How does black break into the position? What is a good plan for black? [fen ""]

1.e4 e6
2.Nf3 d5
3.exd5 exd5
4.d4 Bd6
5.Be2 Ne7
6.c3? O-O
7.O-O Ng6
8.Nbd2 Nf4
9.Re1 Nxe2+
10.Rxe2

Black's plan in the beginning was to take advantage of the (to-be) weak light squares around the white king by trading either his knight or light bishop for white's. It went easy, but now black can't find a solid way to break into the position.

Black sees that Qb3 is a potential threat that forks b7 and d5. The attack on d5 is not to be feared after 11. Qb3 b6 12. Qxd5?? Bxh2+, but this is how the game could have continued:

10... Bf5 (activating the light bishop and preventing white's control of the b1-h7 diagonal by Qc2)

11. Qb3 b6
12. Kh1 c6

Does black have anything better?

This position is still very far from having a definitive character that would dictate the nature of best play. That is still perhaps twenty moves away. If you are already thinking that you have an advantage and just need to find a way in, you will not be playing objectively. Your position is fine, you will be able to develop easily, you have two Bishops, but you have no point of attack, and you don't know yet what White plans to do.

There is an old saying that if you can't think of a good move, wait until your opponent makes a bad one. I think that may apply here, because White has not yet played badly enough to lose, but it does not mean that you can just play anything. Do not simply play the position as it is. What can you create? There is usually something, which is how Magnus creates wins out of sterile positions.

I rather like ..b6 to be followed by ..Ba6, ..c5 and ..Nc6. That puts a lot of new ideas on the board, and gives White more chance to go wrong.


How many games to get a good idea of computer chess board rating? I have an old Radio Shack 1850 Electronic Chess Computer, which I would like to know the ELO rating each level plays at. The instructions just give average number of seconds per move.

I figure I would play it against tChess Pro on my iPad, which the engine can be set to a specific ELO rating. When I find they are both winning about the same number of games I can check what level tChess is at and that will be about what the 1850's rating is.

Question is, how many games would be a good sample before I make that call? Obviously if one dominates the other, I'll have to tweak the levels and retry.

There is no perfect answer here. First, and it is for a reason, FIDE says that you need 9 games to have an established rating, but the USCF says you need 25. Obviously, the more games, the closer the rating will be to accurate. That said, to really get a more accurate rating, you also need to vary the competition, and have it play against various rated humans.

I think that it is probably too weak to pair up against any modern computer program that is rated. It would get slaughtered, and not help you determine how strong it really is.

I would say at least 10.


Giuoco Piano to Kids What to tell to a kid of 6 years about Giuoco Piano opening? Isn't it to calculative or aggressive for a beginner of 6 years?

I'd explain nothing about openings to a 6 year old, except maybe something about using all your pieces (but it'll fall to deaf ears, most likely).

I assisted at a local school tournament recently, where players of about seven had a lot of trouble playing legal moves, or checkmating their opponent when being up almost everything. Checkmate is often not recognized and whole phases of the game had both kings in check...

The key point is that they must have fun, and they usually want to go on hunting expeditions with their queen. That is fine. It's a game, and they're six. My seven year old does not want to play games where she can't create new rules on the fly, period.

Once they ask, you can show something like the Italian and explain that it gets some pieces out. That is enough.

But please, show them lots of other things as well, up to move 3 or so (when they ask). I hate to see those kids matches that always start 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.d3 d6 5.Nc3 Nf6 etc because for both of them that's all they know. That makes the game boring, and the main thing should be to have fun.

I don't think concepts like "too aggressive" or "requires too much calculation" really apply to openings for six year olds...


Which steps were blunders and inconsistencies? This is the pgn of the game. The engine said that white made a blunder and some inconsistencies. But I can't spot them. Can you help me to find them?

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 f5 4. Nc3 f4 5. O-O g5 6. d3 g4 7. Ne1 Nc6 8. h3 gxh3 9. Qh5+ Kd7 10. Qf5+ Ke8 11. Bf7+ Ke7 12. Nd5# 1-0

Generally, black:

neglected development
weakened the light squares around the king

White should have opened the position with moves like d4 or even Nxe5 sometimes.

Opening the position is a standard theme in case your opponent neglects development and you can even sacrifice material to do so. This game is a good example of that.

It is worth it learning the common tactics that would have been possible at move 5 starting with Nxe5.

In summary you should take out of this game:

the theme with Nxe5, Qh5+ which is possible at several points
if a player neglects development, opening the position is almost always good

I annotated your game below. Have a look.

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 f5? { too soon. Black should develop some pieces first } 4. Nc3!? { Ok-ish, but white could take advantage of black's underdevelopment by opening the position with d4. } (4. d4 fxe4 { not the best move, but in any case white will open the position and have a clear advantage because of development. } 5. Nxe5! { Making use of a well known tactics which can often be used against opponents playing an early f4 or f5. } 5... dxe5 6. Qh5+ g6 7. Qxe5+ { winning the rook }) 4... f4 { Why? Development was asked for! } (4... Nf6)  (4... fxe4 5. Nxe5 dxe5 6. Qh5+ g6 (6... Ke7 7. Qxe5+ Kd7 8. Qe6#)  (6... Kd7 7. Qf5+ Kc6 8. Qxe4+ { and a very strong attack }) 7. Qxe5+ { winning the rook }) 5. O-O { From a positional point of view this is questionable because white is basically castling into the attack / pawn storm of black. Might consider long castle instead. In any case the same tactics as before also works here (basically if somebody plays e5 and f5 and the f pawn is not anymore on f5 this tactics is always an option. Of course also works for reversed colors with e4, f4) } (5. Nxe5 dxe5 6. Qh5+ g6 (6... Ke7 7. Qxe5+ Kd7 8. Qe6#)  (6... Kd7 7. d4 { and a very strong attack }) 7. Qxe5+ { winning the rook }) 5... g5?? { Looks very dangerous because without the knight on f3, Qh5+ looks terrible for black. } 6. d3 { too timid. Yet again white should open the position with d4. The computer says that white can even give a knight in order to take advantage of the open position. } (6. d4 g4 7. dxe5! gxf3 8. Qxf3 { and white is clearly better as black cannot defend against all the checks along the light colored diagonals. }) 6... g4 7. Ne1 Nc6 8. h3? { Playing for tricks (which worked). However objectively this is an awful move to make. Generally defending against a pawn storm is easier if the pawns remain on one line. By playing h3 white is voluntarily opening the position around the castled king (not immediately but soon), which is very dangerous. This is even true if there was no black pawn on g4 yet. } (8. d4! { Not obvious move, but works because of tactics. Notice how much space white suddenly gets: The knight can go to d3, the bishop has potential to f4... For a good player this is a common theme: Open the position if your opponent is not developed. } 8... Nxd4 (8... exd4 9. Nd5 { and white will get the d4 pawn and is better because of better development }) 9. Bxf4 { and white is better }) 8... gxh3?? { Final mistake. It is a forced mate in 3 now. } (8... h5 { And black is clearly better. White's position is very cramped and the king in danger of attack with ideas like Qh4... })  (8... Nf6 { Should also be much better for black, because white cannot free himself and the king will be under attack soon. }) 9. Qh5+ Kd7 10. Qf5+ Ke8 11. Bf7+ { There was a mate in one. } (11. Qf7#) 11... Ke7 12. Nd5# *


Five Knights Problem Many years ago, I was shown a problem involving three white pawns promoting to knights and ending up with a ring of five knights encircling the mated king. Does anybody know the starting position?

A few more thoughts:
(1) I think it was mate in seven.

(2) Unusually, every white move is forced because there is a mate threat from black.

(3) Unless I have the memory of the board upside down, the black king starts in the middle of the board and ends up on his sixth or even seventh rank surrounded by two pairs of white knights protecting each other and the fifth one executing the mate.

(4) The white king is somewhere really odd like h7 and the black mate threat comes from a minor piece - a bishop, perhaps?

In one of my books I found this "uncredited" problem, it is probably not the problem you are referring to but I thought you may find it interesting, hope you like it.

2018 Update, thanks to user @Evargalo for adding some light about the author, we can know it was composed by Gijs van Breukelen.

8/3P3k/n2K3p/2p3n1/1b4N1/2p1p1P1/8/3B4 w - - 0 1

1. Nf6+ Kg7 2. Nh5+ Kg6 3. Bc2+ Kxh5 4. d8=Q Nf7+ 5. Ke6 Nxd8+ 6. Kf5 e2 7.Be4 e1=N 8. Bd5 c2 9. Bc4 c1=N 10. Bb5 Nc7 11. Ba4 Ne2 12. Bd1 Nf3 13. Bxe2

White, with material inferiority, must act energically:

1.Nf6+ Kg7 if 1...Kg6 2.Bc2+! Kg7 3.Nh5+ Kf7 4.d8=Q and black has lost the possibility of check on f7.

2.Nh5+ Kg6  The black King cannot go to the last rank, d7 will crown with check.

3.Bc2+ Kxh5 4. d8=Q Nf7+ 5. Ke6 Nxd8+ 6. Kf5 This is the first part of the study: White has accomplished to place the black king in a mate position. In the next set of moves each defensive move by black will be forced.

6...e2 7.Be4! Threat on f3 the only move to prevent checkmate is a sub-promotion.

7...e1=N 8.Bd5!! Threats 9.Bc4 10.Be2#

8...c2 9.Bc4 c1=N! 10.Bb5! With the idea of checkmate on e8

10...Nc7 11.Ba4! and 4 Knights cannot prevent checkmate

11...Ne2 12.Bd1 Nf3 13.Bxe2 followed by 14.Bxf3#


Can you recommend a closed opening for black against 1.e4? What is a good opening system for black that leads to closed play against 1.e4?

E.G. - against 1.d4 I like to play the Slav & am looking into the Czech Benoni.  I am looking for something similar against e4.  I currently use the Caro-Kann, and briefly used the French, but am wanting to look at some other options.

In particular, an off-beat line that doesn't have a ton of theory would be nice.

Thanks in advance for your replies!

In principle, a "good" system that leads to a closed game is not possible to achieve unless the opponent co-operates in achieving a closed position.

You probably already know how White can achieve an open game with the French or Caro Kann or Alekhine or simple symmetrical king pawn openings.

  [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
  1. e4 e5 (1...e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4) (1...c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4)
  (1... Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. d4 d6 5. exd6 )
  2. Nf3 (2... Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4) Nc6 3. d4
  (2. f4!?)

So I think your best bet would be those openings which do not move a pawn in the center very early on. The only "good" openings among those (regularly played by Grandmasters) would be the Pirc or Modern Defense.

The Modern Defense does tend to be an off-beat line (good for you since that's what you're looking for). It can often transpose into the Pirc. The general principles of the Modern and the Pirc are the same - develop the Bishop on the flank and counter in the center at a later stage. If White co-operates in closing the position, which usually happens if Black plays e5 followed by White's d5, then Black can counter with the f5 break.

      [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
      1. e4 g6
      2. d4 Bg7

This is the basic position of the Modern Defense. As you can see, this position can be reached even after 1. d4, so it's very flexible.

There are many different ways for White to continue in this position. Black's usual idea is to play d6 followed by a later e5, although there are games where Black has tried to break white's center with c6 and d5 or even c5.

Here, I give some sample lines which may lead to closed positions, including all three ideas of c5, d5 and e5. Note that even in these lines, White has the option to open the position, but it doesn't necessarily give White an advantage in doing so. In fact in many lines, White prefers to close the position to cramp Black for space.

   [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
   1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 (3. Nf3 d6 4. Bc4 Nf6 5. Qe2 O-O 6. O-O c6 7. Bb3 Bg4
   8. Nbd2 e5) (3. c4 d6 (3... c5 4. d5 d6 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. Nf3 O-O 7. Be2 Bg4 8. O-O
   Nbd7 9. h3 Bxf3 10. Bxf3 a6) 4. Nc3 Nc6 5. Be3 e5 6. d5 Nce7) 3... d6 (3... c6
   4. Nf3 d5 5. e5 Bg4 6. Bf4 Qb6) 4. Nf3 (4. f4 Nf6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Bd3 Na6 7. O-O
   c5 8. d5) (4. Be3 Nf6 5. Qd2 c6 6. f3 b5 7. g4 h5 8. g5 Nfd7 9. f4 Nb6 10. Nf3
    O-O) 4... c6 5. Be2 Nf6 6. O-O O-O 7. a4 Nbd7 8. h3 Qc7 9. Be3 b6 10. Qd2 Bb7
   11. Bh6 a6 12. Bxg7 Kxg7 13. Qe3 e5 *


Mate with both hands: Result? Constructed case: In a tournament (LoC Tournament Rules apply, no rapid, no blitz) White plays d7-d8Q by placing the new Queen on d8 with the right hand and removing the pawn d7 with the left. White did not press the clock but claimed a checkmate.
Relevant rules:

4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.
5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his opponent’s king. This
immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the checkmate position
was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.
6.2.1 During the game each player, having made his move on the chessboard, shall stop his
own clock and start his opponent’s clock (that is to say, he shall press his clock). This
“completes” the move. A move is also completed if:

6.2.1.1 the move ends the game (see Articles 5.1.1, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 9.6.1 and 9.6.2), or
6.2.1.2 the player has made his next move, when his previous move was not completed.

7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling,
capturing or promotion) and pressed the clock, it shall be considered and penalized as if
an illegal move.

I discussed the case with some IA and FA. In our opinion, the checkmate and the result 1-0 stands. White did not press the clock, so 7.5.4 does not apply. To complete the move, it is not necessary to press the clock because the move ends the game (6.2.1.1). 5.1.1 allows  a violation of 4.1 by not mentioning it.
We further think that that is not what was intended. We think that what was intended is

7.5.4 If a player uses two hands to make a single move (for example in case of castling,
capturing or promotion) and completes the move, it shall be considered and penalized as if
an illegal move.

Are we wrong with our decision? Is there a case illustrating that the formulation of 7.5.4 is according to it’s intention? Any other opinions?

My opinion (!) is that the rules are clear and correct.
Checkmate is not allowed when the move involves moving a piece in a way that the piece may not move (e.g. moving a bishop like a knight) and not allowed when touch-move rules are broken.
However checkmate IS allowed when a procedural rule which is intended to stop clock cheating is broken. This is because pressing the clock in the case of checkmate is not required. The two-handed rule is intended to tidy up the requirement that the clock is pressed with the same hand that makes the move. In cases where pressing the clock is irrelevant then so too is the use of two hands. Hence why 4.1 is deliberately and carefully excluded from 5.1.1
The rules commission obviously thought of this and, collectively, they are cleverer than both you and me :-)
Note, too, that the same logic applies to stalemate and "dead positions". This careful thought by the rules commission is reflected in the relevant articles:

5.2.1  The game is drawn when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check. The game is said to end in ‘stalemate’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the stalemate position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.

5.2.2 The game is drawn when a position has arisen in which neither player can checkmate the opponent’s king with any series of legal moves. The game is said to end in a ‘dead position’. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing the position was in accordance with Article 3 and Articles 4.2 – 4.7.

There is one further area that this clarifies. Suppose that the player delivering checkmate with two hands has previously made an illegal move and does press the clock after delivering checkmate. They still win the game because the game ended with the checkmate, before the completion of the move with the clock press. Hence the second illegal move was made but not completed and only completed illegal moves are punished.


The difficulty of finding the exact losing move Are there examples of chess games where the exact losing move has been found only with the help of engines?

Better still, games where the exact losing move cannot be found even by the best current engines?

Sure, examples exist. E.g. Game 6 of Carlsen-Caruana, World Chess Championship 2018:

[FEN "5k2/8/5pK1/3B1P1P/3n4/8/3b4/8 w - - 6 67"]

Kg6? loses, but no human would have found the refutation.

As for games where the exact losing move cannot be found even by the best current engines - I spoke to a correspondence chess expert recently, and I'm confident they don't exist. Given a decisive game, an expert correspondence chess player will always be able to find the losing move, but it will not be trivial, and a lot of analysis is required.


Does the Stockfish engine use past matches, or does it not need such a "database"? I have a simple question. Does the Stockfish engine use, amongst the steps of its complicated algorithm, a library/database of past matches?
For such an algorithm to work, it would to need store many matches that have had a particular scenario. Each scenario has a player who went on to win. Thus, it is provided some kind of rating point to judge each particular scenario with, allowing it to choose the best move. It's either that or the Stockfish engine works just by working through the possible moves to figure out how to win.
In other words, does the Stockfish engine need to be fed data from past matches or can it work without any such data ?

Technically, Stockfish does make use of past matches, just not when it's playing. The way it uses its past matches is during training, when a new neural network (NNUE in Stockfish's case) is being trained. Once the NNUE is trained, though, it is "standalone" and does not change anymore.
The Stockfish you can download and play has an already-trained NNUE, so it does not use past matches.


Contemporary Alekhine Defence Players Recently I started playing Alekhine's Defense and I really like, especially the Scandinavian Variation (the line with strong centralized queen and an annoying knight to kick it around).

I want to know if any current day top players play this opening so that I can study their games for improvement. If they play the Scandinavian variation, then it will be the icing on the cake.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 {The Scandinavian variation.}

Ivanchuk has played several games in the Scandinavian variation of the Alekhine. You can find the games for example here, if you sort by black Elo.


Is CT-Art better for tactic training than chesstempo tactics? What are some major differences of doing tactics training using chesstempo or CT-Art?

The answer to the title question is "No, they're both excellent for tactics training and are good at different things."

Chess Tempo:

problems are a random selection of positions taken from actual games (chosen by computer to be good chess problems)
over 100,000 problems and growing
problems are served to you based on your rating
no extra didactic material, but you can read other users' comments and discussions on the problems, and look at computer-evaluated variations
free for basic usage, costs money for some extra features
online only (it's a website)

CT-ART:

a specifically designed course with many composed problems (and some based on real games), so it is explicitly trying to teach you certain subjects
a fixed number of problems (thousands)
you just go through the courses in order
occasional didactic feedback asking you to demonstrate simpler patterns that can be put together to form the desired combinations, but no English discussion
costs money
can be used offline (it's an app)


What is the correct hand movement to capture a piece? I see players in international tournaments taking pieces in the following fashion: first they take off the board the piece they intend to take, and only then, with the same hand, they move their taking piece in the square occupied by the removed piece (except in en passant, of course).

I was taught to take pieces using a single hand movement instead: I move my taking piece to the square of the piece to be taken and remove that in the same time putting it off the board.

Since I think that the first method is more time consuming, I am assuming that it is the only legal method to take pieces, while mine must be illegal. Am I wrong? Or does it depend on the particular policy of each tournament?

According to the FIDE Laws of Chess:

  4.1 Each move must be played with one hand only.

In other words, the "correct" hand movement is one which uses only one hand. The order in which the opponent's piece is removed and the player's own piece moved to the capturing square is irrelevant.

Note that once the captured piece has left the board it doesn't matter which hand is used to place it on the side. It is perfectly legal, for instance, to lift the piece from the board with the right hand, immediately transfer it to the left hand and carry it to the side of the board with the left hand whilst simultaneously moving the capturing piece to the capture square with the right hand.

Something similar applies with promotion. The promoted piece must be placed on the board with the same hand that removes the pawn from the board but it is perfectly legal to pick up a queen, say, with one hand whilst removing the pawn with the other and to transfer the queen from one hand to the other before placing it on the promotion square.


Differences between chess engines In what way do major chess engines differ from one another?

Do they all use the same algorithm and the same evaluation function, differing only in parameters/weights?

EDIT:

I'm confident both Houdini and Komodo are in C/C++, the best language for speed optimization.
I'd be very surprised if they don't use alpha-beta/nega-max. This is standard in chess programming.
I don't know about board representation in Houdini and Komodo, but bitboard is good and fast. Stockfish uses that, and I think it's common for all strong engines.

ORIGINAL

Lot's of possibilities (I can't list everything):

How to prune/reduce the search tree?
How to evaluate a chess position?
What about quiescence search? Do you want to extend your search horizon?
Bitboard? Mailbox? How do you want to represent the internal board?
Multithreading support?
Programming language. C++? Java?
Operating systems optimisations such as large pages?

While all chess engines I'm aware of use alpha-beta/nega-max, their implementation could be significantly different.

No. They don't all use the same algorithm and the same evaluation function. Visit https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Home, and you'll appreciate the complexity in chess engine programming.


How do chess openings officially get recognized? With so many combinations of moves possible, how do openings get recognized? For example, what is to prevent me from playing a series of moves and declaring it the xaisoft gambit or xaisoft heart-attack?  What organization officially recognizes openings?

There's no organization that officially names openings.  Generally, the first person to publish professional-level research for a sequence of moves gets to name it.

Many openings with modern names were first played 200 years ago.


What is the correct resignation procedure? I've only played in one tournament before and resigned most of my games when they seemed hopelessly lost. When I do resign, I:

Make my move.
Record it.
Say "I resign" and offer to shake my opponent's hand.

I just want to confirm that this is the correct procedure. (I know the handshake is not necessary) Also, would it be legal to skip the first step, i.e. offer resignation without first making a move?

You can resign at any point, as long as the game is still ongoing. You can resign during your opponent's move, for instance. In fact I'd say it's unusual to make a move before resigning -- most people resign because they don't see a good move anymore.

If it's already ended some other way, you can't resign any more. Some people don't want to win on time in a clearly lost position, for instance, but then they should resign before a flag fall is noticed. And if you resigned but later find out that you actually checkmated your opponent earlier in the game (but didn't notice at the time), then you actually won because checkmate ends the game immediately. Yes that happens, mostly in youth tournaments. (Edit: that's FIDE rules. This sort of thing may well be different under USCF rules, I don't know).

There is nothing about the exact procedure in the rules, probably because resigning ends the game and usually makes the opponent happy regardless, so there's never been a need to regulate it. A good way is to stop the clock, say you resign, and shake hands. Write down the result on your score sheet. The important thing is to make sure that the opponent understands your intention.

Official tournaments usually need a signature somewhere (on the score sheet, or on separate little result forms). Make sure the result is recorded correctly on it, that both players sign, and that the arbiter gets the signed form.


How are centipawns calculated? I found on the Web some information what centipawns are. But how exactly programs calculate this loss? How can I recognize if one move will bring less centipawn loss that an another? Assuming both would not lead to a loss of a chess piece.

I think that's your question:

Q: How does a chess engine evaluate a chess position and give centipawns score?

I don't want to bore you with technical details, let me give you simple explanation:

Chess engine is able to evaluates a chess position and give a score

The score can depend on many factors, including but not limited to:

Material
Pawn structure
Mobility
King Safety

  https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation

Chess engine searches as many moves as possible and compare the moves by evaluation score. The best move is the move that gives the best score.
Now we know a chess engine can give a score. For convenience, they scale the scores to centipawns.


(Rook + Knight vs Rook) vs (Rook + Bishop vs Rook)? Despite these endings being theoretical draws, I have heard that people play on because of significant winning chances. My question is which one has more chances? I would guess the bishop, but I do not know. Is it difficult to draw against the rook and knight?

TL;DR: Rook + Bishop offers significantly more winning chances against a lone Rook (38%) than Rook + Knight (only a few %).

Full answer:

'Secrets of Pawnless Endings' by John Nunn mentions the following about the ending with the Knight:

  [the stronger side] has far fewer winning chances than in the ending of R+B v R and in practice the ending is often agreed drawn immediately. Top-level wins are very rare, but there was one famous example in J.Polgar-Kasparov, Dos Hermanas 1996 being one of the exceptions.

The chapter about R+B v R mentions 74 games of which 28 (38%) were won by the stronger side.

The book I already mentioned, and 'Fundamental Chess Endings' by Lamprecht and Müller, cover these endings. For the Bishop ending, they both explain the main defensive techniques, the so-called Cochrane defense and the Second Rank defense, and some key positions (discovered by Philidor in the 18th century already) which can be won by the stronger side, e.g. this one.

The endgame with the Knight is easier to hold in general. The defending side needs to prevent their King being forced to the edge; if that does happen, the chances of winning are actually greater than with the Bishop. An advantage for the defending side is that the Knight is worse in protecting its own King from checks by the defending Rook. If the defending King is confined to the edge, his rook should either pin the Knight or give annoying checks; this resembles the Cochrane defense in the Bishop ending. Some winning positions were published by Centurini in the 19th century.

In general, endgame databases are very helpful, at least for analyzing winning positions. For draws, they are trickier to use, because they don't tell you how difficult it is to hold a certain position. Especially the Bishop ending contains many 'marginal' positions which can only be held with secure play.


Reti opening with bishop aiming kingside I try a variation of Reti opening these days where I aim both my bishops kingside.

[FEN ""]
1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 c6 3. b3 Nf6 4. Bb2 Bg4 5. e3 e6 6. Be2

And after that I struggle a lot trying to bring that bishop to c4 or d3.

Does anybody have a better suggestion how to take this repertoire forward?

This is a good question, but I think it could use a slight reformulation:
It's not so much a question of "how can we get our bishop to either d3 or c4", but rather "under which circumstances would the bishop become powerful on those diagonals".

If you're looking for positional ideas to further advance your repertoire in this line, it's often very useful to keep an eye on possible transpositions and openings that lead to analogous structures. For example, in the line you show, black has a very solid Slav structure, arguably even an improved one, since white doesn't have the Qb3 option anymore, so the Bg4 maneuver is perfectly sound. On the other hand, white's position has the same ingredients as most Larsen (1.b3) variants do.

As far as I remember (it's up to you to do the in depth search here), Larsen tended for the e3-f4 (instead of c4) pawn structure whenever he wanted to plant his bishops on b2 and e2. But he did have this Reti type of structure every now and then, see e.g. his game vs Ulf Andersson. So make sure you find out about the positional ideas Larsen used to employ in this system. But for a more extensive search, look into a database and search for all the games where this position has occurred and get inspired by how other players have gone about it. For example I use the TWIC database, I have a collection with many of the older series, and after a quick search I find about 200 games with this exact position.

What Bad_Bishop has suggested to you in his answer is actually a very practical idea, with a relatively clear plan ahead: you're threatening to win the bishop pair, and the weaknesses you may induce in doing so are less important than they seem specially because your weakening of the light squares is coupled with taking away the opponents light square bishop! Although it must be noted that in this specific line, after 9.Nh4, I'd be a bit worried about Be4, as f3 doesn't work due to Nh5. (Make sure you check this variation).

A couple of positional suggestions you might want to consider: (by no means exhaustive, in fact these will be very crude, just to give you some rough ideas)

A conservative approach: stick to the solid pawn structure and double the b2-g7 battery by bringing the queen to a1 or b2 and you coordinate your play around the control of the long diagonal. e.g. a sequence along the lines of: 7.d3 8.Nbd2 9.Re1 10.Qc2 11.Bc3 12.Qb2 etc should get you there... If you're not familiar with such battery ideas on the long diagonal, a good start would be to study this marvelous game by Peter Svidler playing as black: (notice that your pawn structure in this Reti line is completely transposable to that of Svidler's in this game):

-

[FEN ""]
[Event "Dortmund Sparkassen group-A"]
[Site "Dortmund GER"]
[Date "2004.07.26"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Arkadij Naiditsch"]
[Black "Peter Svidler"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B42"]
[WhiteElo "2574"]
[BlackElo "2727"]
[PlyCount "78"]
[EventDate "2004.07.22"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Bc5 6. Nb3 Be7 7. O-O d6 8. c4 Nf6 9. Nc3 Nbd7 10. f4 Qc7 11. Qe2 b6 12. Bd2 Bb7 13. Rae1 O-O 14. Kh1 g6 15. Nd4 Rfe8 16. Nf3 Rad8 17. Ng5 Bf8 18. Qf2 Bg7 19. b4 Nh5 20. Rc1 Rc8 21. a3 Qd8 22. Nf3 Rc7 23. Rfe1 Nhf6 24. Qh4 Qa8 25. Qh3 Rec8 26. e5 dxe5 27. Nxe5 Nxe5 28. fxe5 Nd7 29. Bf4 Rxc4 30. Bxc4 Rxc4 31. Qg3 h5 32. Ne2 Nxe5 33. Rxc4 Nxc4 34. h4 Qd8 35. Bg5 Qd7 36. Nf4 e5 37. Nd3 Qd5 38. Nf2 Nd6 39. Rd1 Ne4 0-1

Go for the king asap: 7.Nc3 (idea being to force the retake on d5 to be by the e pawn and securing the f5 square for your f3 knight - with a clear attack on the kingside) 8.Nd4 ... Here's an example I could find:

-

[FEN ""]
[Event "70th ch-GER"]
[Site "Bremen GER"]
[Date "1998.11.12"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Hickl, J."]
[Black "Jussupow, A."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A12"]
[WhiteElo "2540"]
[BlackElo "2640"]
[PlyCount "59"]
[EventDate "1998.??.??"]
[SourceDate "2011.01.01"]

1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. b3 Bg4 5. Bb2 e6 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. Nc3 Bd6 8. Nd4 Bxe2 9. Qxe2 O-O 10. cxd5 exd5 11. Nf5 Bc5 12. Na4 Bb4 13. Nxg7 b5 14. Nf5 bxa4 15. Qh5 Kh8 16. Qg4 Bxd2+ 17. Kxd2 Rg8 18. Qxa4 Rxg2 19. Ke2 Qg8 20. Ng3 Qg6 21. Rac1 Re8 22. Qf4 c5 23. Kf1 Rxg3 24. Bxf6+ Nxf6 25. hxg3 Ne4 26. Rh6 Qg7 27. Rd1 Re5 28. Kg2 Ng5 29. Rc6 h6 30. Rxh6+ 1-0

Transpose to a Queen's gambit decline type of position to secure the d3 square for your bishop: d4, Nbd2, h3, Bd3 ... Here's an example:

-

[FEN ""]
[Event "Golombek Mem"]
[Site "Paignton ENG"]
[Date "2000.09.05"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Bischoff, K."]
[Black "Hillarp Persson, T."]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A12"]
[WhiteElo "2556"]
[BlackElo "2549"]
[PlyCount "37"]
[EventDate "2000.09.03"]
[SourceDate "2011.01.01"]

1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 c6 3. b3 d5 4. Bb2 Bg4 5. e3 e6 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. O-O Bd6 8.d4 O-O 9. Nbd2 Qb8 10. h3 Bh5 11. Bd3 Re8 12. Qc2 a5 13. Rac1 a4 14. Bc3 axb3 15. axb3 Bg6 16. Bxg6 hxg6 17. Ra1 Rxa1 18. Rxa1 e5 19. dxe5 1/2-1/2

Similar to Bad_Bishop's suggestion: start off with h3, make your opponent commit to a decision with the g4 bishop, but instead of an immediate rather committal g4, play the slow game: castles, d3, Nbd2, ... or possibly Nc3 specially if you plan to capture on d5 subsequently: two simple ideas to bear in mind: if black recaptures on d5 with the c-pawn, you want to take control of the c-file asap, if black recaptures with the e-pawn it's often possible to force the exchange of light square bishops in order to secure f5 for your knight. (I admit this is all still very crudely put).
Finally, note that within such Slav structures for black, you'll never see your bishop on c4, it's just incompatible with black's control of the center. Alternatively, if you want your bishop on d3, your best bet is to transpose (as early as possible) into Queen's pawn type of positions. To play openings such as the Larsen, English or the Reti, you really must like slow-positional plays, and in my opinion these are by no means easier to learn/play than open positions, in fact they can get extremely complicated rather quickly. Intuitively, this is because strategic ideas tend to be very abstract and hard to grasp, whereas open positions are more tactical which makes them inherently more concrete. To give you an example of a highly strategic game, played recently, quickly leading to a highly non-trivial middle-game (see the game below). For your purposes I highly recommend studying GM Michael Adams' games in the English opening.

-

[FEN ""]
[Event "GRENKE Chess Classic 2015"]
[Site "chess24.com"]
[Date "2015.02.07"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Adams, Michael"]
[Black "Bacrot, Etienne"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2738"]
[BlackElo "2711"]
[PlyCount "129"]
[EventDate "2015.??.??"]

1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 c5 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. d4 cxd4 7. Nxd4 Nc6 8. O-O Qa5 9. Nb3 Qh5 10. Nd5 d6 11. Nf4 Qe5 12. e4 Bg4 13. f3 Bd7 14. Rf2 b5 15. Nd3 Qh5 16. Nf4 Qe5 17. c5 dxc5 18. Nd3 Qc7 19. Nbxc5 Rfd8 20. Qe1 Be8 21. Bf4 e5 22. Be3 a5 23. Rc1 Qe7 24. Rd2 Nd4 25. Nb3 Nd7 26. Nxd4 exd4 27. Bf4 Rdc8 28. Bh3 Rc4 29. Rdd1 a4 30. Bd2 Ne5 31. Nxe5 Qxe5 32. Bf1 Rxc1 33. Bxc1 Qe6 34. a3 Rc8 35. Bd3 Qb3 36. Qe2 Bd7 37. Bf4 Be6 38. h4 Bc4 39. e5 Bxd3 40. Rxd3 Qd5 41. Kg2 h5 42. Qd2 Rc4 43. Qe2 b4 44. axb4 Rxb4 45. Kf2 Qb5 46. Rd2 Qd5 47. Qe4 Qa2 48. Qc2 Kh7 49. Kg2 Qa1 50. Rf2 a3 51. bxa3 Rb1 52. Qd3 Rd1 53. Bd2 Rg1+ 54. Kh3 Rh1+ 55. Rh2 Qg1 56. Qe2 Bxe5 57. f4 Bd6 58. a4 d3 59. Qg2 Rxh2+ 60. Qxh2 Qd1 61. Qg2 Ba3 62. a5 Bc1 63. Qd5 Qf1+ 64. Kh2 Qe2+ 65. Kh3 1/2-1/2


Is CQL executable available anwhere online? This article and some questions on this forum - mention http://www.rbnn.com/cql/ as a source for getting cql.exe, but that domain seems unclaimed at the moment. Is this executable available anywhere else online?

You can get it from the archive. Also the former rbnn website is preserved there.


Comparing 9...a6 to 9...b6 in the Panov-Botvinnik Attack This question is motivated by a recent LiChess game where I was black where I played the Caro-Kann and white played the Panov-Botvinnik Attack:

[fen ""]
[Site "https://lichess.org/J9cdDkL5"]
[Date "2019.03.26"]
[White "pierremarc1986"]
[Black "becky82"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 b6

Here I played 9...b6 (with the idea of playing either 10...Bb7 or 10...Ba6 depending on how I evaluated the position after my opponent's move) and didn't even think to play 9...a6 during the game, which is both the prominent book move, and among Stockfish's top recommendations.

Question: Is 9...a6 better for black than 9...b6 in this line of the Panov-Botvinnik Attack?

The move 9...a6 prepares 10...b5, where black fianchettos the queenside bishop with more queenside space, but it costs a tempo.  It also allows 10. a4 which prevents 10...b5.

The main book lines on LiChess are as follows:

[fen ""]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Nf3 O-O 8. Bd3 dxc4 9. Bxc4 a6 10. a4 (10. O-O b5 11. Bb3 Bb7) (10. a3 b5 11. Ba2 Bb7) Nc6 11. O-O Bd7

This will be a short answer as unfortunately I don't have much time (last minutes of my break :) ).

In a nutshell: Both options are quite playable but result in slightly different structures, so it's up to you to decide which one leads closer to something you're more familiar with. As to why both moves 9...b6 and 9...a6 are equalizing for black, it lies in the fact that white has not castled yet and therefore they cannot really emphasize on black's slow development and there are no immediate pawn breaks left for them in the centre. All of which means, that extra tempo white has to invest for castling allows black this added flexiblity in choice.

A slightly more concrete look at some lines: (please do check everything here with an engine, I don't have time/option to do that now)

White has no immediate ways of challenging b6: for example, with the king still in the centre, the immediate d5 (i), trying to liquidate the IQP and open up the centre bears no relevance as it easily leads to a much better endgame for black (with all the initiative):

(i)

 [title "immediate d5 after 9...b6"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/p3bppp/1p2pn2/3P2B1/2B5/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R2QK2R b KQ - 0 10"]

 1...Nxd5 2.Bxd5 exd5 3.Qxd5 Qxd5 4.Nxd5 Bxg5 5.Nxg5 Re8+ 6.Ne3 Ba6 {forcing white to castle long} 7.O-O-O Nc6 8.Kb1 Nb4 {thanks to weakened light squares black has great initiative, trade 1 pair of rooks and plans of Bd3-Bg6 following by Nd3 are always out there, where white's minor pieces can only be defensive.}

Now let's see what difference it would make if in the same position as (i) white's king was already safe/castled:

(ii)

 [title "Same position as (i) but assuming white's castled short already"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/6B1/2BP4/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R2Q1RK1 b - - 0 1"]

 1... b6 2. d5 Nxd5 3. Bxd5 exd5 4. Bxe7 Qxe7 5. Nxd5 Qd8 6. Rc1 Na6 7. Ne5 {A completely different end result, both sides have quite a healthy structure but if anyone it's white with an extra positional edge, in contrast to previous case where black was leading a better endgame.}

These lines underline the fact that white cannot really commit to much in the centre here (in order to pressure black by any means) without castling first, therefore black really does have an extra tempo at their disposal to choose either the immediate b6 or the somewhat slower but more sensible a6 (as it also provides important control over b5, which can still be followed by b6-Bb7 with the added advantage that you're in time to respond to a4-a5 with b5).

A tad more on the 9...a6 line followed by a simple developing plan leads to a very decent position with active ideas for both sides: white's play should revolve around emphasizing the IQP to establish a centralised knight on e5 (in other words making use of the extra dark square control provided by d4), and in contrast black's play is to exploit the IQP structure in order to establish a minor piece on d5 blockading the pawn and keeping the prospect of the d4 pawn potentially becoming a weakness, while activating the somewhat passive d7 bishop.

(iii)

 [title "One possible continuation after 9...a6 Nc6 Bd7"]
 [fen "rnbq1rk1/pp2bppp/4pn2/6B1/2BP4/2N2N2/PP3PPP/R2QK2R b KQ - 0 9"]

 1...a6 2. a4 Nc6 3. O-O Bd7 4. Qe2 Nb4 {preparing Bc6 to d5, one way or the other black is here in time to establish a piece on d5 blockading d4's advance} 5.Ne5 Bc6 6.Rad1 Bd5 7.Nxd5 (7.Bxf6 Bxf6 8.Nxd5 Nxd5) Nfxd5

Finally, not much else to say about b6 as it is equally decent: the light square fianchetto is quite fitting for black in all these kinds of IQP structures, as white often cannot easily challenge the bishop by either trading it or closing the diagonal, and on the other hand black ends up with a well active bishop which also provides additional control over d5.


Chess Problem Database with PGN or FEN Is there a database of chess probpems that have the game or positions PGN and or FEN?

Some large chess puzzle databases with links:

Free open source collection of 1,743,871 Problems at chessblunders.org, collected from more than 6 million games from professional tournaments.. They have an API for access to database.
Taken from the website "wtharvey":

Mate in 2
Mate in 3
Mate in 4

From the website "the art of mate in 2"

Nearly ~152000 puzzles in pgn format
You will also find four pgn files of ~ 500 puzzles made by "Argentine problemists"

Browsable collection of problems at "Yet another chess problems database". There are ~420000 problems. Not sure whether it can be downloaded programmatically. In the "About" page, you will find more links, some of which are broken.


What are Black's plans in this position from the Breyer defence? I'm considering taking up the Breyer defence to the Ruy Lopez as Black and played an internet game which went

  [StartPly "29"]
  [White "White"]
  [Black "Black"]
  [FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. h3 O-O 9. c3 Nb8 10. d3 Bb7 11. Nbd2 Nbd7 12. Nf1 Re8 13. Ng3 Nc5 14. Bc2 Bf8 15. Bg5

This move 15.Bg5 is not in my book on the Ruy Lopez. The computer suggests 15...h6 16.Be3 d5 which doesn't seem right unless Black gets clear compensation for the pawn. All Black's minor pieces seem well placed except the Bishop on f8. What are Black's plans in this position?

After 17 Bxc5 Bxc5 18 ed Qxd5 no pawn is lost due to the mate threat at g2.
Black has two active bishops and threatens Rad8 with pressure on the d pawn. If white does not exchange pawns then black can play Qd7 and Rad8.


Aggressive Line against Alekhine's Defence? I am looking to patch up a lot of my holes in my opening repertoire.
One of them is the Alekhine's Defence.
Do any of you know a good, aggressive line against the Alekhine's Defence?
(If there is no good aggressive lines, any line that doesn't give black the advantage right away is fine, too)
Thanks!

Spielmann Gambit

[Event "?"]
[ECO "B02"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/ b - - 0 1"]

[Setup "1"]

1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e5 Nfd7 ( 3... d4 {Black dodges the gambit, resulting and open, even game with even material, which is quite satifying anyway, if you want to dodge Alekhine Defense theory} 4. exf6 dxc3 5. fxg7 cxd2+ ) 4. e6 {Spielmann Gambit! White gives up a pawn to disorganize Blacks pieces, and will try to keep Black disorganized as long as possible. White has also good attacking possibilities on king side.} fxe6
5. d4 g6 (5... e5? { Trying to free up immediately, but... } 6.dxe5 e6 (6... Nxe5? 7. Qxd5 {Black has no material advantage and white has better position}) { Black gave up his extra pawn for reaching this defensive position. Worthy? I don't think so. White has a good play without giving up material.} ) {I think this is the best move for Black here. Fianchettoing bishop would give black a nice control over black squares in the center. Also ...g6 move closes e8-h5 diagonal, which will be used by white queen in some variations}

This is my favorite and totally awesome for a white player who wants to get initiative and attack.

After 5.d4, white plays to maintain control of central black squares, avoiding blacks freeing move ...e5, not letting black to develop, and attack from king-side using f7. I won a lot of games with whites in this variation, most importantly I had great fun avoiding Alekhine opening and gaining an attacking position instantly :)

Bonus: You can reach the same position in Scandinavian Defense too! 1.e4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6.

For all this reasons, this is a  very nice variation to put into repertoire as white.

However, black can dodge White's gambit by 3... d4, which results with even, open game. But anyway, Alekhine is avoided.

Notes about edits: I'm trying to add more analysis and more variations as you ask in comments, but it's really hard to cover all the analysis details in here. I also know there is not much material out there to study this gambit, so I'll do my best to cover as much as I can in my spare time.

Less preferable alternative

[ECO "B02"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/ b - - 0 1"]
[Setup "1"]

1. e4 Nf6 2. Bc4 Nxe4 3. Bxf7+ Kxf7 4. Qh5+ Kg8 ( 4... g6 5. Qd5+ e6 6. Qxe4 )
5. Qd5+ e6 6. Qxe4  *

If you opponent is greedy enough, you can go for this, but I don't like resulting position as white, I would prefer black side, so I didn't ever play this. Anyway, this is an option.


How can I frequently practice openings that are more than 1 or 2 moves long? For a while, anytime I got the chance to play the Scotch, I would as long as my opponent (being black) played the moves.  If they did not follow the move order, I would just continue with something else, but I noticed, the more I play an opening, the better I get at it (This is obvious).

Another way to view this question is, besides 1 or 2 move openings such as the English, Caro-Kann, Sicilian, Pirc, etc which obviously have been defined as being reached after 1 or 2 moves, how can I force my opponent and this may not be possible, it may just be by chance, to play moves up to the point where my opening is defined?

Certain openings I have found this actually works pretty well such as the Ruy Lopez because it has such a natural move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5., but in other openings, it is not so easy.

This is where you have to understand the opening, not just play memorized lines.  If your opponent strays too far from the most popular lines, he's probably made an error.  It's up to you to understand the opening enough to punish him for it.

So you can't force him to play the line but you can make him wish he did.


Why does Black play 10...a6 in the A39 variation of the English opening? I observed that after

[fen ""]

1.c4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.g3 Bg7 7.Bg2 O-O 8.O-O Nxd4 9.Qxd4 d6 10.Qd3

In many games, Black played the strange move 10...a6!? It has been played by top players like Kasparov, Anand and Carlsen.

What is the point of 10...a6? Is it a waiting move for White to reveal his hand? It seems like a preparation for a future b5, but why at this particular moment when Black could simply develop the bishop on f5 (10...Bf5)? Also, in some variations, the pawn could be useful on a5 so that Black's knight can rest comfortably on c5, so 10...a6 could be a waste of a move.

This position is discussed in many books, the consensus being that 10... a6 is the best and most flexible move. As you say, black waits for white to reveal their hand, and a6 is generally useful. Play could continue 10... a6 11. Be3 Bf5 or 10... a6 11. Bd2 Rb8.

The move 10... Bf5 is a serious alternative since it provokes 11. e4, blocking the diagonal for white's bishop. In this variation white would ideally like to hold back e4 to keep the diagonal open. Still, white can keep an advantage in various ways. Marin in Grandmaster Repertoire 5 says that white should try to emulate Smyslov-Timman, Moscow 1981.

White often chooses a set-up with Bd2, b3 and Rac1, leaving black's Bg7 bishop with nothing to attack. In such a position black needs the b5 break to create active play. Therefore playing a5 is usually not a good idea.


Which elements of chess are best to focus on for extended "crash course" learning? I want to spend between 1-2 hours/week practicing chess. I know that my skill will be severely limited by the time constraint. However, within this time constraint, where would my time be best spent? I obviously won't expect to challenge serious players and win (or even provide much of a challenge), so you can assume that all of my opponents are casual players as well.

For example, would my time be best spent playing AI's (so I don't have to wait for my opponent to make a move)? I'm not expecting an exact breakdown of what I should be doing, just some general advice.

Depends a bit on your level.

Assuming you are rather a beginner player, the best way to improve is by studying tactics/solving tactics puzzles. You can do this on many websites, which is quicker than doing it from a book and also most websites will present you puzzles suited to your level.

For a beginner I find chesstempo.com quite useful because after you solve a puzzle (or after you fail to solve), it will tell you the name of the tactical motif. Take note of these motifs, understand them and try to look for them when solving puzzles. Once you have stored a number of motifs in your brain, solving tactics puzzles will be much easier since you will not have to calculate move by move, but can think in patterns. Also chesstempo have a list of tactical motifs which you might want to consult.

As a second major topic you should learn general principals of play (e.g. develop pieces to active squares, occupy the center, king safety...) and perhaps a bit later positional motifs.

Opening theory is not very relevant for beginners, because in general it can only gives a small positional edge and most beginner games are decided by blundering a piece somewhere. Also for making use of openings you need to play opponents who also play theory, which is usually not the case with beginners. So don't waste your time with openings at this point in time.

And of course you should keep on playing games. Personally I'd rather play humans (online or over the board) than computers, but whatever suits you. Play games with longer time controls (10 min or more) in order to reduce the chance for blunders and to give you the opportunity to think about the position. For me lichess works best and has lots of features, but there are other options for playing online.

How to split time between studying and playing is up to you. After all you want to enjoy playing chess.


How do I make a chess engine make moves in Arena? I've been trying to use Arena to analyze a position, but the engine is not making any moves. I'm using Stockfish, and I click "analyze" to let the engine do the work, however there are no results on the board. What should I do to make it move pawns?

Thanks!

In Arena 3.0, the "analyze" button does not make moves, it just tells the engine to analyze. (it should present you the analysis in the GUI itself).  if you press the "edit" button the engine will responde to your move.  the third relevant button is the "demo": it will tell the engine to play both sides until the end of the game.


multi PVs using triangular array I am currently using a triangular array to collect the PV in my chess engine (written in C). However, I would like to return several variations such as the second best, third best, and so fourth. Is is possible to do with a triangular array scheme or do I need to use a transposition table. In either case is there a simple example of an engine that uses; one preferably in C?

You use neither.

You run your search to collect the best PV from your triangular table. This gives you your best variation. Then you exclude this best move and run another search to get the best PV from your triangular table. This gives you your second best variation. And so on.


Angle of view of the board I noticed that when I play online I play much better than when I play facing a chess board. I suspect this is due to my table being tall so my angle of view isn't the best one.

So I was wondering if the height of the table and chairs are also more or less the same in tournaments. Does it happen to you too?

There definitely could be something to this.

My father, and a friend of mine, were air traffic controllers. They both told me that you generally want a smaller screen so you can see everything at once.

The friend was also a chess player, and we talked about how big you wanted the chess app or browser to display the board. It does seem to make sense that if it is smaller, that you can see everything, and thus, not miss something that is in your periphery vision.

I can very easily see that translating to a larger physical board that you see the pieces on an angle, if playing on a computer is your normal way of playing.

Of course, there may, or may not, be studies about this in similar situations; but I figure if the U.S. government trains their people about this, there is probably something to that even if I do not have the source material they base it on.


How to describe two knights defending each other? How to describe two knights defending each other?

Linked knights?

Doubled knights?

In Chinese Chess, two 马 (horse/knight)s protecting one another is quite common, and there is a standard terminology: "连环马".

There is a real case: "German Chess Prodigy Surprises Boris Gelfand With A Brutal Queen Sacrifice"(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l37hlb32Rs0)

They're connected knights.

As the other answers said, this isn't typically that smart a thing for knights. OTOH, rooks are very often made stronger by connecting them (it allows them to thwart any queen intrusion). Thus you'll more often hear about it being “a good idea to connect rooks now”. But I think I've also heard the term used with knights. Just, knights tend to serve more of a tactical role than solid defense of the back-rank, and they're usually better protected by pawns or bishops, as these don't reduce their mobility in the way mutual knight defense does.

For pawns, the term connected of course means something different, since two pawns can never protect each other mutually.


How do you browse games in a PGN file on Linux? I've downloaded the database from ICOfY in PGN format.
Are there any free Linux-based programs that would allow one to browse through it? I mean exploring the game moves tree while displaying position on the board and links to next move alongside statistics?

Scid vs. PC can do all of the above. It will take a while to load since ICOfY Base is rather large (upward of 4 mil games, I believe). Your best bet is probably to convert the PGN file to Scid format using the pgnscid command-line utility included with Scid vs. PC. That's what I've done in the past, but if I'm not mistaken, ICOfY Base is now available for download in Scid format.


Does rating increases in bulks or is it a steady increase? I have been taking lessons from a coach since two months and I also played my first OTB tournament two months ago. Since then I have played around ten tournaments with an average of one or two tournament every weekend.

Even though I have learnt a lot from every single tournament by analyzing my games with the coach, and I myself know I am more knowledgeable and experienced now then when I played my first tournament my rating has just fluctuated between 1000 and 900 throughout.

My question is does the rating increases in jumps in general or is it like a steady increase where you increase rating points gradually playing every tournament? If its a steady increase, then I am sure I am not doing something right.

If I am 900 something after two months, is it a realistic goal to aim for 1500-1600 in the next 10 months, with coaching and playing 1-2 tournament per week?

Usually, in the beginning, the rating increase jumps quickly.  Just not hanging pieces could be a multiple hundred point increase.  As the rating increases, the rating increases become smaller.  This is because there is a smaller amount to learn, and technique improvement brings little gains.
Playing in this many tournaments doesn't really give you time to find and reduce your mistakes.  A coach can find your errors, but you won't be able to correct them within a week.  1600 is a realistic goal, and you should be able to reach 1800 within 5 years.


How can one determine the opening or transposed opening from the existing pawn formation/structure? I was once told that you can determine an opening or transposed opening just by how the pawns are structured on the board.  Is this the method normally used to determine if an opening was transposed into another through a sequence of moves?  I have found it interesting how top players can usually see a transposition very quickly.

In one sense, I would simply say, "Yes, the pawn structure would be the first indicator that one has entered/transposed into a given opening." But since there's no other answer here as of yet, I'm going to take the liberty to say a bit more, pushing a little further than the question as you asked it.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but here's one way to look at this matter: it is not so much that the pawn structure allows you to recognize what opening you're in (or have transposed to), but rather that the pawn structure nearly defines a given opening. In fact, while at certain playing levels very precise knowledge of opening lines is definitely crucial, one can get quite far without focusing too much on particular openings, but instead just on particular structures, and understanding the sorts of plans and piece developments that are appropriate for given structures.

This kind of approach is very much in the proverbial spirit of being taught to fish, instead of being given a fish (read: an opening line). One can't be ignorant of particular lines entirely, as one could get "move-ordered" into positions/structures one does not want to play; my main point, though, is that I think many beginning and intermediate players overemphasize knowledge of particular opening lines, and can sometimes get too caught up on labels/names that, ultimately, don't really matter, and distract from more useful considerations.

Here's an example of what I mean. Consider a game that starts with a Trompowsky Attack move order, 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5, which then proceeds with 2. ... e6 3. e4 Be7 4. Nc3 d5 5. e5 Nfd7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. f4, reaching the following position:

rnb1k2r/pppnqppp/4p3/3pP3/3P1P2/2N5/PPP3PP/R2QKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

This same position is reached much more often via a French Defense move order: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. f4 (in my database, there are only 23 games which include the previous move order, but 4050 which include this one). So, though we started off with a Trompowsky, we've ended up in a position that would now be termed the Steinitz variation of the French Defense. But what's in a name, really? If the Trompowsky was as old as the French, maybe it would be the other way around and we would say that in the latter case what started as a French transposed to a Trompowsky.

Here's my point: how we got here doesn't matter once we're here, and what we call it doesn't matter either for our chess playing. I have actually heard players say, in analogous situations, something along the lines of, "Oh, so now I need to learn the French Defense too." But this doesn't really make sense, any more than it would for a French Defense player who goes for this position to think that she suddenly needs to start picking up books on the Trompowsky. What each player really needs is to understand the structure that arises, regardless of what move order is used to get there, and regardless of what name for an opening the position receives.

Having said all that, I should probably say something about "learning to fish." One good resource is Andrew Soltis' classic Pawn Structure Chess, which examines appropriate plans in given structures via many illustrative games, in chapters that are broken down by opening families, with titles like: The Caro-Slav Family, The Open Sicilian-English, The King's Indian Complex, The Panov Formation, etc. You'll find that the reader reviews in the link generally solidly endorse Soltis' book; so do folks like Jeremy Silman.

Another book which uses illustrative games to explain certain kinds of pawn structures is Dražen Marović's Understanding Pawn Play in Chess. One difference from Soltis' book is that the chapters are broken down by the concrete aspects of various pawn structures, with titles such as Isolated Pawns, Doubled Pawns, Pawn-Chains, Pawn-Islands, etc. John Donaldson gave a very positive review of Marović's book.

I'll also mention Hans Kmoch's older work Pawn Power in Chess from 1959, because I bought that book early on when I got into chess, and though I wasn't really prepared for it at the time, I think it has a lot going for it. You can get a good sense of the book and its worth from the preview and the reviews in the link. But as everyone who ever mentions this book will say in one way or another, Kmoch tries to be overly "scientific" in his approach and introduces a lot of unfortunate terminology that does more to obscure than enlighten. (For instance, leucopenia and melanpenia are coined for light-square and dark-square weaknesses, respectively.) But if you get past that kind of jargon, by just ignoring it best you can, there is truly useful information in the book, and it comes in the form of a typically inexpensive Dover edition.


Tournament (After 10 year hiatus...) Good afternoon everyone,

*This is my first post on this forum, so if I placed this in the wrong section, please let me know.

I used to play regularly back in high school and stopped once I started college. I found my passion again and finally started training/studying again in the past few months and noticed there was a tournament coming up not too far away from where I live.

It’s the 7th Annual Reno Larry Evans Memorial (https://sites.google.com/site/renochessclub/lem/tournament#EntryInstructions)

I personally feel my chess has improved (definitely personal opinion), but I haven’t had the opportunity to play OTB in a while, so the majority of my games have been online.

My USCF rating back in early 2008 was the following (this was based on 46 games):

Regular: 1,376
Quick: 1,352
Blitz: Unrated

My Lichess rating from the past few days have been:

Classical: 1,748
Rapid: 1,722
Blitz: Unrated

I completely understand that online ratings are definitely inflated, so I’m assuming my rating is much lower than the 1,700s. I was considering entering into the tournament and it looks like I would fall under the “D” Section. And this leads to my questions:

I regularly play 30+0 games and am definitely more comfortable with longer times compared to shorter blitz games. This tournament is 40 moves/2 hours, SD/1 hour, 5 second delay. From your experience is this a drastic change?
If I apply for the tournament now, would I be in the “D” Section even if I haven’t played in a tournament in over a decade?
If I apply under the “D” Section now, join a chess club and in the 2 months prior to the competition get a rating over 1,400 would I automatically be placed in the “C” Section?
I’m assuming I need to be a USCF member before I apply, correct? If so, how long is the process?
Do you think if I prepare for the tournament for the next two months (reviewing end-game/middle-game, tactics, and at least one game per day), I will do well? $150 entry fee is on the larger end for me, so want to be sure I justify it for the wife.

I know this was quite a lengthy first post, but its has been a while and want to understand the topic before committing. I appreciate any feedback or suggestions. Thank you!

Regarding your questions:

2+1 hours is a big difference to 30-0, which is basically rapid chess. With 30-0 you'd rarely think at a move more than a minute or so. At your level this should be enough to avoid obvious blunders, but the longer time control allows you to invest say 10-30 minutes or so at a complicated position in order to really delve into the position and to calculate longer forced lines or develop long term plans. Might be worth playing some games at the longer time control prior to the tournament.

I'd ask questions 2 or 3 to the organizer unless it is specifically stated in the tournament regulations.

USCF membership seems to be required. It says, New memberships/renewals available at site. so that should not be a problem.

Too many unknowns to say how you will perform.


Why does white sacrifice their queen in this exercise? I was doing this exercise on lichess, but I don't see why the best move for white is to sacrifice their queen in exchange for a knight (after Nh3+):

 [title "lichess puzzle 61517"]
 [fen "4r1k1/p1b2pp1/1pp2r2/3p2np/1P1P2q1/P3P1P1/2R1NPQP/2R2NK1 b - - 1 28"]

Because white will lose the queen anyway after Nh3+, since otherwise Kh1 is answered with Rxf2 trapping and winning the queen. Just try to work out the tactics by yourself.

As to why white doesn't give up the queen for the rook instead (after Rxf2), it's because in this position the knight+queen are more apt at coordinating and creating threats. For example, to see that even after Qxf2 black can win back the rook if desired, here's a line:

 [title "lichess puzzle 61517"]
 [fen "4r1k1/p1b2pp1/1pp2r2/3p2np/1P1P2q1/P3P1P1/2R1NPQP/2R2NK1 b - - 1 28"]

 1...Nh3+ 2.Kh1 Rxf2 3.Qxf2 Nxf2+ 4.Kg2 Nd3 5.Ra1 Qe4+ 6.Kg1 Ne1 7.Rxe1 Qxc2

One must bear in mind that these are tactics problems, and in this case we know white is lost anyhow after Nh3+ but you should solve them with the mindset that you're playing against an engine, that is, assume the best resistance that exists, and sometimes since the position is lost, the best resistance is to delay the unavoidable exactly similar to how engines would go about such lost positions. Therefore, Qxh3 is presumably the move that yields the best resistance (lowest evaluation value for black's advantage from the engine's pov).


Best programable chess game on the market I would like to program famous chess matches into a chess program so I can watch the matches. Is there a chess program that allows this or is there already a program that has famous chess matches we can watch?

More or less every chess program is able to load games, replay them and even  sometimes analyze them. Personally I use SCID for replaying PGN games. It is free and works very well.


Light chess literature for beginning kids and their parents I'm looking for book recommendations for kids learning chess and their parents, or for the broad general public intrigued by chess. The idea is to read stories true, or faked, that fire the imagination to promote chess enthusiasm, to educate on chess history and chess culture. Preferably with nice illustrations.

These two books are a good starting point, IMO.

Chess for Kids from Micheal Basman
How to Beat Your Dad at Chess (Gambit Chess)


What was Caruana's plan in playing c6 against Carlsen in Game 10 of the Clutch Chess International? In Game 10 of the 2020 Clutch Chess International, Caruana played c6 in response to Carlsen's 9. Nd5.

[FEN ""]
[Event "Clutch Chess International"]
[Round "10"]
[White "Carlsen, Magnus"]
[Black "Caruana, Fabiano"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2881"]
[BlackElo "2773"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nc4 Nxe4 5. Qe2 Qe7 6. Ne3 Nc6 7. Nd5 Nd4 8.
Nxe7 Nxe2 9. Nd5 c6

What was Caruana's plan in making this strange move, since the white knight can just gain the rook through Nc7+?

If White goes for 11.Nc7+, then Black can reply 11...Kd8 Nxa8 Nxc1, however if Black played 10...Nxc1 directly, 11.Nxc7+ would win an extra pawn.

Note 10...c6 Bxe2 cxd5 would have been OK for black.


Why wasn't this strategy chosen? In the below position, White chose to activate his Knight with Ne4. Of course, he will have to play g4 to prevent …f5, and that requires the moves Kh1 and Rg1. These were the moves played in the game.

r2qrbk1/1pp3pp/2n1bp2/p2np3/8/PP1PPN2/1BQNBPPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1

In the game, Black played Qd7-f7 and Rad8. Although this does put pressure on the b3 and d3 pawns, it cannot be sufficient to warrant a capture. This also weakens Black's hold on the a5 pawn.

Instead, Black can play Nb6-d7-c5, attacking b3 and -- more importantly -- d3. This also places the knight on a better square, as it was doing nothing on d5. An alternative is also Nb6-d7 and f5-f4. What recourse does White have here?

The game you refer to is Bobby-Fischer - Ulf Andersson, Siegen 1970.

It is famous for Fischer introducing the impressive plan Kh1,Rg1,g4,Rg3,Rag1 that has often been used since in hedgehog position, mainly for Black.

  White chose to activate his Knight with Ne4. Of course, he will have to play g4 to prevent …f5

Actually ...f5 is pretty hard for Black to engineer in that kind of position: he has to prevent Neg5 and Nc5, to provide support for his Pe5, and he won't be threatening ...e4 nor ...f4 any time soon. Note that the Re8-Bf8 dispositif is better suited for queenside play while keeping a solid f6-e5 center, the plans would be different in a position with Bb6 and Rf8 for instance.

Fischer's g2-g4 is actually is much deeper plan than just securing the Ne4: it more generally grab space on the kingside (e4 but also f5 for a Knight, g3 for a rook) and threaten g4-g5 at a suitable moment to open the long diagonal for the Bb2 and the g-file for the rooks.

  Black can play Nb6-d7-c5, attacking b3 and -- more importantly -- d3. This also places the knight on a better square, as it was doing nothing on d5.

This is reasonnable enough, but White can hold on b3 and d3 without too much trouble. In later years, Qb1-Bd1-Bc2 would even become fashionable, even if it probably wasn't in Fischer's mind back in 1970. This regrouping secures both pawns and adds pressure on the diagonals toward the kingside when the game opens up, most often with d3-d4.

Moreover, after White's Ne4, it is not sure that Black Knight will reach c5 at all. Supposing it does, it would still be sensitive to tempo-gaining freeing move like b3-b4 and d3-d4.

Finally, I beg to differ about the Nd5. Although it is screening the pressure on the d-file, it is not "doing nothing": control of b4, e3 and f4 stops White from trying the most agressive plans with b3-b4 or f2-f4. Generally speaking, central squares that your opponent's pawns can't control are considered good spots for your knights.

  An alternative is also Nb6-d7 and f5-f4.

This however is a very bad plan. Even if Black was granted four free moves to achieve it without White moving at all, it would result in passive pieces (Nc6,Nd7,Re8) holding to the backward pawn on e5 that will be firmly blocked (Ne4) and under fire (Bb2, Nf3, possibly Qa1 or Nc4).

And what do you try to gain with f5-f4 ? An attack on Pe3 ? For that purpose you wouldn't want to retreat your Nd5 to d7. Opening the f-file or the a7-g1 diagonal ?  Well, you have Re8-Bf8, not Rf8-Bb6. I see no reason for White to be afraid of f5-f4.


Has any chess engine developed its own opening book? I'm referring to an engine that plays repeated games against itself and human opponents... and uses that data to develop its own opening book.

I'd think computers would have been used to develop new chess opening theory. Has this actually happened historically?

Yes, top level engines' authors generally also prepare an opening book with their engine.
But this process does not only involve computer matches. They make use of both computer matches, GM matches, and machine-learning (which you explain in your question)
This page has an interview about this topic on Rybka 4 book.
A quote from the page:

Q: Your Rybka 4 Aquarium opening book will be released soon. It's clear that you put a huge amount of work into the book.
A: Yes, I put a lot of work into it. It helps that I find it really interesting to analyze unknown positions and ideas from chess books, chess practice or computer games and find my own solutions. Today's opening preparation is very deep. In some cases players know their lines from the opening all the way to the endgame. A less prepared opponent will probably lose his way somewhere in the middlegame against such preparation. Things are looking even worse in computer games - long lines, often 50 moves or more, leading to a draw are similar to pre-arranged draws in human games.
The technical advances mean that opening analysis is very different from what it used to be a few years ago, not to mention a few decades ago. However, even with today's amazing computer tools, the work of the modern opening book author is still very demanding.
My method of creating a strong opening book consists of several steps. Assuming you already have a good database, the first step is the selection of games. Making a good hand-typed book is impossible. The selected games serve as the "raw material," and generate the initial version of the book. This step may only require a few hours of work. The next step is to fine-tune the move priorities. This is a very time consuming task, and in the case of the Rybka Aquarium book, it took a few weeks.
Testing the book is an independent process. First you run a test and then you look at the results and try to find weak points in the book. After further analysis you may find some improvements, which require updates to the book and another test cycle must be run. This process will take a few days.
Last, but not least is the creative phase of making an opening book. Here you need to find new ideas and get a deeper understanding of the lines in the book. One recurring question in this phase is why engines give a low evaluation, or play badly positions which are very good according to my own understanding of the position. This phase is not only very time consuming, it also needs a lot of creativity and manual interaction and guiding of the engine analysis.


Rules: Is this position a draw? Is this position a draw?

[FEN ""]
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng1 Ng8 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Ng1 Ng8

I don't mean to ask the age-old question "Is chess a draw?"; four moves have been played here, returning to the starting position. Since the start position has appeared three times, it seems that white can claim a draw by threefold repetition. However, lichess does not permit this claim, which got me thinking that perhaps there is a subtlety to the rules.

FIDE says:

  9.2
  The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by a player having the move, when the same position for at least the third time (not necessarily by a repetition of moves):

  a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed,
  on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or

  b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

  Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same. Thus positions are not the same if:

  at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant.
  a king or rook had castling rights, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.

It seems that white clearly has the ability to claim a draw by 9.2.a, since 5. Nf3 would definitely repeat the position after 1. Nf3. But my question is really whether 9.2.b applies for white (or perhaps equivalently whether black can claim the draw on move 4 via 9.2.a): Did the starting position "occur" before 1. Ng3? Or does it somehow not count? Are the rules ambiguous?

Obviously this is a silly game, but this kind of "Fool's Draw" might occur in practice when both players want a draw but are not allowed a normal offer (e.g. FIDE world championship 3.8.3b "The players cannot draw a game by agreement before black’s 30th move.").

This is a better question than it seems at first glance.

Intuitively it seems possible to claim a draw, since the position appears to have occurred three times.

However, according to a strict reading of the rules, the position after 4...Ng8 has appeared only for the second time. The relevant clauses are 9.2:

  [...] Positions are considered the same if and only if the same player
  has the move, [...]

and 1.1 about the start of the game:

  The player with the white pieces commences the game. A player is said
  to ‘have the move’, when his opponent’s move has been ‘made’.

In the starting position, white does not "have the move" since black did not make a prior move, white merely commences the game. Therefore, the positions before 1. Nf3 and after 4...Ng8 are not the same, and a draw cannot be claimed yet.


I can't figure out how to find tactics Why is it hard for me to find tactics?

For example,  I want to take their queen, but I don't know how can I get to specific back steps, unless I play normally (it would take time).

Do you mean the the retrograde analysis as a part of problem chess? In this case, I think the main thing in retrograde analysis is to ask the right questions. What kind of pieces should arise in the past? Where should the pawns come from? Also, experience with chess itself is very helpful..
Here is simple classic.
[FEN "4k3/8/8/7K/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1"]

Stipulation: White and Black retract a move and then helpmate in 1 move
It is obvious White needs material to mate (what piece and where) and it is remarkable to see the black king on its initial position e8, so castling could have been possible in the last position. (experience). But where is the black rook?! It seems helpful for the kings to come nearer (experience).
All this together gives the solution. Retract these moves: 1. Kg6xRh5 Rh8xQh5, and the helpmate happens: 1...0-0 2. Qh5-h7#.
[Title "Retrograde Analysis"]
[FEN "4k2r/8/6K1/7Q/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... O-O Qh7

I hope this helps.


How to save games in ChessBase reader? I played a very interesting game today, and I entered it in ChessBase reader, along with some comments. I would love to save this game in a database (.cbh) or as a .pgn, but I don't know how. Can you please help me?

I found an easy way to save pgns in CBReader. File->Publish to WEB->One-click publication-> the browser will open with your game and 'Download PGN' option. Really fast and easy.


Can I win this Rook and Pawn vs Bishop endgame? I'm playing white and I've been unable to get the black king out of the corner. Does black have a guaranteed stalemate or is there some way to force him out the corner?

[fen "5K1k/6R1/7P/8/8/8/2b5/8 w - - 0 1"]

This position is in fact drawn (which you can confirm e.g. by looking the position up in an online endgame tablebase). The key for Black's defense is to maintain the bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal, which prevents White from doing things like (1) moving the king to g6 (for threatening an eighth rank mate) or (2) pushing the pawn to h7 to threaten checking the black king out of h8 and queening the pawn. Black is able to keep the bishop on this diagonal, or at least be able to come back to it after moving away, and this keeps White from making any progress.

Here is just one line illustrating how White could win if Black were to go wrong with the placement of the bishop. After 1...Ba4?? White has a won position, but only by the move 2.Rg2! which keeps the bishop from returning to its defensively optimal diagonal. And that's the idea behind White's play in the rest of the line given: keep the bishop from coming back to that diagonal (e.g. with 4.Re2, 5.Rd2, 10.Re5 denying the bishop's return) until it's too late and the pawn push has already been arranged.

[fen "5K1k/6R1/7P/8/8/8/2b5/8 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kf7 Ba4?? 2.Rg2! Bb3+ 3.Kf6 Bd5 4.Re2 Bc4 5.Rd2 Bb5 6.Rd4 Bc6 7.Kg5 Bb5 8.Rd8+ Kh7 9.Rd5 Bc6 10.Re5 Ba4 11.Re7+ Kh8 12.h7 Bc2 13.Kh6 1-0


Comments and advice on a game that I played against 1.h4 I was playing a game with the Black pieces the other day against 1. h4. The reason why I wanna discuss this game with you is that during the game I always felt that my position is not stable, and at some point I was up by a pawn, but white had a lot of files to attack me and I needed to defend and it was uncomfortable. The engine gives an evaluation of -2.7 at the end but to me it was so unclear. I would really appreciate your feedback about the game in general in order for me to understand the position better so that next time I can evaluate the position better during the game and not be worried that I might be worse (although the engine says that I'm much better by -2.7). Moreover, I read somewhere that if your opponent plays 1.h4, then it's good to respond with 1...d5 opening the light-square bishop, and if your opponent plays 1.a4, then it's good to respond with 1...e5 opening the dark-square bishop. What do you think about this general tip? Also when your opponent plays 2. h5, do you prefer to play 2...h6, or do you continue occupying the center and fast development?
[FEN ""]
 1. h4 d5 2. h5 h6 3. Nf3 c5 4. d3 Nf6 5. Nbd2 Nc6 6. e4 Bg4 7. Be2 e6 8. Nh2 Bxe2 9. Qxe2
 Bd6 10. Nhf3 Be7 11. e5 Nd7 12. Nf1 O-O 13. g4 Qa5+ 14. Bd2 Qc7 15. O-O-O Ndxe5 16. Nxe5
 Qxe5 17. Qxe5 Nxe5 18. Nh2 Nc6 19. f4 e5 20. fxe5 Nxe5 21. Rde1 Bd6 22. Reg1 Rae8 23. g5
 hxg5 24. Rxg5

When playing through this game, at no time did I think that Black was losing.
I don't like 2...h6 myself. What are you doing? Preventing 3.h6? Why would you want to prevent that?
The other move I don't like is 12...O-O. The center is closed and it doesn't seem like your king is particularly unsafe in the middle or queenside. Your opponent has already spent two moves advancing the h-pawn; it's rather obvious that if you castle over there, they're going to play O-O-O and advance the g-pawn. Your h6 pawn makes a nice target. And it seems like it's difficult for your knights to get over to defend right away because of the e5 pawn.  I wouldn't say it's a bad move, but it's very foreseeable that it would lead to you being on the defensive.


Why doing the Engine suggested move worsen my position? It is going from #26 through +60 to +9. Thats all engines best moves with deep analysis. Schould it not be a forced checkmate if I will follow the engine evaluation?

Stockfish (at a search depth of 99 moves) evaluates the initial position as actually a mate-in-19.

[FEN "2n5/1p6/1P3k2/R1K1p1p1/2p1PpPp/5P1P/8/8 w - - 4 1"]

1.Ra8 Ne7 Kxc4 Nc6 Kc5 Ke7 Rc8 Nd8 Kd5 Ne6 Kxe5 Kd7 Kd5 Ke7 Re8+ Kxe8 Kxe6 Kf8 e5 Kg7 Kd6 Kg8 e6 Kf8 Kd7 Kg8 e7 Kf7 e8=Q+ Kf6 Kd6 Kg7 Ke7 Kh6 Kf8 Kh7 Qh5#

The next position is a mate in 18 moves.

[FEN "R7/1p2n3/1P3k2/2K1p1p1/2p1PpPp/5P1P/8/8 w - - 6 2"]

1.Kxc4 Nc6 Kc5 Ke7 Rc8 Nd8 Kd5 Ne6 Kxe5 Kd7 Kd5 Ke7 Re8+ Kxe8 Kxe6 Kf8 e5 Kg7 Kd6 Kg8 e6 Kf8 Kd7 Kg8 e7 Kf7 e8=Q+ Kf6 Kd6 Kg7 Ke7 Kh6 Kf8 Kh7 Qh5#

The final position is mate in 17 moves.

[FEN "R7/1p6/1Pn2k2/4p1p1/2K1PpPp/5P1P/8/8 w - - 1 3"]

1.Kc5 Ke7 Rc8 Nd8 Kd5 Ne6 Kxe5 Kd7 Kd5 Ke7 Re8+ Kxe8 Kxe6 Kf8 e5 Kg7 Kd6 Kg8 e6 Kf8 Kd7 Kg8 e7 Kf7 e8=Q+ Kf6 Kd6 Kg7 Ke7 Kh6 Kf8 Kh7 Qh5#

You probably didn't give the engine sufficient time to find the mate.

Another important fact to note is that the Lichess app uses the javascript version of Stockfish. The problem with this version is that it cannot make use of hash tables. So when the engine evaluates a position and then left to evaluate another position resulting from a move in the initial position, it evaluates the position as if it was restarted before evaluation. I am pretty sure if you give the engine some time to evaluate the second and last positions it will come up with the mate.


What is an "artificial" move? Sometimes I see a move or serial of moves described as "artificial"  What does this mean?  Here is one example, comments by Kasparov on move 10. ..cxd4.  Taken from "Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, Part1"

  Later Black sometimes also tried the rather artificial 10...Bg4 11.d5 Rd8 12.Qb2 Bxf3 13.gxf3 Ne5 { (Yusupov-Anand, 6th match game, Wijk aan Zee 1994; I.Sokolov-Topalov, Sarajevo 2001)

[Event "Moscow-4teams"]
[Site "Moscow URS"]
[Date "1981.02.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Garry Kasparov"]
[Black "Oleg Romanishin"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D85"]
[EventDate "????.??.??"]
[FEN ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Nf3 c5   8.Be3 Qa5 9.Qd2 Nc6 10.Rc1 cxd4 ( 10...Bg4 11.d5 Rd8 12.Qb2 Bxf3 13.gxf3 Ne5 ) 11.cxd4 Qxd2+ 12.Kxd2 O-O 13.d5 Rd8 14.Ke1 Na5 15.Bg5 Bf6 16.Bd2 b6 17.Rc7 Bg4 18.Ba6 e6 19.Ng5 Be5 20.Rxf7 exd5 21.f4 Bg7 22.f5 dxe4 23.Bxa5 bxa5 24.Bc4 Bc3+ 25.Kf2 e3+ 26.Kg3 Be5+ 27.Kxg4 Rd4+ 28.Kh3 Rxc4 29.f6 Bxf6 30.Rxf6 Re8 31.Re1 e2 32.Kg3 Ra4 33.Kf2 Rxa2 34.Ne6 a4 35.Rb1 a3 36.Rb7 e1=Q+ 37.Kxe1 Rxg2 38.Rg7+ Kh8 39.Rgf7 h5 40.Kf1 Rxh2 41.Rxg6 Rxe6 42.Rxe6 Kg8 43.Rxa7 1-0

An artificial move is one that does not fit in with what would be typical of the plan. It means "unnatural" given the position.

In the game above, Bg4 is unusual, and only played 5.5% of the time in that position. Typically, 10...cxd4 is played there in an overwhelming majority of games, and the Bc8 often ends up on the d7 square as more suitable.


Systematic ways to approach more difficult problems As I’m done solving easy puzzles (1000–1500), I decided to try some 1700 puzzles, but I’m finding it very hard to solve them as there are no obvious checks, captures and threats. Also, most of the times, the solution are about 5–7 moves. So, I figured that maybe a complete different approach is needed to solve these problems.
r1b2r1k/p1p3pp/2pp1q2/8/N1Q2n2/1P1N4/P1P2PPP/3RR2K b - - 0 1

For example for this one, I don’t even know where to begin. I solved easier problems by finding all the checks, captures and threats, and the solution used to come within few seconds, but now things are not that easy. So is there a systematic approach?

for example this one below,don't even know where to begin.Earlier the
way I solved problems was finding all the checks,captures and threats
and the solution used to come within few seconds but now things are
not that easy

"Finding all the checks,captures and threats" looks like a great way to solve the puzzle you've posted. There are no immediate checks but there are some good candidate captures and threats.
[fen "r1b2r1k/p1p3pp/2pp1q2/8/N1Q2n2/1P1N4/P1P2PPP/3RR2K b - - 0 1"]

1... Nxd3 2. Qxd3 Qxf2? 3. Rf1! (1...Be6? 2. Qxf4! Qxf4 3. Nxf4 Rxf4 4. Rxe6)(1...Nxg2 2. Kxg2 Bh3+ 3. Kxh3 Qf3+ 4. Kh4 g5+ 5. Kxg5 Rf5+ 6. Kh6 Qh5++)

Nxd3 is a capture which looks like it might win the f pawn and create back rank mating threats but white looks to be fine after recapturing with the c pawn when the white queen is still threatening the c6 pawn. If white recaptures with the queen then the f pawn is poisoned! It is met by the embarrassing Rf1. So, that doesn't work
The white queen is a little bit short of moves, but the threat Be6 is met by Qxf4 and at the end of the exchanges the bishop on e6 is hanging, so that doesn't work either. Finally -
The capture Nxg2 is a really promising looking sacrifice which is well and truly poisoned. Kxg2 is met by Bh3 and then Qf3+ with mate to follow soon. If white doesn't move the e1 rook then black is just winning a pawn and exchange plus the white king is very exposed. If white does move the e1 rook then Qf3 with the threat of Bh3 is going to be devastating.

So, "checks, captures, threats" does work. You just have to keep the analysis going for more than 2 or 3 moves and find two piece sacrifices as you hunt the king. The fun part of tactics!


Can SCID be configured so that engines use Endgame Tablebases? I set the options in Scid VS. PC 4.8, so that Tablebase information shows up in game information window (when 5 piece endgame is reached. But when I turn on an analysis engine, it still does not recognize the tablebases, and continues to calculate, showing score +3.0, while the position is mate in 31 moves (as shown in game information window). Is there anything else I need to do? I tried several engines, with same results.

I just had the same question, and I thought I would post a belated answer for future persons.

I am using SCID vs. PC, but I think the solution may be the same or similar. First download the Gaviota tablebases here (http://www.olympuschess.com/egtb/gaviota/). Then go to SCID --> Tools --> Analysis Engines and select your engine (Critter is working best for me here. I have Houdini 1.5 and it is not working properly.) click Edit and then click the Configure button. You will see a GaviotaTbPath textbox; enter your directory, click save and everything should work.


Moving the queen early in the game - beginner Ok, I know this will be a vague question... I recently played against a friend three games, and lost all of them, and the problem was that he played his queen very early in the game (second move). I was told that this isn't a very good strategy, but the truth is that I lost...

Can somebody give me the main themes for a early queen, and how to respond?

The main issue with developing your queen early is that it is a very valuable piece, so pretty much any time your opponent threatens to take it, he is threatening to win material. (Contrast with developing your knights, say; if your opponent threatens to take it, unless he's threatening to take with a pawn, he is often just really offering an equal exchange.)

The best way to take advantage of your opponent's early queen development is to exploit this by attacking it while developing your own pieces. If you can combine development with attacking the queen this way, you'll get all your pieces onto useful squares while he wastes time moving his queen around, and you'll be in much better position to do something in the middlegame.

A simple example of this is 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6, developing the knight while attacking the queen.


What is the most agressive, tactical, attacking, line in this Mieses? [FEN ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Nb6

There are two variations here. Nd2 and b3. Which fits best to the criteria?

I think you are mixing some variations. In the main line Mieses, certainly 9.b3 and 9.Nd2 are two of the most played moves:

[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Ba6 9.b3 {This is the main line.} (9.Nd2 {This is the third most common move.}) (9.g3 {This is the second most common move.})

However, in the position you are concerned with, you may be much more aggressive than any of those moves. Black has wasted yet another tempo with his knight, and bear in mind that you don't need to overprotect the c4 pawn as it is already protected by two pieces. Possibly the best move is to develop another piece and go for a mating attack as early as possible:

[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nxc6 bxc6 6.e5 Qe7 7.Qe2 Nd5 8.c4 Nb6 9.Nc3! {The knight can be developed to a more active square, and has more control over the center, which will be extremely important, since in the main line black gets a passed pawn and white will need to control it.} Qe6 10. Qe4 g6 (10... Ba6 {Should also be looked at for white.}) 11. Bd3 (11. f4 {Is a possible different move order, perhaps over aggressive, which may transpose or get into completely different territory.}) Bg7 12. f4 O-O 13. O-O {This is more or less a common subvariation of the Mieses.} Ba6 14. b3 d5 15. cxd5 cxd5 {Around this move, the book/theory begins to get fuzzy and some other interesting responses have been tried.} 16. Qe2 (16. Qf3 {Is also to be considered.}) Bxd3 17. Qxd3 c5 18. Ba3 Rac8 (18... Rfc8 {Is also valid, but offers slightly smaller chances.}) {This is the main subvariation line, but quite a few digressions are possible.}

Although the position is roughly equal, maybe with a slight plus for white, to make a small mistake is very easy, and those mistakes come with great doses of punishment and pain, since a little slip in these lines will very likely cost the game. White has to be constantly looking out for moves like f5 (which can be played even if the bishop has not been fianchettoed) and black has to avoid getting crushed by the bind the e5 pawn makes. This is not a position you can play mechanically and positional, but a very complex tactical struggle.


Most complicated mode for chess engines I have used many chess engines, especially Stockfish and I want to ask you, if it possible to change its mode to the most complicated one. What I mean:

Now, most engines work as following:
1) Mate the opponent asap.
2) If it is not possible to mate him, then draw him asap.
3) If it is not possible to draw him, then delay its mate as longer as you can.

Or something similar, I don't know. So my question is if it can change, so anytime engine will choose this move that makes the game as complicated as possible.

An example: Imagine we are in a position that engine can choose two moves: A or B.

The A one, is the best defense and if the opponent is engine can mate us in minimum 30 moves. But also the win by a simple human of 2000 Elo is possible. Just applying simple theory. In 50-60 moves, human also can mate.

The B one is not good, an engine can mate us in 10 moves but this combination of 10 moves is completely unique and it is very difficult to be seen by a human, neither by Carlsen. If a mistake will be done, then we will win the opponent.

Simply said, the first move is the best one if the engine plays against an engine because it delays the mate much, but if it plays against a human it is very simple to lose. The second move is bad if the engine plays against an engine because it can be mated in 10 moves, but if it plays against a human, even against Carlsen, it is a bluff move, because this combination of the next 10 moves is completely invisible by humans and a mistake is 100% sure to be done, so engine will win human.

Is it possible to change this mode in engines? Or can an engine detect whether it plays against engine or human and adjust its moves? So if it loses and plays against human, it can choose the most complicated moves, hoping for a human-blundering...?

You are talking about playing suboptimal moves for bluffing. Stockfish is not good at that... Chess programming theories are no good because it’s hard to define a complicated position. There were research articles on this topic but it’s still an unsolved problem.

I believe you will need a good mathematics model. Stockfish doesn’t have it.


What are the standard time controls for live chess (non-OTB and non-correspondence) on every chess websites? I'm trying to establish what are the most common time controls for live chess (non-OTB and non-correspondence chess) on every chess websites.

And so I need to know what are the standard time controls (the ones that are suggested, if there are any) on ICC, FICS, ChessCube, Yahoo Chess, Chess.net, GameKnot, etc...

I checked on Chess.com, the suggested time controls there are: 1|0, 2|1, 3|0, 5|0, 5|2, 10|0, 15|10, and 30|0 (the first number represents the minutes, the second number represents the increment per move in seconds)

While on PlayChess and on Red Hot Pawn there is no predefined time controls.

So if you've got an account on any chess website please tell me what are the standard time controls there. Thanks in advance.

What defines, "standard time controls"? Do you want the most commonly played time controls? Do you want the time controls which are suggested per each server?

To me, a more interesting analysis is to plot the percentage of games played vs time control and find the time controls with the largest spikes (popularity). But, I'm not sure how to get that information.

On ICC, the most popular time controls would likely be 3 0, 5 0, and 1 0. They have different auto-pairing pools for some standard time controls as well, each has a separate rating. This includes, 1-minute, 5-minute, 15-minute, and 45-minute. Although, 45 minute online is not very common.


Latvian Gambit recommendations The Latvian gambit:

e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5!?

leads to a sort of King's gambit reversed. I've had a large winning percentage for this opening as Black in club games. Would this opening be good for a 1500-Fide level tournament?

It might barely be playable at 1500 FIDE. However, as others pointed out, if someone prepares for you, then you will be in big trouble.
My recommendation to to avoid playing this gambit at all costs.
I'm around ~2170 USCF, and my main repertoire is non traditional(morra gambit, kings gambit, alekhine, dutch....). This is coming from someone who's played many gambits over the years.
I tried earnestly to incorporate the Latvian gambit as some sort of surprise weapon. It is just unplayable. Even when my opponents were significantly weaker than me and obviously didn't know what was going on in the opening, they usually get an edge, and it could be a big one too. If they happen to have studied the latvian, then you are pretty toast. I don't even recommend it for blitz.
This is just my anecdote, but it's clear to me that for strong chess players the latvian is not sound, and it is not hard for white to deal with.


Why, in online chess, is it that the shorter the time control, the higher the world leading elo is? I noticed on lichess.org that the shorter the time control, the higher the world-leading elo is. Is there a simple explanation for that?

I also noticed that, in the meantime, the shorter the time control, the lower the median is vof all players. I think it is because, the shorter the game is, the more you need to know by heart many openings and the more you need to be skilled to be good at such mode.

I think the key of this is number of played games.
Nihalsarin2004 9440 bullet games
konevlad 1113 blitz games
Zhigalko_Sergei 257 rapid games
Biranidun  84 clasic games