactical play then 3. e4 is the Morris Gambit. This is basically the Albin Counter Gambit with colours reversed and an extra tempo. It can lead to very exciting play.

If you are more conservative and prefer a quiet life then 3. e3 is the normal move when play can quickly return to more normal lines.


Shortest game controlling a single square 16 times? Does someone know the shortest orthodox
chess game such that a single square is
directly controlled 16 times?
After 1. Nf3 for instance, the square d2
is controlled 5 times.
And 2. ... Qa5 pushes the counter to 6. I guess this game (White and Black collaborating) would be around 23-26 moves long?

Addendum #2: It turns out that a move can actually be saved further still! Michel Caillaud wrote on the Retro Mailing List that 19.5 moves is possible!
[Title "Michel Caillaud, Retro Mailing List 9/18/2020, Non-unique Proof Game in 19.5 moves"]
[FEN ""]
[startply "39"]

1. f4 h5 2. f5 h4 3. f6 h3 4. fxe7 hxg2 5. exf8=N Rh6 6. Nh7 a5 7. Nc3 a4 8. e4 a3 9. e5 axb2 10. e6 b1=N 11. e7 Nxd2 12. Nh3 Ne4 13. Nf2 f6 14. Ng4 Kf7 15. Qxd7 Ra6 16. Qd4 Nd7 17. e8=N gxf1=N 18. Nd5 Nfg3 19. Bg5 Nh5 20. Rf1

Addendum #1 After some back and forth emailing on The Retro Mailing List last night, Eric Angelini has devised a much shorter game than mine in 20.5 moves! This is surely optimal. Good job Eric!
[Title "Eric Angelini, Retro Mailing List 9/18/2020, Non-unique Proof Game in 20.5 moves"]
[FEN ""]
[startply "41"]

1. a4 d5 2. a5 d4 3. a6 d3 4. axb7 dxc2 5. bxc8=N cxd1=N 6. Nb6 Nf6 7. Na4 Ne4 8. h4 f5 9. h5 f4 10. h6 f3 11. hxg7 fxg2 12. Nf3 g1=N 13. g8=N Nxe2 14. Nxe7 Na6 15. Nd5 Nb4 16. Ra3 Na2 17. Rxh7 Qf6 18. Rxc7 Rh3 19. Rc2 Bb4 20. Nd4 Rc8 21. Nb5

For starters, there are a limited number of squares that can be attacked 16 times. A square can only be attacked eight times horizontally and vertically, or four times from each direction. The other eight attacks are from one knight each. A knight can only have its full reach on the central sixteen squares. Therefore, we are restricted to those squares only.
Furthermore, while we have plenty of horizontal and vertical moving pieces in the initial game array, only four knights are present. This means that four more knights must be promoted. The shortest way to do this, theoretically, is to promote 2 knights for both White and Black to split the workload. Promoting four knights already puts us at least 10+ moves in total in addition to the knights' moves to their attacking squares.
Here is my beginning bid of 25.5 moves with the target square of d6.
[FEN ""]
[startply "51"]

1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 d6 3. a4 b5 4. b4 a5 5. axb5 c5 6. Na3 c4 7. Nxc4 Ra6 8. bxa5 Rc6 9. b6 Nd7 10. b7 Nc5 11. a6 h5 12. a7 h4 13. a8=N h3 14. bxc8=N Nb7 15. Nc7+ Kd7 16. Nb5 Qc7 17. Ba3 hxg2 18. h4 Rh6 19. h5 Re6 20. h6 Nf6 21. h7 Ne8 22. h8=N gxf1=N 23. Nxf7 Nd2 24. Nf3 Ne4 25. Nh4 Be7 26. Nf5


Checkmate with King and Knight vs King and Knight I just have a quick question. I was playing on chess.com and got into the following position:

[FEN "8/4n/6k1/8/K2/3N1/8/8 b - - 0 1"]

Now, I assumed that once we traded off the last pawns, the game would automatically draw as it usually does. However, since if didn't, I was wondering if it was possible to checkmate in this position. I know on some occasions it's possible to checkmate with really weird positions (e.g king and bishop vs pawn and king assuming the pawn doesn't move, or something similar to this), but I had always assumed that the position I was in was a draw.. Also, if a checkmate is possible, would it have to be as a result of a blunder or would it be able to be forced?

It is, of course, objectively a draw. But according to the FIDE rules, the game can be declared a draw (without agreement of both opponents) only if there's no sequence of moves that can lead to a mate. Here the sequence leading to mate exists, even thought it is really illogical. Here is just a random example:

4k3/8/7n/4K3/8/6N1/8/8 w - - 0 1

1. Kf6 Kf8 2. Kg6 Kg8 3. Ne4 Kh8 4. Nd6 Ng8 5. Nf7#

The problem is similar to king + 2 knights against king. Again, obejctively a draw, but after a blunder/s mate is possible.

Websites like chess.com use similar rules as FIDE does. So that was the reason, why your game wasn't declared a draw.

Therefore the only rule you can apply here to draw the game without agreement of your opponent is the "50-moves without capture or pawn move" rule.


What is sufficient mating material? The FIDE chess rules describe that "The game is draw when a position is reached from which a checkmate cannot occur by any possible series of legal moves" (FIDE rule 9.6).  This rules is sometimes referred to as "Insufficient mating material rule", and the material that results in draw based on this rule is described in Draws in all games.  So this covers the case where even a helpmate (or checkmate by unskilled play) is not possible with the present material.  So:

What is sufficient mating material, whereby a skilled player can force another skilled player into checkmate?

Some combinations are well known, like:

K + Q vs. K
K + R vs. K
K + B(w) + B(b) vs. K

But is for example K + N + B vs. K sufficient mating material ?

Most basic first - this rule is the reason that King vs King is an immediate draw. Neither side has a piece to check with, let alone checkmate with. A position that is a draw because neither side can win is called a "dead position".

Playing against a bare king, a bishop or a knight is insufficient to checkmate with, and therefore K+B v K and K+N v K is always a dead position. Most online playing sites end there, and consider everything else winnable.

K+Q v K, K+R v K, K+B+B v K, K+B+N v K are all endings in which white can even force mate (see an overview of basic checkmates on Wikipedia). Because you ask for it explicitly, here is an example of a mate with N and B:

[FEN "k7/8/NKB5/8/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]

There are some special cases. K+N+N v K is tricky -- white can't force mate, but mate is still possible:

[FEN "6k1/8/6K1/4N3/4N3/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

White plays 1.Nf6+, and black avoids mate by going to f8. But if he goes into the corner with 1...Kh8??, then 2.Nf7# mates.

So K+N+N v K is basically always given an immediate draw by the player with the knights in a slow game, because he knows he won't win. It will be awarded a draw by the arbiter if black claims one based on rule G.6 [the old "10.2", before july 1 2014], if the other requirements of that rule are met, and it's trivial to make 50 moves without losing. But if black runs out of time, black loses. And in a blitz game where nobody is writing down moves to count them, that may happen.

K+B v K+B is also tricky:

[FEN "5B2/8/8/8/8/7K/8/6bk w - - 0 1"]

With the bishops on the same color, mate isn't possible. It's an immediate draw.

[FEN "8/5B2/8/8/8/7K/8/6bk w - - 0 1"]

But with opposite colored bishops it is: 1.Bd5# mates.

In most other endgames it is possible to think of a way that one or both sides can be mated. In particular, if there are pawns, it is usually possible that one of them promotes and checkmates later. but there are exceptions:

[FEN "4k3/8/8/p1p1p1p1/P1P1P1P1/8/8/4K3 w - - 0 1"]

To a human it's immediately obvious that the kings will never be able to cross to the other side, so this is a dead position. Engines have no clue, though. Mine thinks white is minutely worse.

And in the recent question about sequences of forced moves, limulus proposed this position with an "infinite loop" of forced moves:

[FEN "8/6p1/1p3pPk/1P3Pp1/1Pp3p1/KpP3P1/1P6/8 - - - 0 0 "]

Neither king can break out of its jail -- so this is just another example of a dead position. Immediate draw.


Can chess players agree to manipulate the results? Take the following scenario, which may happen in tournaments that's why I'm asking my question:

A famous old GM who's not playing well plays against some teenager who's very strong, The GM will be embarrassed to lose against some teenager, the GM has a lot of money, the teenager needs money for college. So the  GM pays the teenager so he could win.

Or maybe could they manipulate results by mutual agreement, like what happened to Algeria in the world cup 1982. Could they agree to eliminate an opponent? What the rules has to say?

I know it's against the rules, i just want to know how they investigate it and what are the rules about it, and yes i'm also asking about draws, since manipulating the results isn't only about winning and losing.

And I'm also interested in knowing if the officials can deny a draw, if they see that the game is still playable or if they see something suspicious about it. And could you draw at any stage of the game: like d3 e5 and they agree to draw here, is it possible?

In a nutshell, current rules allow pretty much any sort of "spontaneous" agreement to a draw at the board, even if one side is staring at a forced mate in 6. If money changes hands or the results were agreed to before sitting down to play, it's a violation of the rules, but it's hard to enforce because folks who do that do it without witnesses to the act.

The "Sofia Rules" are an attempt to combat that, we'll see how long they last and whether they get applied to more than a few top tournaments.

If an official has evidence, he can declare a game forfeit, but that is subject to appeals where the evidence must be presented. If an official becomes known for doing it capriciously, no one comes to play; if a player gets the reputation for "selling points" he is often invited to play in tournaments where the goal is to get one or more players some title norms. So you can see the field is tilted in favor of the players. Not saying that's good or bad, just saying it is.


Hanging square and deflection tactic leading to a back rank checkmate [FEN "2r1r1k1/5ppp/8/8/Q7/8/5PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1"]

The important square of e8 square is hanging. It is hanging because if white can take that square it's checkmate. Is this a hanging square tactic?

If the rook on Rook on c8 is deflected from the  protection of e8, is it called a deflection tactic?

[FEN "6k1/3qb1pp/4p3/ppp1P3/8/2PP1Q2/PP4PP/5RK1 w - - 0 1"]

Here, the important f8 square is not hanging, so white plays Qf7+ to deflect the king from protection of f8 square, thus leading to checkmate.

I haven't heard of the term "hanging square" before. But you're right that the c8-rook would be deflected (or "attracted") if it were taken away from defending the rook on e8.


Why did Bobby Fischer play the 1992 rematch with Spassky? As title above, why did Bobby Fischer play the 1992 rematch with Spassky after some 20 years of inactivity? Was it because he was in need of money? Or was it, as Fischer explained in the press conference, because it was the first offer to play at his conditions? Or are there other actual reasons for his unexpected comeback?

After beating Spassky in 1972, Fischer laid out terms that were deemed unreasonable for his title defense in the next world championship against Karpov. With no resolution, Fischer's title was forfeited and Karpov became the new WC by default. Fischer subsequently fades into obscurity.

Nevertheless, Fischer never accepted his title loss, and still considered himself to be the WC, having never actually lost a WC match. Thus, for what he considered to be his title defense, he plays a rematch against Spassky in 1992, with a prize fund of US$5 million.

Fischer wins the rematch, declares himself the undisputed world chess champion (a claim that isn't widely acknowledged, with Kasparov as the official reigning champion at the time), never plays competitively again, and the rest is history.

To explicitly answer your question: Fischer was trying to assert that he was the world champion, contrary to the official result that he had already lost his title in 1975. He also needed the money, which may or may not have been the more  significant factor.

  Source: Kasparov, Garry K. The New York Review of Books, Volume 58, Number 4 - The Bobby Fischer Defense. 10 Mar. 2011

    It was therefore quite a shock to see the real live Bobby Fischer reappear in 1992, followed by the first Fischer chess game in twenty years, followed by twenty-nine more. Lured out of self-imposed isolation by a chance to face his old rival Spassky on the twentieth anniversary of their world championship match—and by a $5 million prize fund—a heavy and bearded Fischer appeared before the world in a resort in Yugoslavia, a nation in the process of being bloodily torn apart.

    [...] Fischer, who still called himself the world champion [...]


Analysis of a position-Why is my move so bad? I am trying to understand this position a bit better and would appreciate some help in doing so. I am black and it's my turn...

I played the move ..c5. I don't have a deep understanding of this specific position, hence my question (I'm ELO 1700) but my thoughts were along the lines of preventing white to get Bb4 in and at the same time gaining a tempo by kicking the knight. This then also allows me to bring my knight back into the game without obstructing any of my rooks.

For some reason this move was extremely bad (listed as the 10th best move with a relative score of 2.0 points lower than the best move)

Can someone please explain to me why this move is so bad?

[title "Black to play"]
[fen "1n1qr1k1/pr3ppp/2p2b2/8/2PN1Q2/2BP2P1/PP2PP1P/3R1RK1 b - - 0 20"]

1... c5

The reasons for not playing 20...c5 are mainly tactical. 20...g5 21. Qg4 h5 22. Qxh5 Bxd4 23. Bxd4 Qxd4 24. Qxg5+ Qg7 wins a piece for two pawns. Since you are already down three pawns for nothing, it won't do to just sit around and wait.

[fen "1n1qr1k1/pr3ppp/2p2b2/8/2PN1Q2/2BP2P1/PP2PP1P/3R1RK1 b - - 0 20"]

1... g5 2. Qg4 h5 3. Qxh5 Bxd4 4. Bxd4 Qxd4 5. Qxg5+ Qg7


Using chess for therapy? Have there been any studies on using chess for therapy?

If so, what conditions or illnesses have benefited most from using chess as a therapy? Are there certain conditions or illnesses were it has actually been more stressful?

I am not an expert, but an active chess player at chess.com and participate in its forums. Yes, chess can be therapeutic. Playing chess involves co-ordination of different mental abilities like strategy, tactics, intuition, visual imagery, risk analysis, control of emotions, etc. Actively playing chess everyday keeps the mind sharp and attentive. In most cases, it has also shown improvements in mental conditions like ADHD, OCD, Depression, etc.

However, over indulgence into anything is bad and playing compulsively over long duration can effect the individual's thought process. Many schizophrenic persons who play chess start visualizing everything including this life, its people and events as chess moves. If the connection with chess is too deep, real life relations with people are affected. These studies are not confirmed, and are said to be more like "adding order to chaos" from schizophrenic mind's perspective.


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

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

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

They play against each other chess.

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

Yes, those 15 depths very much matter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Which endgame manual? Which endgame manual do you recommend and why?

• Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual

• Fundamental Chess Endings (Muller & Lamprecht)

• Silman's Complete Endgame Course

• Some other book

I am currently reading Frank Lamprecht and Karsten Muller's fundamental chess endgames.

Thus far I have completed the chapters on Pawn-Endgames, Knight Endgames, Bishop Endgames, Knight & Bishop Endgames. However, I find the material quite dry and I difficult to remember, especially the chapters on bishops and knights.

A lot of endgame work is dry, and there is no getting around that.

I learned endgames long before those books were available, and although it was a lot of work, I loved Ruben Fine's "Basic Chess Endings". In it, there would be a base example, but then often, many other similar examples. By going through it, I saw multiple examples that were similar, thus reinforcing the main ideas of each.

If that is not for you, then probably "Silman's Complete Endgame Course" is a good place to start. I also really like Jesús de la Villa's "100 Endgames You Must Know", and its accompanying workbook.

"Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual" is really for players, who are close to the master level already, and it assumes a great deal of previous endgame knowledge.

A lot of these books focus on theoretical type positions, but you will also want books that pick more positions that are from practical games, as they transition from middlegame into the endgame. You need both types. For example, Shereshevsky's "Endgame Strategy". He also wrote a two-volume series that covered typical endgames from both open and closed games, called "Mastering the Endgame".

Here is a article on "Endgame Strategy".


Do longer games better your chances of honing chess skills? What do you say about it?

I find that if you're in a sequence that you're realizing is a trap, and the pressure on you is building. Or you've blundered, or worse, you deservedly are about to get crushed—its a traumatic experience where the ideational nature or principles of the position are more readily gleaned.

Yes, more longer the game you can play, it can test your concentration, visualization and memory power.

When I initially started playing Chess, I was always excited to play blitz Chess. I kept playing and finally I couldn't improve my Chess as I didn't improve what was needed.

Recently I played with a time control of 1 hour in my debut FIDE tournament, I took the most time for my moves against my opponent. All 9 players I met in the field were having Class C rating but then they had the basics right. I could win against 6 and drew with one while losing the remaining two because of minor blunders. Luckily, I could open my FIDE rating in my very first tournament, though the rating is not much to be proud of. It set a platform for me to concentrate more on longer games and less on blitz.


Ideas for white in closed sicilian? What are the ideas for white in closed Sicilian?
I am talking about 1 e4 c5 2 Nc3 Nc6

Where do I place my pieces?
At which side should I play?

What are the ideas for black and how can I prevent it.

Generally white tries to develop a kingside attack by pushing the kingside pawns. Blacks strategy is less fixed. I always try to get counterplay on the queenside and I usually do get some play, but the white attack always stays dangerous.

In this game by Magnus Carlsen you can see some typical ideas:

The Qd2-Be3 setup.
Bg2 and going for f4.
0-0! Contrary to the open sicilian, castling long would be suicide here.
Bringing the Nc3 to the kingside and kicking out the d4 knight with c3.
Nh3 is a bit unusual, but it speeds up f4. Completely normal would be Nf3-h4.

Carlsen-Wojtaczek:

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 d6 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 g6 5. d3 Bg7 6. Be3 e5
7. Nh3 Nge7 8. f4 Nd4 9. O-O O-O 10. Qd2 Bd7 11. Nd1 Qc8
12. Ndf2 Ndc6 13. c3 b5 14. fxe5 Nxe5 15. Bh6 N7c6 16. Bxg7
Kxg7 17. Nf4 Qd8 18. Rad1 Rc8 19. Qe2 h5 20. d4 cxd4 21. cxd4
Ng4 22. h3 Nxf2 23. Qxf2 Ne7 24. Rd3 b4 25. Rf3 Qe8 26. g4
hxg4 27. hxg4 Bb5 28. Re1 Qd8 29. g5 Qb6 30. Bh3 Rcd8 31. Be6
Be8 32. Nd5 Nxd5 33. Bxd5 1-0


What is the rationale behind Black playing e6 in so many openings? I am new to this stack exchange, so apologies if this question doesn't fit here.

Though I have advanced through the game, and now have a somewhat respectable rapid rating of 1550, I have always found some chess openings to be a source of confusion. At present, I play the Slav (proper) against 1 d4, and the Caro-Kann against 1 e4. Many other respected defences don't make sense to me. For example, the French defense has a similar idea to the Caro-Kann in that Black is trying to counter-attack in the centre rather than directly preventing White from playing 2 d4. However, the 'problem child' of the French defense has always been the light-squared bishop. Granted, 1... e6 allows Black to develop the dark-squared bishop on the second move, but this seems to be outweighed by the fact that the problem with the light-squared bishop can persist for a considerable portion of the game. And yet, 1... e6 is more popular than 1... c6, and is at least as theoretically sound. Why is this? The same could be said of the Semi-Slav, which again is more popular than the Slav defense. These moves never seem to be explained by chess authors, and yet they seem to violate opening principles.

In the French Defense, the modest pawn advance in e6 simply plans to challenge the e4-pawn by d5, without having to recapture with the Queen after a possible capture in d5. The idea is thus similar to the Caro-Kann. The differences are that the Caro-Kann takes away the best square for the b8-Knight, while the French blocks the natural diagonal for developing the c8-bishop. So there is a trade-off but both openings are safe and solid methods against 1.e4.

The idea of e6 in the Semi-Slav is also to reinforce the control in d5 and take back with a pawn if White plays cxd5. It's true that the c8-bishop is blocked but Black can solve this by either taking in c4, followed by b5 and Bb7, or by playing b6.


Cocking the gun tactical motif (preparing a discovered attack) There is a tactical motif I call "cocking the gun" which I have never seen explicitly mentioned. It happens when you prepare a discovered attack. See the following board. Is there an official name for this tactical motif?
From a Lichess puzzle
[Event "Cocking the gun"]
[Date "2020.07.25"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "5rk1/1p1q3p/p2pp1p1/2p5/4P1QP/2PP2b1/PP2Br2/2KR3R b - - 0 1"]

1... Rg2 2.Rdf1 Bf4+ 3.Rxf4 Rxg4

In Dutch, the two attacking pieces involved in a discovered attack (or the two defending ones in a pin, which is basically the flip side of a discovered attack) are called 'kopstuk' and 'staartstuk', literally translated 'head piece' (the black bishop) and 'tail piece' (the black rook). Preparing a discovered attack like this is called 'staartstuk plaatsen', literally translated 'putting the tail piece in place'. I think it has been coined in the official Dutch method for teaching chess which has been used widely since the 1990's, so many younger and middle-aged players here know the term.
I'm not sure if there's even a well-established (let alone official) English terminology for the 'tail piece'. Wikipedia doesn't mention it. Perhaps 'hidden piece' makes sense? Then you'd be 'putting the hidden piece in place', but as you can see, this is far from being official. I like your own phrase better.


Knowing when to play Nc6 vs Nbd7 in the Najdorf Sicilian as black? I've been studying the Najdorf Sicilian for some time, and I generally have a good idea of where to develop my pieces to. My light and dark square bishops typically end up on e6 and e7, respectively. I'll castle short and my rook will ultimately end up on c8. One thing I struggle with, however, is deciding whether to play Nc6 or Nbd7, and what elements make one choice more attractive than the other.
I understand that each move has its own strengths and weaknesses. Nc6 gives the king knight the ability to retreat to d7 at some point with prospects of pushing the f-pawn. It however blocks off the semi-open c file that is typically pointing at the white king. Nbd7 supports the knight on f6, but also takes away its ability to retreat to d7. Another benefit is that it keeps the c file clear for black's rook. Nbd7 also blocks the queen's defense of the d pawn.
Consider the following position I faced against the obscure Adams attack variation:
rn1qkb1r/1p3pp1/p2pbn1p/4p3/4P1P1/2N4P/PPP1NPB1/R1BQK2R b KQkq - 1 9

Engines slightly prefer Nbd7 in this position to Nc6, though my intuition would tell me to play Nc6 before considering Nbd7. How would you go about deciding whether to play Nc6 or Nbd7 in this situation? Also, are there any good games that are instructive on this subject?

Well it all "depends" on the position, but in the given example,   Nc6 is a better option as it has a possible outpost on d4 or b4 and with the rook on c8 it will also be doubly defended. It can even be re-routed to f6  if required which would be almost impossible from d7. Nbd7 does block the defense of the d6 pawn. BTW , I  saw a study somewhere that countering the najdorf the d6 pawn is to be targeted therefore it is suggested not to make it a liability in the first place ( of course this might be valid in high level games only). Here is a study where majority games I saw played Nbd7 but I am not a GM and can't quite follow the reasoning. If your opponent castles long then definitely put the knight on d7.