How much FIDE rated chess was played in April 2020? FIDE has just published the May 2020 rating list which brings the ratings up to date for games played in April. The rating file can be downloaded from the FIDE download page.

Many countries have locked down some time in April (due to the current pandemic) and chess is no longer played. Some countries haven't locked down and chess may still being played. How has this affected the numbers?

A short explanation of how FIDE counts games.

Suppose I have a rating and I play two games, one against Jim Unrated and one against Jane Rated and I draw both games.

In Jim Unrated's record his game against me will be recorded because if he has enough games and reached a high enough level then his game against me will be used to calculate his rating. Even if he didn't qualify yet it will still be recorded to be used to calculate his first rating sometime in the future.

In Jane Rated's record her game against me will, of course, be recorded. The result will be used to calculate her rating adjustment.

In my record the game against Jane will be recorded because that affects my rating but the one against Jim won't be. He is unrated so our game won't affect my rating.

So, between the three of us we played 2 games but that will be recorded as 3 "half games".

I have some statistical questions regarding these “half-games.”

1) How many half-games of standard time control were played in April?

2) How many half-games of rapid were played in April?

3) How many half-games of blitz were played in April?

4) How do these numbers compare to March?

Note that some chess was played in April. For instance the Nigerian national championships was played. It was a 10 player all-play-all which started on 30th March and finished on 3rd April.

Sweden is also a country where there has been no lockdown and (some) chess has continued. Here is an example of a tournament which is played over several months but in any case lasting more than 90 days (looks like a club tournament where one round is played per month, started in October 2019) Round 7 of Horndal KM 201920 played on 15th April.

Fascinating question. I computed the stats for each individual file (Standard, Rapid and Blitz) downloaded from the FIDE download page.

I added up the number of games reported for each FIDE player for each control time and list.

Standard Time Control

145,618 games played in  and reported in the April list.
Only 9,946 games played in standard time control and reported in the May list!

Rapid

54,192 games played and reported in the April list.
Only 1,446 games and reported in the May list!

Blitz

24,514 games played and reported in the April list.
only 1,005 games and reported in the May list!

Regarding games played in April 2020.

The round 7 of Horndal KM 201920 has indeed been played on 15th April. However, the Nigerian national championships were played in March. See the report of the Nigerian Chess Federation.


Is there a chess AI that can force checkmate on a specified square? I'm looking for a program that can force a lone king into checkmate on a specific square. Are there any programs out there that can do this?

Thanks for the great question ChessNoob3000, and welcome to chess.stackexchange.com

I don't know of any chess program right now ("AI" or otherwise) which can force checkmate on a particular square. The idea of "conditional problems", e.g. white must mate with a certain piece, was popular in the 19th century, before the arrival of software which can solve much more complex problems, but they are now a bit of a backwater. If you wrote a program specializing in conditional problems, you could be able to apply it to hundreds of unproven problems!

Related work is in Francois' Labelle's "Jacobi" program. This does allow for conditions, but is strictly applicable to help problems and proof games. It would not apply to adversarial stipulations e.g. "mate in 2" or "self-mate in 2".

You might post a feature request for Popeye in github , or if you are a programmer you might want to contribute to the Popeye open source yourself. Chat with Thomas Maeder about this: conditional problems for non-help stipulations is definitely a hole currently.


Rauzer Attack, Sicilian defense - why not play 6...Nxd4? I'm just learning how to play the Sicilian and none of the books I have at hand shows this move. So I'm considering that this move is a mistake and there is some strong counterplay on white's part, but I just can't find it. Could anyone please point it out to me or otherwise explain the implications of 6...Nd4?

[fen ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 Nxd4

It doesn't lose by force or anything, but it brings you even further behind in development; right now White has three pieces developed to your two, and after 6...Nxd4 7.Qxd4 White has three pieces developed to your one. Also, giving up your knight on c6 weakens your control of e5, making it easier for White to push his pawn to e5 with an attack at some point. You're better off doing something constructive.


How to prepare for a handicap game (queen odds) / strategy? I made a bet with a non-neglegible stake that I will win a game against a friend without queen. My Elo rating is about 2000-2100, my friend's should be around 1400. Today I played with the black pieces with a rook odds and I won.

He didn't make big blunders and he played the opening quite well (e4, developed both knights and the white bishop and sacrificed on f7 for my 2nd rook), but he got lost in the middle game and did not know what to do.

These are my observations:

1) He knows that he wants to exchange as many pieces as possible even with slight material costs.

2) He knows how to play the standard textbook e4 - e5 opening, but I guess he is not familiar with other openings.

3) He didn't make huge blunders, so I cannot expect to sacrifice pieces and win in the opening phase.

4) The middle and endgame should be the parts of the game where he is less experienced.

5) I expect him to be weak in tactics and to loose pawns in not-obvious situations.

When I play without a rook odds, I try to keep the lines closed or to play with white a really aggressive e4, f4. However, I don't want to go into e4, since he knows that opening to a certain extent. I would rather go for c4, which is my standard opening. Ideally I would like to go for opposite castling with a pawns attack.

What should be my strategy for that game? / How can I prepare for that game?

In which variant of the english opening is it difficult for a beginner to exploit a queen?

Years ago my club in England ran a handicap tournament in the summer, which I organised and also played in. Had you and your friend been members, I think you would have played at Queen odds, or maybe Rook plus time handicap. In our tournaments the odds-givers did surprisingly well. Here is some advice based on that, although your own list is already pretty good.

Dont go for a briliancy. If it happens it happens, but dont set your sights on it.
Done even go for active development. Pieces out in the middle get exchanged off. Keep things closed, but retain the option to open them up.
Dont set up direct threats unless they are well hidden or unstoppable. You may just force him to make good moves.
Set up an unfamiliar situation in the opening. I had good results with 1. b3. English could be good also. And it still is an English without your Queen. You just wont be playing book lines.
Keep central control and identify important squares.
Stay mobile and flexible. Steadily improve your position. Wait for the opponent to make mistakes. He will. You are correct that he will not make good plans. He will be reluctant to sacrifice.

Playing like this you will probably win some material about once in every ten moves. Wait until material is fairly equal before you try for a mating attack.


What will/should the arbiter do if the side which cannot theoretically lose resigns? Assume that in an endgame, one side cannot theoretically lose (for example, his opponent has only a king) and he is not in any time crisis. In this case, what will/should an arbiter do if this player resigns? Will/should the arbiter accept the result of the resignation, or will/should the arbiter consider this as bad sportsmanship and take further actions against this player?
Though almost no reasonable player will do this under normal circumstances, I am still wondering if this had ever happened in professional games before.

The first thing to note is that the FIDE Laws of Chess are silent on this. Resignation at any time in any situation is allowed and immediately ends the game:

5.1.2 The game is won by the player whose opponent declares he resigns. This immediately ends the game.

Other methods of losing are qualified in some way. For example, checkmate is only valid if the preceding move was legal, a game where one player runs out of time is only a loss if there is some way (i.e. helpmate) that the opponent can deliver checkmate.
However this is not the end of the story. There are also the Anti-Cheating Regulations. They say:

These regulations deal with the investigation of suspected cheating incidents.
“Cheating” in these regulations means:
i) the deliberate use of electronic devices (Art. 11.3.2 FIDE Laws of Chess) or other sources > of information or advice (Art. 11.3.1 FIDE Laws of Chess) during a
game; or
ii) the manipulation of chess competitions such as,
including but not limited to, result manipulation, sandbagging, match fixing, rating fraud, false identity, and deliberate participation in
fictitious tournaments or games.

If the arbiter believes the resignation was a result of ineptitude then it should stand. There have been examples of top GMs resigning drawn positions through ignorance and ineptitude.
If the arbiter suspects some form of cheating or receives a complaint of such then this should be investigated. These things also happen.


"Breaking" crowded positions White moves. Is there a systematic approach to tackling such crowded formations?  I don't see an efficient way to progress, aside from charging to trade figures in order to thin the population.

[FEN "r1q2rk1/1p2pp2/2p2npb/p2pNb1p/Pn1P1P2/1PN1PBP1/2PB3P/2RQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

White is in a positional bind on the queenside. When cramped, a general strategy is to exchange pieces, but you must be careful not to allow all of your best pieces to be exchanged, e.g. if all the minor pieces in this position are traded off except for white's dark squared bishop, he will be in trouble.

Re1 with the idea of e4, to free white's position, is a standard idea that seems unstoppable in this position (black can try putting a piece on e4, but the exchanges that follow are favorable for white). An important point about closed positions is that you tend to be able to get away with slow maneuvers. So for this game, you could alternatively try Be1, Qe2, play Bxb4 if you can, and try to play e4 when the time is right. You may want to include Nd1-f2, and then c4 becomes an option.


How can I deal with frustration in not being able to solve puzzles in time? I've been doing 1700-2000 puzzles for some days now. My problem is that when I cannot find a solution within 10 minutes, it literally kills me inside. I just get so frustrated and angry. Theh I just see the solution and then try to memorize it. Is there is any solution to this problem, or does it happen with everyone at some point?

It happens every day to a lot of players! Some problems are very hard and can be very frustrating.
My advice would be to try hard during "your 10 minutes", and if the problem is challenging to move on without seeing the solution. Come back to the puzzle after you've had a break and cleared your head. At least, that works great for me!


SyzygyPath in asmFish Can someone point to me whereabouts in asmFish I can hardcode the SyzygyPath into the source code. I can do it in StockFish 8, however I've yet to find it in the source code of asmFish. I'll be using the Linux version.

Any help much appreciated.

I don't think you should hard-core SyzygyPath because the ASM engine follows the UCI protocol. You can just send the SyzygyPath option to the engine.
If you insist to modify the assembly language (I don't recommend), goto https://github.com/tthsqe12/asm/blob/f34c20b25c2160b27efda5c5c388ff5e66636d3e/asmFish/guts/Uci.asm.

Find this:

.SyzygyProbeDepth:
        lea    rcx, [sz_syzygypath]
        call   CmpStringCaseless
        lea    rbx, [.SyzygyPath]
        test   eax, eax
        jnz   .CheckValue

Try to replace the path with 'C:\MyPath\'.

Note: My recommendation is not tested, but I am sure that's the code you'll need to change.


What are the benefits of playing 1. h3? My friend plays this all the time as white. He cites the following two reasons:

Gives white a chance to play like black (respond to an opening rather than create one)
Defends against bg4

Can this turn into a modified Grob? Are there any other good reasons to play this?

There are no good reasons to play 1. h3 (or 1. a3) other than psychology (confusing the opponent, avoiding theory/opponent's preparation/...).

Regarding the two "reasons" you mention:

  Gives white a chance to play like black (respond to an opening rather than create one)

I don't see this as an argument for playing a waiting move like 1. h3/a3. Why would you want to play like black (which has statistically a lower winning percentage)? What is the advantage of "responding to an opening"? That would mean that you have to be prepared for all kind of moves, so if anything you would have more work, studying more lines, etc.

Also I disagree that it is always white who is "creating" the opening. In the end the opening is created by both players. Take for instance 1. d4. Black can respond with 1...d5 playing some kind of Slav or Queen's gambit which more often than not leads to symmetrical equalish positions. Or black can go for something like a King's Indian, Benoni, Grunfeld... which leads to asymmetric wilder play. So here it is black who decides the character of the opening.

  Defends against bb4 [Bg4!?]

It is too early to know whether you want or need to defend against this. It is not like Bb4/Bg4 is a major threat (in most openings) that must be prevented. Also in some openings the bishop might not even want to (be able to) go to those squares. Lastly, pushing the pawn to h3/a3 can create weaknesses or targets for pawn storms in some lines.


Sicilian defense - beginner I have started to study the Sicilian defense (at a beginners level), and I came across a situation where I don't know how to proceed...

e4 c5
Nf3 d6
d3

I know that it is probably not the best thing for white to do, but nevertheless, how does black continue?
My fear is the white Knight coming to f7...

Put in the most simple way, white's classical goal with 1.e4 is to continue 2.d4, occupying the center.

Black plays the Sicilian so that he can, if white continues expanding in the center with d2-d4, exchange his c-pawn for white's d-pawn and gain a 2 vs 1 pawns in the center advantage. In the meantime he doesn't develop his pieces, so there's a disadvantage to that approach, but that's a basic idea of the Sicilian.

White has three fundamental ways to deal with the Sicilian: if he believes black's disadvantage in development is more important than the center pawns, he can go for d2-d4 (usually with Nf3 first), fast development and attack. This leads to exciting games and is the traditional most popular way to deal with the Sicilian.

Two, he can take the Sicilian seriously and still continue with his original idea by playing 2.c3. This 'cancels' 1...c5 because white will just take back on d4 if the pawns are exchanged.

Three, white can decide against d2-d4 for now and look for other ways. Usually this involves putting the pawn on d3 (because leaving it on d2 is awkward). Usually play is slow and both sides' pieces don't immediately touch each other in the opening moves, so a great variety of ways to continue are possible. Your line belongs here.

Combining 2.Nf3 and 3.d3 is a bit odd, in that white has already made some slight concessions -- he can't play with an early f2-f4, and the bishop is locked in -- while black hasn't had to do anything to achieve that. By itself that doesn't mean much, as there are still good ways to continue available, but he's made himself a bit predictable.

Most likely, white will put the bishop on g2 and castle short; this is called the King's Indian Attack, because it mirrors black's setup in the King's Indian Defence.

It's hard to give concrete lines (because so much is possible), but I'd place a pawn on e5 (3...e5 or 3...Nc6 and 4...e5) because it shuts down white's d3-d4 for the foreseeable future, f2-f4 is not possible, and an important plan for white is usually to play e4-e5, but you prevent that. Keep the option of playing your white squared bishop to g4 open.

The so-called 'Botvinnik setup' with pawns c5-d6-e5, Nc6, Ne7, and a bishop on g7 seems like an idea.


Where does the word 'gambit' come from? According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, a gambit is

  a chess opening in which a player risks one or more pawns or a minor piece to gain an advantage in position.

But I was wondering, why do we use the word 'gambit'? Where does it come from? How we came to use it?

The name 'gambit' was coined in the 16th century already by Ruy López. He derived it from the old Italian expression

  dare il gambetto

(literally: 'to give the leg'). It means 'to trip (someone) over' - gambits were often used in attempt to win a game quickly.


Describe White's performance in these two games In these two games, can you describe the performance of White? Whether it was highly tactical, aggressive or positional...etc

 [fen ""]
1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Nf6 3. d4 Bf5 4. c4 e6 5. dxe6 fxe6 6. Nc3 Bb4 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8.
bxc3 c5 9. Bd3 Qa5 10. Ne2 cxd4 11. Bxf5 exf5 12. O-O dxc3 13. Rb1 O-O 14. Rxb7
Nc6 15. Rb5 Qa6 16. Qd3 Rad8 17. Qxc3 Qc8 18. Be3 a6 19. Rb6 Rf7 20. f3 Re8 21.
Nf4 Ne5 22. Rc1 Qxc4 23. Qxc4 Nxc4 24. Rxc4 Rxe3 25. Rxa6 Rd7 26. a4 Re1+ 27.
Kf2 Ra1 28. h4 Kf7 29. a5 Ng8 30. Rc8 Ne7 31. Rb8 Ra2+ 32. Kg3 Ng8 33. h5 Nf6
34. Rb5 g6 35. hxg6+ hxg6 36. Rbb6 Nh5+ 37. Nxh5 gxh5 38. Rf6+ Kg8 39. Rxf5
Rg7+ 40. Kf4 Rgxg2 41. Rxh5 Rgd2 42. Ke5 Rd7 43. Ke6 Rc7 44. f4 Rg2 45. Rg5+
Rxg5 46. fxg5 Kg7 47. Kd5 Rc1 48. Rb6 Kf7 49. a6 Kg7 50. a7 Ra1 51. Rb7+ Kg6
52. Kc6 Rc1+ 53. Kb6 Ra1 54. Kc7 Kxg5 55. Kb8 Kf4 56. a8=Q Rxa8+ 57. Kxa8 Ke5
58. Rh7 Kd5 59. Kb7 Kc4 60. Rd7 Kc5 61. Rd8 Kb5 62. Rc8 Kb4 63. Kb6 Ka3 64. Kb5
Kb3 65. Rc6 Ka3 66. Kc4 Kb2 67. Kb4 Ka1 68. Rc2 Kb1 69. Kb3 Ka1 70. Rc1# 1-0

[fen ""]
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. d4 e6 3. Bf4 Nc6 4. e3 Nh5 5. Bg5 Be7 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. c4 Qb4+ 8.
Nc3 Qxb2 9. Nb5 O-O 10. Qb1 Qxb1+ 11. Rxb1 d6 12. Nxc7 Rb8 13. Nb5 d5 14. cxd5
exd5 15. Bd3 Bg4 16. Ne5 Nf6 17. Nxg4 Nxg4 18. Nd6 b6 19. Rc1 Na5 20. Ke2 Rfd8
21. Nb5 Rb7 22. Rc2 g6 23. Rhc1 Kg7 24. Rc7 Rxc7 25. Rxc7 Nxh2 26. Nxa7 Ra8 27.
f3 Nc4 28. Kf2 Nb2 29. Be2 Nc4 30. Bxc4 dxc4 31. Kg1 Nxf3+ 32. gxf3 h6 33. a4
c3 34. Nb5 c2 35. Rxc2 Rxa4 36. Rc7 Kf6 37. Nd6 Ra1+ 38. Kf2 h5 39. Nxf7 b5 40.
Ne5 g5 41. Rc6+ Ke7 42. Rb6 h4 43. Rxb5 Ra2+ 44. Kg1 h3 45. Rb6 Re2 46. d5 Rd2
47. e4 Kf8 48. d6 Kg8 49. Rb8+ Kg7 50. d7 Kf6 51. Re8 h2+ 52. Kh1 Rd1+ 53. Kxh2
Rd2+ 54. Kh3 Rd1 55. d8=Q+ Rxd8 56. Rxd8 Kxe5 57. Kg4 Kf6 58. Rd5 Kf7 59. Kxg5
Ke6 60. f4 Kf7 61. Re5 Kg7 62. Rf5 Kh8 63. Kg6 Kg8 64. e5 Kh8 65. Rf8# 1-0

Well, certainly not highly tactical or aggressive. Both games strike me as rather slow and systematic. You can call that solid, if you like, though the openings seemed to be a bit shaky.

It seemed to me that you saw the tactical details a lot better than your opponents, which made the games rather onesided. But that is not so much a stylistic difference, but a difference in strength. Of course, more evenly matched games usually give a better impression of a player's style, so next time maybe choose games games where you actually meet some resistance (possibly even lose! ;-)).

Some GMs say that amateurs don't have a style of play. They say a true chess style only develops when you reach master strength. I think that is chauvinistic bullshit. The weaker you are, the stronger personal preferences feature in your choice of moves. To me that is part of the beauty of chess, you can be creative even if you don't know much more than the rules.


What does "best five out of eight" mean? The following dialogue is between two chess players at the end of a game. Does it mean "you have lost 4 games so far, what is your idea about going for the 5th game and developing the competition to 8 games"?
Dialogue:

A: Checkmate! Care to try for best five out of eight?
B: No, Thank you.

The source: http://www.clockwork-comics.com/2012/09/06/i-like-the-way-you-think-schlumberger/

To me, it just seems A is asking for a match of 8 games. If you exclude the possibility of draws, you'll need 5 wins to win such a match. This is similar to the best-of-X formats used in playoffs in many sports.

In any case, it's not terminology specific to chess. You might have more luck on English Language & Usage or English Language Learners.


Since each engine has its own style of play… which engines are more positional/strategic and which engines are more sharp/tactical? I’ve heard that each engine has its own style of play. Some are more positional and strategic, while others are more sharp and tactical.

And so my question is: could you roughly sort the following engines from the most sharp and tactical to the most positional and strategic?:

Critter 1.6a
Deep Fritz 14
Gull 3
Hiarcs 14
Houdini 4
Komodo 7a
Rybka 4
Stockfish 5

And does the style of an engine depend on the time it takes to get to a high depth? I was thinking that maybe, for engines of roughly the same strength, engines that quickly get to a very high depth are more sharp and tactical, while engines that do not quickly get to a high depth have a richer and more complex evaluation function and therefore they are maybe more positional and strategic.

EDIT: With the advent of Lc0 and the new Stockfish 13, unfortunately this question is now beyond human comprehension.
I am not very well versed on the theory of chess computer programs, but I've used them for a long time. At first, I used Houdini, then switched for a few months to Rybka, back to Houdini, had another short incursion into Komodo, back to Houdini and now I've been using Stockfish for a year or so. The following is based on my personal feelings with the aforementioned engines (and thus, subjective).

Rybka: It is the model of a tactical player. Playing on (very) low depth, some times deviates from the opening theory just to see if the opponent would fall into a well-hidden trap. Playing on normal depth, it takes a little to make his mind, but he finally chooses (usually) a theoretical line. It also relies strongly on tricks and tactics to avoid calming the position (although not always with success). When in a closed position, this engine collapses.
Komodo: It plays half-positional, half-tactical. That is, he has no preference over either, but has good calculating power and can play relatively good in semi-closed positions. His endgame skills, however, are what differentiate him from other engines. There he is hard to beat when in an inferior position and plays accurately when having a small advantage.
Houdini: This is a good combination of tactical abilities and positional understanding. Can evaluate well (not great, but well) closed positions and two of his main characteristics are long combinations involving piece sacrifices to recover the piece and even win a couple of pawns after 10 to 15 moves and a tremendous defensive capability, being able to hold a draw in seemingly lost positions (it is said that this is where the name came from, in reference to his escapist abilities). Not extremely good at the endgame.
Stockfish: Extreme versatile engine, can calculate long and precise and has a good understanding of the positional nuances of a closed position. There are few positions in which he cannot perform well, and these can be easily tuned from the "options" available in any GUI (that is, change the way he always looks for a win or if he can allow a draw when having material advantage). However, I think it has a small tendency to drawish positions.


Why is there no rule allowing a player to claim a draw in lonely king endgames? I was wondering, why is there no way for a player, who has sufficient mating material, to claim a draw against a lonely king?
According to Wikipedia:

The rules allow for several types of draws: stalemate, threefold or fivefold repetition of a position (with the same player to move), if there has been no capture or a pawn being moved in the last fifty or seventy-five moves, if checkmate is impossible, or if the players agree to a draw.

For example, KQvK is very obviously an endgame with only two results possible: White wins or draws. But according to the rules of chess, White cannot force his opponent to accept a draw on the spot. Offering a draw could be refused, and also giving a check on a square where Black could capture it could also be refused by Black by moving somewhere else.
Ok, let's be realistic for a second, 99.99% of the time this won't happen.
But somehow I find it counterintuitive not being able to end the game in this particular position without having to resign and entirely lose the game in a position where it's impossible for Black to win by checkmate. Especially since you've already proven that you're at least capable of making a draw against your opponent.
Of course, I'll admit such a ruling would be more of an edge case. But still, there's somehow a gaping hole in the rules of chess.

Why is there no rule allowing a player to claim a draw in lonely king
endgames?

For the simple reason that there is no need. If you are the player with the extra material you can offer a draw and be almost guaranteed that your opponent will accept the offer. If you have an opponent who is ignorant of the rules you can walk away and let your clock time expire and the game will be a draw.
This is what the FIDE Laws of Chess have to say:

6.9 Except where one of Articles 5.1.1, 5.1.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.2, 5.2.3 applies, if a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by that player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.

A player with only a king cannot checkmate the opponent and so the game is a draw.
EDIT: Remellion makes an excellent point in the comments which is worth repeating -

Technically you don't need a new rule - under 7.5.5, you can just make two illegal moves in front of the arbiter, ending the game immediately (as a draw, similar to when your time runs out but cannot possibly be checkmated). No need to bloat the rules more

You don't even need to wait until the arbiter is watching your game. You can deliberately complete (by making the move and then pressing the clock) an illegal move, stop the clocks, explain to your opponent that you have made and illegal move and then call the arbiter to report yourself. While the arbiter is there explain to them that you are going to make a second illegal move to effectively claim a draw. That way you don't annoy the arbiter by calling them back twice.


How I tell the UCI engine to show less info during search? Is there a UCI command to output only selected info? For example if my input is

setoption name MultiPV value 3 go depth 8

I get info for every depth itineration in the search:

info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 74 nodes 63 nps 31500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e4
info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 2 score cp 70 nodes 63 nps 31500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv d2d4
info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 3 score cp 68 nodes 63 nps 31500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e3
info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 1 score cp 79 nodes 158 nps 52666 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e4 b7b6
info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 2 score cp 73 nodes 158 nps 52666 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e3 b7b6
info depth 2 seldepth 2 multipv 3 score cp 63 nodes 158 nps 52666 tbhits 0 time 3 pv d2d4 b7b6
info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 1 score cp 94 nodes 294 nps 98000 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e4 d7d6 d2d4
info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 2 score cp 94 nodes 294 nps 98000 tbhits 0 time 3 pv d2d4 d7d6 e2e4
info depth 3 seldepth 3 multipv 3 score cp 53 nodes 294 nps 98000 tbhits 0 time 3 pv e2e3 d7d6 d2d4
info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 1 score cp 92 nodes 642 nps 160500 tbhits 0 time 4 pv e2e4 e7e6 d2d4 b7b6
info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 2 score cp 89 nodes 642 nps 160500 tbhits 0 time 4 pv d2d4 e7e6 e2e4 d7d6
info depth 4 seldepth 4 multipv 3 score cp 7 nodes 642 nps 160500 tbhits 0 time 4 pv e2e3 d7d5 d2d4 e7e6
info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 1 score cp 50 nodes 2484 nps 310500 tbhits 0 time 8 pv b1c3 f7f5 d2d4 e7e6 d4d5
info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 2 score cp 28 nodes 2484 nps 310500 tbhits 0 time 8 pv e2e3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 b1c3
info depth 5 seldepth 5 multipv 3 score cp 22 nodes 2484 nps 310500 tbhits 0 time 8 pv e2e4 e7e6 d1e2 d7d5 d2d4
info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 1 score cp 13 nodes 4812 nps 401000 tbhits 0 time 12 pv e2e4 d7d5 d1e2 e7e6 d2d4 g8f6
info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 2 score cp 0 nodes 4812 nps 401000 tbhits 0 time 12 pv b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 e2e3 e7e6
info depth 6 seldepth 6 multipv 3 score cp 0 nodes 4812 nps 401000 tbhits 0 time 12 pv e2e3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 b1c3 e7e6
info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 1 score cp 22 nodes 7301 nps 429470 tbhits 0 time 17 pv e2e4 d7d5 d1e2 e7e6 d2d4 d5e4 e2e4
info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 2 score cp 8 nodes 7301 nps 429470 tbhits 0 time 17 pv d2d4 d7d5 d1d3 g8f6 b1c3 e7e6 e2e4 f6e4 c3e4 d5e4 d3e4
info depth 7 seldepth 7 multipv 3 score cp 8 nodes 7301 nps 429470 tbhits 0 time 17 pv b1c3 d7d5 d2d4 g8f6 d1d3 e7e6 e2e4
info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 31 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5 d1e2 e7e6
info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 2 score cp 4 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv b1c3 d7d5 e2e4 d5d4 c3b5 e7e6 e4e5 b7b6
info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 3 score cp -11 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv d2d3 d7d5 e2e4 b8c6 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5
bestmove e2e4 ponder d7d5

Instead the output I want is only the last depth reached:

info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 1 score cp 31 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv e2e4 d7d5 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5 d1e2 e7e6
info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 2 score cp 4 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv b1c3 d7d5 e2e4 d5d4 c3b5 e7e6 e4e5 b7b6
info depth 8 seldepth 8 multipv 3 score cp -11 nodes 13100 nps 485185 tbhits 0 time 27 pv d2d3 d7d5 e2e4 b8c6 e4d5 d8d5 b1c3 d5a5
bestmove e2e4 ponder d7d5

Any ideas on how to do this?

I don't think it's possible unless you recompile the source code. It's very easy to do it at the source code; you'll just need to add an if-statement just before the PV is printed.

Otherwise, you can pipe the outputs to a text file and do a grep like this:

grep 'depth 8' output.txt


Queen's Gambit Accepted, but Couldn't Capitalize [StartPly "8"]
[FEN ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e3 b5 4.a4 Ba6

White to move.

How to capitalize on this variation of Queen's Gambit Accepted for white? I've never seen this counter before.

Couldn't get pawn back and couldn't develop properly due to cramped queen-side.

You can play 5. axb5 and transpose to the answers to this question (Queen's Gambit Accepted with black trying to defend the c file pawn with 4... Bd7).


Stockfish is cheating? I am using the Arena GUI to run Stockfish. I set up the following position.

[FEN "r2q1rk1/2p1bppp/p1n5/1p1pP3/3Pn3/1P3N1P/1P3PP1/RNBQR1K1 w - - 0 11"]
[SetUp "1"]

At a search depth of 16 half moves stockfish gives the following analysis:

Nc3 f5 exf6 Nxf6 Bg5 h6 Qe2 Qd6 Qe6+ Kh8 Qxd6 cxd6 Bf4 b4 Na4 Nd7 Bg3 Rc8 Rc1 Kh7 Re6

As it stands, the line above consists of 21 half moves. I thought it was a problem with the GUI so I ran the same position into stockfish from the command line and again it gives a line with 21 moves. How is this possible? Is it a configuration from the engine to search at a depth higher than the specified?

Computers are really stupid, they can't evaluate a position that contains exchange threats.  When the program reaches the expected depth and there are exchanges present in the position, the computer performs a Static Exchange Evaluation, which is hard to program correctly, or it extends the search depth until the exchanges and other factors are eliminated.


What is the Dorfman method in chess? On various occasions in commentaries or interviews, e.g. during the World Championship commentary with Peter Svidler and Anish Giri, I've heard the Dorfman method being mentioned. I then learned that this method, devised by the well-established chess player and trainer Iossif Dorfman, is in some sense an algorithmic way of finding good candidate moves. Iossif Dorfman has written two books on the matter, namely, The Method in Chess and The Critical Moment, both of which seem to be out-of-print and highly expensive.

These seem to be inspired by the much older works of W. Steinitz, M. Euwe, and A. Nimzowitsch. His method, although not necessarily being a follow-up (I don't know), is a formal approach to evaluating positions and finding the best moves.

Considering the books are basically inaccessible at the moment, this post is merely an attempt to find out what the method entails at a basic level. So I was wondering if someone could briefly shed some light on what the method is all about.

This is not a book review, nor is it an opinionated account of the method. I've never really used this method per se, but have read/heard about it,
so hopefully my rough summary here doesn't do disservice to the merits of the method.

The Dorfman method is a two-fold scheme for finding good moves.

The static elements

The first fold is the static elements of the position. These are 4 elements in decreasing priority:

The king position: whose king is better positioned and protected.
Material correlation: material balance, and combination of pieces. For instance, Dorfman considers 2 knights + bishop as being often more effective than 2 bishops + knight since the former can triply coordinate on the colour of the bishop.
Which side will stand better after a potential trade of queens. This depends on which side has a more active queen, and whose endgame play is favourable.
Pawn structure. Central outposts, number of pawn islands, pawn weaknesses, pawn majority, doubled-pawns, domination of light/dark squares such as the grip provided with the Moraczy bind, etc.

Dynamic play

The second fold is short-term play provided by dynamic play, which roughly constitutes:

Being ready to opt for extreme measures, such as piece sacrifices,
Create threats,
Preventing a king from getting castled,
Drastic change of pawn structure, and liquidations,
Quick pawn advances on either flanks.
etc.

Critical moments of a game

The scheme then is basically: At each critical moment of the game, each player has to decide whether to play statically, i.e. to improve their longterm play, or play dynamically
for short-term advantages to possibly stir up the static balance of the position.

Critical moments are defined as moments when there can be:

a possible exchange of pieces,
a change in the pawn structure,
and the existence of forced sequences of moves.

The Method

At each such critical juncture in the game, the method says:

Study the static balance of the position in order to decide whether to play dynamically or not.
The balance constitutes comparing the 4 elements one-by-one between the two sides, starting from highest priority.
One side is deemed statically better if it stands better in any of the higher priority elements. For instance, if king positions are about the same, but one side has a stronger material correlation, then that side stands statically better even though they might be worse in the 3rd and 4th elements of the static balance.
The side with a favourable static balance should play slowly and find moves that further improve their longterm static advantages.
Conversely, the side being statically worse, should opt for dynamic play and establish a short-term advantage, in order to ultimately stir up the static balance in their favour.
Ideally, the dynamic play should aim to establish an advantage in terms of a higher priority static element. For instance, if we are statically worse because our material correlation (2nd element) is worse, then by playing dynamically we should try to worsen our opponent's king position relative to ours, i.e., establish an edge in a static element higher in priority than the one we're doing worse in. So in this example that higher priority would be the king position (1st element).

Related material and further reading:

The two books: The Method in Chess, and The Critical Moment.
A review by Chess Today of the I. Dorfman books, also containing discussed examples from the book.
An article on the method by Iryna Zenyuk on chess.com.
English and French video series on chess24.com with I. Dorfman, Laurent Fressinet and Jan Gustafsson explaining the method.


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

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

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

References:

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

UPDATE: EXAMPLE

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

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

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

Drawn?  Why or why not?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


How are chess engines able to rank a Mate in X above a Mate in X+Y? According to an engine, a mate in X moves = +infinity, since it is a forced win for it.

Also according to an engine, a mate in X+Y moves = +infinity, since it's a forced win (just more moves, but an engine doesn't care about this).

Due to the pruning in the minimax algorithm, if the engine first examines the "mate in X+Y moves" branch, it will see it's a forced win and then prune all the other branches.

Due to this pruning, it wouldn't examine the mate in X moves branch.

However, engines like Stockfish always rank a mate in X moves above a mate in X+Y moves. I refuse to believe these engines always know intuitively which branch to look at first (if this was the case, then the engines would first look at the mate in X moves branch first, and then prune the rest, which would make sense).

Question: Given this, how do engines always rank a forced win/mate in X above a forced  win/mate in X+Y, if they sometimes look at the latter first?

Engines don't use "infinity", usually they provide the value of position in centi-pawns, a queen will cost about 1000 centi-pawns and the price of the king is something about 30000 centi-pawns. When you are close to the mate, you get the evaluation at around 30000 minus about 1 queen for every move to reach the mate, to make it reasonable to sacrifice the queen for delaying the mate.

"mate in 1" becomes 29000, "mate in 2" becomes 28000 an so on, so engine has quite clear picture which move to make.

And reaching "mate in 10" only makes the engine to prune all branches that evaluate in anything less valuable, so "mate in 8" still stays on the table.


How relevant is historical performance for Elo rating? How far back are results of matches relevant for Elo purposes? If a player wins a few early matches then they will earn less points for later wins that if they'd lost those early matches. In the end there comes a point at which older results simply don't affect today's rating.
Matches with higher K factor will erase earlier history faster. I think that K factor has a linear effect on change in rating, so for the purpose of this calculation we can just assume constant K.

Let's say a FIDE player is rated 1800, and has k=20. Every month this player plays in one 4-game tournament, in which they play against opponents all rated exactly 2000, and scores exactly 50%. How fast does the rating converge?
After six months, they would be rated 1898. After one year, the player's rating would be 1949. After 18 months,the rating would be 1975, and after two years, it would be 1987. So it seems that the player is getting approximately halfway to their performance rating every six months or so in this scenario.
After 32 months, the player would be rated 1997, and after that the rating no longer moves because a rating difference of 3 has an expected score of 50% according to the table FIDE uses.


Any online site with limited number of games per day like chess.com or chess24 I have a problem that when I start to play I cannot stop, and I am looking for some good online chess web site that have limited number of rated games per day for, lets say non premium user, or something like that. Like thay have for tactis.

I have heard others make the same complaint and a friend decided to use the Makua software which will limit your computer time.  There is probably other software that does the same, mostly for parents to limit their kids but you can use it on yourself.


How to win in this position with White [FEN "rq6/p1k4p/2n2p2/1p1p2b1/pP1P2Q1/P1B3N1/6PP/3R3K b - - 0 1"]
[startflipped ""]

I felt like I had a pretty decent position but I love exchanging pieces. So after a few moves, the queens were off the board and unfortunately the match ended in a draw. What was the correct procedure to win this position?

If your opponent's pieces aren't well positioned and/or their king is in danger, it's important to refrain from exchanging pieces (generally). The reason is that each of your pieces has a higher relative value than their opposites. They tend to control more space, or have more opportunities to prove dangerous to the enemy king.
Assuming it's White to move (even though it was Black to move in the game), a good choice would be 1.Nf5, at which point SF 11 gives over a +6 evaluation. Here you can aim to trap the g5-bishop with h4. If 1...Kb7 or 1...Kb6 is played, enabling ...Bf4 (due to the Black queen's protection), you could further control the f4-square with 2.Rf1. Now it looks like Black is unable to save the bishop from h4.
An alternative 2nd move is 2.Qf3, preparing to take on d5 and get dangerously close to Black's king. If this happens, the queen and knight could end up conducting a decisive attack together. The fine point is that if Black protects the pawn with 2...Qg8/2...Qd8, f4 is no longer contested so 3.h4 wins the g5-bishop.
EDIT - so it's actually Black to move in the position. White's general plan is still similar: going after the g5-bishop. Nf5 could be played soon (maybe on the next move). Black could try exchanging queens via ...Qe8-...Qe4, but then after doing so White could play g3, keeping the g5-bishop from escaping via f4. Another idea is 1...Qf8, when after 2.Nf5 Black might play ...Bh6 if needed. But now White could dramatically activate the c3-bishop with Be1-Bg3+. Pushing a4 is another idea, further increasing the pressure on Black.


Spectacular queen sacrifice game I once watched a famous chess game that I can't find anymore and maybe someone could help me find it.

The game I watched evolved somehow natural until one moment: player1 sacrifices its queen. The spectacularity in this move consists on the fact that from that point on player2 had only one possibility of moving every time player1 moved on its turn. The game evolves so that player2 is constantly kept in check until the player2 king reaches the other side of the table i.e. row 8. When the king reaches row 8 of the chess table, player1 checkmates player2.

Can anyone help me find this game? I once watched it online on YouTube explained and I was very impressed but somehow lost it. Maybe someone knows about this game based on this not very accurate description.

This does sound like the famous game between Edward Lasker (not the world champ) and George Alan Thomas.

[FEN ""]
[Event "Casual game"]
[Site "London ENG"]
[Date "1912.10.29"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Edward Lasker"]
[Black "George Alan Thomas"]

1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4
fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. Qxh7+
Kxh7 12. Nxf6+ Kh6 13. Neg4+ Kg5 14. h4+ Kf4 15. g3+ Kf3
16. Be2+ Kg2 17. Rh2+ Kg1 18. Kd2# 1-0


Does threefold repetition apply in a rapid game? I had a winning position in a 10+5 OTB game, but I was low on time. I repeated position to gain some time. My opponent stopped the clock and claimed a draw. The arbiter was called, ans ww agreed that the position had been repeated three times. The game was judged a draw. I protested as I didn't think this rule apply to rapid chess. Who is correct?

TL;DR: Claiming draws based on threefold repetition or the fifty-move rule is possible in rapid and blitz games as well. Contrary to RemcoGerlich's answer, it is not strictly necessary to record the moves to be able to claim a draw.
Note: This is based on the version of the Laws coming into effect after 1 July, 2017. However, as I am not aware of changes afffecting my reasoning, the following also applies since at least 1 July, 2014.
In rapid and blitz games, the tournament rules apply unless a certain rule is abrogated by the Appendices A and B for rapid and blitz games, respectively.
Up to July 2014, the rules made this very obvious (A.4 for rapidplay):

Where supervision is inadequate the Competition Rules shall apply, except where they are overridden by the following Laws of Rapidplay:
[...]

This provision has disappeared from the rules, but it is clear that this interpretation still holds.
Claims of draw by threefold repetition are covered by Article 9.2.1 of the Laws of Chess:

9.2.1 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):
9.2.1.1 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
9.2.1.2 has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.
9.2.2 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:
9.2.2.1 at the start of the sequence a pawn could have been captured en passant
9.2.2.2 a king had castling rights with a rook that has not been moved, but forfeited these after moving. The castling rights are lost only after the king or rook is moved.

Let's not forget the paragraph immediately preceding article 9.2.1, applying both to threefold repetition and the fifty-move rule:

9.1.2.3 A claim of a draw under Article 9.2 or 9.3 shall be considered to be an offer of a draw.

Therefore, if a claim is made in accordance with the rules and the position has in fact appeared on the board for the third time, the arbiter must declare the game drawn. (I would argue even if the player does not write down the move he intends to make the arbiter should declare the game drawn. See below.)
Note that if the opponent of the player claiming the draw

agrees to the implicit draw offer
or agrees that a threefold repetition has, in fact, occured on the board,

the arbiter may declare the game drawn without further inquiry.
Really nitty-gritty nitpicking: If the claim has not been made in a formally correct way and the opponent agrees that a threefold repetition has occured or if both players wrongly agree the same position has occured three times, technically, the rules demand that the game is to be continued.
If neither of these criteria are met, the claimant has the burden of proof. In my opinion (other arbiters may disagree), the arbiter needs to be presented with "clear and convincing evidence", to use legal terminology, to determine the game drawn. Clearly, a correctly filled out scoresheet usually meets this standard of evidence.
However, the arbiter may also convince himself using other sources of information available to him. The following cases come to mind:

As mentioned by RemcoGerlich, if the arbiter has been observing the game for a while (e. g. because it is the last game of the current round), he may conclude that a threefold repetition has occured. However, he may only intervene upon a correct claim of the players.
If the game is played on an electronic chess board, the arbiter may certainly use the information provided there. (Even in normal games, I sometimes deem it necessary to check a claim using the livechess software.)
The arbiter may ask neutral, objective bystanders. However, he has to be sure about their objectivity and understanding of the game.

Regarding the provision "[...] if he first writes his move, which cannot be changed, on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move [...]":
Many players and even arbiters will agree that following the procedure to claim a draw correctly can be quite complicated. The reason is that these rules ensure that the opponent will be distracted as little as possible. This is why you may not claim the draw when your opponent has the move. You are required to write the move down on the scoresheet as an indication that you intend to play that move. In rapid games, you usually don't write moves down. However, I would argue that clearly communicating your intent to the arbiter in those cases may be considered sufficient for a claim. In the new rules, this is made explicit by article A.2:

Players do not need to record the moves, but do not lose their rights to claims normally based on a scoresheet. [...]

Even in the past, this has been the usual interpretation of the rules, at least in the German-speaking chess community. A similar case appeared in the German Bundesliga back in 2009. The final decision (in German) can be found here. Even though the player claiming the draw (a grandmaster) had neither stopped the clocks nor written down the move on his scoresheet, the deciding body ultimately ruled that the player clearly conveyed his intent to claim a draw by making a certain move and declared the game drawn.


Can Black reach full equality in this game? I have played this game as Black against computer( difficulty was set to HARD ). I was trying to test Alatortsev line I found in ECO D, 1987 that claimed Black was equal:

[Title "Taken from ECO D ( published 1987 )"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6=

saying "with the idea of Bf5".

After g4 my position became barely tenable.

Is there something I could have done better in order to reach full equality?

How does modern theory evaluate 8...g6?

Here is the game:

[White "Shredder"]
[Black "AlwaysLearningNewStuff"]
[fen ""]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6= 9.Nf3 Bf5 10.Bxf5 Nxf5 11.g4! $40 Ne7 12.Qb3 Qb6 13.Qa3! Na6 14.g5 Bg7 15.O-O-O Qb4! $7 16.Qxb4 Nxb4 17.a3 Na6 18.e4! $16 $40 O-O-O 19.Be5! Bxe5 20.Nxe5 Rhf8 21.exd5 Nxd5 22.Ne4! Nac7 23.Rhe1 Ne6 24.h4 Kc7 25.Nc5?! Nxc5 26.dxc5 f6!= 27.Nd3 Rde8 28.Kc2 Kd8 29.Rxe8+ Rxe8 30.Nf4 fxg5 31.Nxd5 cxd5 32.Rxd5+ Kc7 33.hxg5 Re2+ 34.Kc3 Rxf2 35.b4 Rf3+ 36.Rd3 Rf5 37.Rh3 Rxg5!= 38.Rxh7+ Kc6 39.Rh8 a5 40.Kb3 axb4 41.axb4 b6 42.cxb6 Kxb6 43.Rb8+ Kc6  44.Kc3 Rb5 45.Rc8+ Kb6 46.Kc4 Rf5 47.Rb8+ Kc6 48.b5+ Kc7 49.Ra8 g5 50.Ra7+ Kb6 51.Ra6+ Kb7 52.Rg6 Re5 53.Kb4 Rf5 54.Ka5 Re5 55.Rg7+ Kb8 56.Ka6 Re6+ 57.b6 Re8 58.Rb7+ Ka8 59.Rg7 Kb8 60.Rb7+ Ka8 61.Rg7 Kb8 62.Rb7+ 1/2-1/2

Deep Rybka's 4 opening book (with pre-calculated scores on positions in it) gives the position resulting by

    1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bf4 c6 6.Qc2 Bf6 7.e3 Ne7 8.Bd3 g6

a +0.52 score, so definitely some advantage for White. It contains the following continuations:

[fen ""]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bf4 c6 6. Qc2 Bf6 7. e3 Ne7 8. Bd3 g6 9. Nf3 Bf5 10. h4 (10. O-O Bxd3 11. Qxd3 O-O 12. h4 (12. b4 Nd7))

and several sub variations.


How do I become less materialistic? I've identified that the weaknesses in my game are:

Materialism: Most of my wins are where I've won some material and converted the advantage in an endgame. However outside of this plan, e.g. launching a mating attack, my knowledge is not up to scratch
Missing strong sacrifices: I can see pawn sacrifices in exercises, but I know in a game situation I would not make them. After all, my materialism screams "don't make a material concession!"
Undervaluing the initiative: I tend to underestimate an initiative advantage based on superior development, both for myself and my opponent. E.g. I might lag behind in development to ensure a superior pawn structure

My question is, can you recommend a training plan to boost my understanding of the initiative and making sacrifices?

Background info:

Rated 2050 Elo
Playing 1. d4 as White, Slav and Caro-Kann as Black

A suggestion I have is to start playing gambits, and high-risk-high-reward openings. For example, playing the King's Gambit as White forces you to utilize any initiative you are given. Playing the KID as Black will force you to sacrifice pieces now and then to win istead of losing.

Basically what you need to do is to start appreciating initiative by experiencing it for yourself. Otherwise it becomes very difficult to dare making risky decisions based on tempo and piece activity, if you've never done it successfully before.

Based on what you wrote, I guess you tend to play mainly rather slow and positional setups in the opening. Then you have to expect it to be rather difficult to learn about this style of play, as you are probably not very familiar with it.

Other things you can do is to look for inspiration in games by e.g. Kasparov. He was excellent at utilizing the initiative, and just crushing his opponents with daring attacks. Just look at the notable games at his personal page on chessgames.com, some of them are rather amazing examples of this.


Is it unsportsmanlike to underpromote to improve my chances? Is it unsportsmanlike to underpromote a pawn to improve my chances? Sometimes I reach a won endgame where underpromoting my pawn will result in a slower but easier final checkmate.

Old example, easiest to understand: I was far better practiced at K-R vs K than K-Q vs K so I promoted a lone pawn to a rook. Improvising K-Q vs K would have had too high of stalemate chance for my taste.

Recent example: I deliberately underpromoted a pawn to a rook rather than a queen while having a queen. This makes mate in 9 moves worst case rather than 8 and again reduces the accidental stalemate odds dramatically.

I barely care about my opponent not resigning when he should. Primary reason: I once played out a losing game, sacrificing my last piece to push the ending int B-N endgame. My opponent said I should resign as he had a book endgame. I said, "Yes, but I don't think you can do it." Fifty move rule got him: B-N is tight and he was out of practice.

If, as you say, you are "improving your chances", then it's not unsportsmanlike.  Even if your opponent misunderstands, he doesn't really have much to complain about - if he doesn't want to play on he is free to resign.

  I barely care about my opponent not resigning when he should.

Good, because demanding that your opponent resign IS unsportsmanlike.


Is there such a thing as a unique chess playing signature? Is there such thing as a chess playing signature? Meaning within x-amount of games the identity of a player is known based on the skill and game play of the player.

Unlikely.  The first several moves of any game by notable players are all book.  Thereafter, people who play notable games are able to play superb offensive and defensive moves.

Now, if you see some crazy sacrifice, you might think Anderssen or Tal is playing this game. Similarly, if you see some superb positional move, you might think Petrosian or Karpov is playing.

But to see a game played by any of the top 20 players of all time and pick out who was moving the pieces based upon their styles, I can't imagine it.  There simply isn't the 'bandwidth' for such an individual signature in chess beyond someone playing more positionally or more tactically; that's pretty broad-brush stuff.


En Passant - Usage after one or more move(s) I was playing chess on an app against a computer, and I could make an en passant after a move from me and the computer.

   [FEN ""]
   1.e4 h5 2.e5 f5 3.a4 a5 4.exf6 exf5 {Ignore the weird Bishop if you go back in the game. The parser is confused.}

Is this possible?

Can the pawn at e5 take the pawn at f5 now after a move each (o more) from the player?

No. You can take a pawn en passant only on the next move.

See 3.7d, here.

  A pawn attacking a square crossed by an opponent’s pawn which has
  advanced two squares in one move from its original square may capture
  this opponent’s pawn as though the latter had been moved only one
  square. This capture is only legal on the move following this advance
  and is called an "en passant" capture.


How important is the opening first move? I have played against various chess engines at extreme difficulty levels. From what i have learned, any moves other than d4, e4 results in quick defeat (fewer than 25 moves).

How important are the first few moves in a game at expert levels? Does the first 3 moves determine the outcome of the game?

Statistically speaking, there's little difference between the most popular opening moves, i.e. 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4.
For instance, in the Game Database of ChessTempo on sees the average rating of the players and their average performance:

1.e4: average 2417, performance 2455
1.d4: average 2436, performance 2474
1.Nf3: average 2431, performance 2465
1.c4: average 2435, performance 2467

Although these four opening moves are approximately equally good, they can lead to different kind of positions (tactical vs. positional, lots of theory vs. little theory, etc...). Therefore, the opening move (and the opening in general) does have a big influence on the outcome of the game, depending on the players and their playing styles.

When playing against engines, it is probably a good idea to go for closed positions. In these type of positions, the tactical power of engines is less dominant, while strategical insight becomes more important.


Why continue to increase search depth after mate is found? Playing with test sets, several times I come across a behavior of the chess engines which I can't understand: Let's say I have the endgame

[FEN "8/k7/3p4/p2P1p2/P2P1P2/8/8/K7 w - - 0 1"]

which after an amazing 3 sec of analysis with asmFish9, I know it's at most a mate in 45 moves. The needed moves then continuously decrease until the result seems to stabilize to a mate in 32 moves (found already after 22 sec., with a 57-ply search). Now my question: since the engine knows the maximum number of moves needed for this position in order to force a mate is 32, why does this ply number continue to increase and increase if I let the engine search? As I write, after 27 min. of searching, the mate is still a mate in 32, but the ply depth has reached 100(!). Even if a ply was 1/2 move, I'd claim that the maximum ply depth to be searched would be 64 for a known mate in 32. What's going on here, why does the engine continue to go to depth? I'd find it more logical if it would just stop at 64 and rather search to the sides, in case a earlier mate exists.

When an engine searches, it doesn't look at all possible moves. It has to do Alpha-Beta pruning, where it rules out moves it considers extremely bad, and doesn't even consider them.

Once the engine finds a move, one of the things it does is then go back to these moves that are probably bad, and reconsiders them. I'm guessing that the 100 ply search depth is dedicated to those sidelines, with the engine trying to find a better line than the one it originally suggested.

You're right though that this would be impossible, given the engine already found a mate in 32, or 64 ply. But engines don't care how good their original line is, they always try to find a better one (what else would an engine do in the meantime?). Maybe it's more logical to get an engine to stop searching in the scenario you mentioned with the quickest possible checkmate, but again it's not like it has anything else to do.

When they perfect AGIs that can specialize in a variety of things at the same time, you'll probably see your logic implemented. But for now, mere AIs may as well search indefinitely.


What is the theory if black goes 4 Nxc4 in evan's gambit? Ive been learning the theory for this opening but cant find anything if black chooses this line.

You probably mean 4...Nxb4.
White will play 5.c3, and there is probably nothing better than 5...Nc6; so it boils down to being the same as 4...Bxb4 5.c3 Bc5.
[FEN ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4 Nxb4 5.c3 Nc6


What is the quickest way to reach a mutual, symmetrical stalemate? What is the fastest known game that ends that in a mutual stalemate position that is symmetrical?

The fastest known is in 37 plies. I found this in Journal Entry #361 on Tim Krabbe's website, which in turn pulled it from the 2007 5th issue of the chess magazine "Best Problems."
[Title "Evgeny Ghik, Shakhmatyi i Matematika 1983, Non-Unique Proof Game In 18.5 Moves"]
[FEN ""]

1. e4 d5 2. e5 d4 3. c3 f6 4. Qf3 Kf7 5. Qxb7 Qd5 6. Kd1 Qxg2 7. Kc2 Qxf1 8. Qxc8 Qxg1 9. Qxb8 Rxb8 10. Rxg1 Rb3 11. Rg6 Ra3 12. Rh6 gxh6 13. bxa3 Kg7 14. Kb2 d3 15. e6 a5 16. h4 a4 17. h5 c5 18. f4 c4 19. f5

In case the PDF link goes cold, here are the relevant sections.


How to play against somebody using the book I’ve not been playing chess that long, but I do not understand why chess.com and lichess have this thing called the book. This allows people to cheat in my ‘book”.

I used it for a while on lichess until it dawned on me I was learning nothing and became reliant on it.

Some people I play against use it and the book is useless whenever it can’t find a match for your position. Are there any tips to disrupt somebody using the book?

The rules set by chess.com and lichess are basically the same (see this and this):

Use of computer programs or chess engines is not allowed for any kind of games. Use of (paper/e-book) opening books and games databases is allowed for correspondence/DailyChess games only.

So you cannot prevent your opponent from using an opening book. If you are uncomfortable with your opponent using help for the opening, there are a few things you can do:

ask them not to use opening books
try to play unrated games where players might be more eager to experiment (i.e. play without opening books)
don't play correspondence games, but longer standard time controls
go for sidelines that are not in the book (though that will not be good for improving your chess)

However IMO, correspondence chess is a special form of chess and the whole point there is that players get plenty of time in order to analyze the game on a board, in order to consult books, or even to use engines in some of the correspondence chess tournaments. Trying to restrict this seems kind of artificial to me. I mean, if you considered correspondence chess as just a regular game with extended time control (i.e. no external help whatsoever allowed), there is not much you gain from say having an hour per move or having a week for a move.


How can I find the endgame probability based on the opening? I want to find the endgame probabilities based on the openings I play.

This would be a game changer when it comes to prioritizing what endgames to study.

I know Chessbase provides a tool for this, but I don't have Windows or the money to shell out on Chessbase. Is there a free online alternative or an easy way to find the endgame probability of an opening via searching through an online database (e.g. chessgames.com)?

For example, if I want to find the endgame probabilities based on the French Defence, Exchange Variation, a tool might output the following:

Endgame probabilities based on the Exchange Variation

N vs N = 66 percent
Pawn Ending = 13 percent
Q vs Q = 8 percent
R+P vs R = 5 percent
R vs R = 4 percent
R vs N = 3 percent
RN vs RB = 1 percent

You can do something like this in SCID, which is a free program. It takes a little effort, but it's not too bad.
First, load the desired database. Then use a filter to select only games from the opening of your choice. You can filter either by a position, or by ECO code, to get the desired opening. Note how many games meet the filter criteria.
Next, use the "Search for material or board patterns" filter feature. You can use the "Common Endgames" button on that screen, or you can select your own criteria. Make sure to select the "AND (Restrict filter)" option. Hit the Search button, and the filter will be restricted to only games which meet your selected criteria. Note how many there are, and with some basic math you can calculate what percentage this is.
Repeat this for all desired endgames.

You can also use the Opening Report feature to get some quick endgame probabilities. Put the desired position on the chessboard, and then run the Opening Report from the Tools menu. This does, however, include all games in the database with that opening, regardless of whether they really have an "endgame" or not. It will count a Scholar's Mate as a "Q, R, BN" endgame since those pieces are all on the board.


Mathematical formula to get how broad opening repertoire is programmers and mathematicians!

I'm looking for some opinions how to build meaningfull formula that represents broadness of opponent's repertoire.

At the moment I do it like this:

I filter all positions that player played at least 2 times. This count = N.
By Monte Carlo I evaluate average "broadness" of Mr. Average  (using book informations about move probabilities) for N occurrences in his games.
I evaluate the same "broadness" for our target player.

This broadness I calculate with "pythagoras thesis"
sqrt(m1^2+m2^2+m3^2+m4^2 + ... + mn^2)/N where m1 is number of occurrences of move 1, m2 occurrence of move 2 in that position and sum(m1...mx)=N

So if in 20 games you play 20 times 1.e4, you get sqrt(20^2)/20=1 which means the extreme when repertoire is just as narrow as possible.

When you play 10x 1.e4, 8x 1.d4 1x 1.c4 and 1x 1.Nf3, you get sqrt(10^2+8^2+1^2+1^2)/20=0.64420493633

And when you are on the other side of extreme and make 20x different move in starting position, you get sqrt(20)/20=0.22360679775.

Now I can sum broadness of Mr. Average to find the optimum. I can do the same to the target player and find how the numbers compare to the strategy that I call optimal (playing book moves as Mr. Average). I can weight position broadnesses by any f(N). I can divide player/mr. Average at every position or I can divide sums of these values, there is milions of approaches that can be used but none of them seems easy and logical at the same time.

I'm not concerned here about using correct moves, as I deal with them in other formula. So if it is 10x a4, 8xNh3 etc, I don't mind having same number here like for 10x e4, 8x d4...

With my approach it is possible to see difference between players playing always the same positions compared to coffeehouse masters just picking the line randomly, but still

I don't see much logic in my calculation in the first place.
The numbers aren't distribured very nicely
With changing amount of games/positions same number might have different meaning.
I worry there can be problem that the final result can be created by one huge number making the rest of calculation irrelevant.

The only thing I really like here is comparing to Mr. Average, as I don't want to blame players not to be creative in positions where only one move is serious.

If you have some ideas, link to mathematics page dealing with similar problem, anything, I will be happy to think about it!

I don't believe your approach works because you're counting every position as an opening repertiore what you're actually measuring is the degree to which they play openings where theory has prescribed a large number of moves.  For example, a Ruy Lopez player might play the first 15 and 20 moves to reach the end of book play.  In contrast, someone who plays the Trompowsky or another unusual opening might be out of book after six moves.  Therefore, I would define "opening" differently.  For example, you could use ECO standard positions as a starting point for defining a person's opening.  I believe Eric Schiller also has an list of chess openings.


Why is White's accuracy 99.7% instead of 100.0%? Here is a short game played online at chess.com.
[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 d6 5. d4 Bb6 6. dxe5

Black resigned for some unknown reason; maybe a mouse slip or he/she needs to leave. When the game was analysed at chess.com, the game accuracy of white is 99.7%. In my humble opinion, every White move is accurate (unless one considers 3. Bb5 to be more accurate than 3. Bc4). But why is the game accuracy for white is not 100%? What is the 0.3% that White l missed?

Probably, as you pointed out, Bb5 instead of Bc4.
The Ruy Lopez is considered very very marginally better/more critical than the Italian by humans, so it'd make sense that the engine used here'd agree.
Certainly, however, the Italian is fine, and the difference is very marginal.


Get Fide-rated without revealing your birthday? I noticed the Fide rating list is always published with the date of birth of the player. Is registering one's actual birthdate with Fide a requirement for a Fide rating? It is a major concern for me given the rise in cases of identity theft.

Yes it is.

Article 1.14 in Regulations for Registration & Licensing of Players (effective from July 1, 2015):

  All player's data are obligatory for online registration in FOA. For players registered by the National Rating Officers or the FIDE Rating Administrator, first name, last name, gender, date of birth, e-mail address and Federation are obligatory for a successful registration.


Are there any gambits which yield an advantage for the side down material? For this question I'm interested only in gambits that:

Are real gambits. That is, the side that's risking the material actually ends up down material + cannot count on winning the material back. This, e.g., excludes the Queen's Gambit because 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Qa4+ wins the material back without problems (plus most Queen's Gambit lines don't end with White down material). Also, if the gambit cannot be safely accepted, it's excluded.
Don't rely on opponent making a mistake. So the Fried Liver Attack 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5?! 6. Nxf7 doesn't count since 5...Nxd5 is a well-known bad move.

I notice that Stockfish doesn't seem to like gambits. Analyzing using the engine at www.chess.com/analysis, for example:

King's Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 yields a starting eval of -1.10 (at depth 19).
Evan's Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 yields a starting eval of -0.60 (d =19).
Danish Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 yields a starting eval of -0.48.
Sicilian Wing Gambit: 1. e4 c5 2. b4 yields a starting eval of -0.44.
Smith Morra Gambit: 1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 yields a starting eval of -0.19
Blackmar-Diemer Gambit: 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. e4 dxe4 4. f3 yields a starting eval of -0.49.

(I'd consider Black gambits as well but those are harder to evaluate since the starting position favors White, and therefore it's not surprising if White has an advantage after Black plays the gambit)

Are there any gambits in which the side that is down material for tempo is advantaged?

While it's a gambit by Black, what about Tal's gambit?  Black is scoring 55% in 228 grandmaster and elite correspondence games after 1 e4 c5; 2 f4 d5; 3 exd5 Nf6.  I'd call Black doing better than 50% in that many top games an advantage.  (And 55% is better than Black's score in any of the main non-gambit responses to 2 f4.)


Where does the phrase "Botvinnik moment" come from? In his analysis of the first game in the 2018 world championship, Antonio Radić says that on move 9. ... b7-b6, Carlsen took six minutes to make a move that he probably already knew:

  And now Carlsen again goes b6, but it did take him some six minutes for this move. As the other moves Carlsen played relatively quickly, so I don't think this is a new position for him. I think he actually came very much prepared and he was just like a Botvinnik moment, where he takes six minutes to think about a move he already prepared.

The only other instance of "Botvinnik moment" was in a comment on the game Raymond Keene vs Mikhail Botvinnik, Hastings, 1966-1967. The annotation for the last move says, "At which point Botvinnik gasped, raised his hand to his forehead, and resigned," and a commenter added, "We have all been there and had this Botvinnik moment."

This is clearly not what Agadmator is referring to. Was Botvinnik really known for taking a relatively long time for moves that he had prepared? Is "Botvinnik moment" a common phrase for this?

It is/was a common advice, in a game with a classical time-control, to take a small break during the opening instead of flashing out the moves, even if you know them by heart. The idea is to 'warm-up' your brain, to refresh your knowledge about the main ideas and plans in the variation, and to avoid starting out with a very long think after the first move by your opponent that you had not anticipated: first that would give him information about how deep your preparation was, second your very first thought would be about a difficult and important decision - when any mistake might be very consequential.

When he took a few minutes before playing 9...b6 (even though he already knew he would play that move), Carlsen was most probably mentally rehearsing the possible variations from that point, refreshing his positionnal guidelines in the given pawn structure and remembering which previous games of Caruana had already been played from similar positions.

The advice was originally spread within the infamous post-WWII 'Soviet Chess School', so it doesn't come as a surprise if it is somehow associated with Botvinnik - possibly Botvinnik formulated it first or endorsed it in a publication.

I consider the Keene-Botvinnik 'moment' to be something totally different: the commentator only stress out that every player has already found himself in that embarassing situation of having to resign a long-fought game after an oversight.


What is the fastest way for a player to reach the stage where they are not opening with nonsense moves? Assuming a player knows the rules, are there any free, one-player simulations that will rapidly teach a single player on their own how to move beyond opening with nonsense moves.

The concept that caused me to stop making nonsense moves is control the center.

That meant moving out the d and e pawns, possibly with the c and f pawns, either abreast, or in support. More likely, I'd move a knight to c3 or f3 (c6 or f6 if Black), then a bishop or two. Castle as soon as possible, before undertaking activities on the wings.

That eliminated a lot of bad opening moves like b3, g3, and worse, a4 and h4.


Chess engine does not go for checkmate I have made a chess engine that can play a decent game of chess. Like a lot of engines it uses a minimax search algorithm with alpha-beta pruning. It uses this simple evaluation function to assign a score. The problem I have is that the engine does not attempt to go for checkmate. Against Stockfish, it will attempt to capture all the enemy pieces and then get a queen via pawn promotion, presumably to maximize its score. It sometimes stumbles upon a mate position, but it is more common to result in stalemate even with multiple pieces (queen, rooks, bishops) vs a lone king. I think this is because my algorithm currently only encourages maximizing the difference in score (white vs black) and has no concept of mate. One idea I had is increasing the piece value of the king to encourage mate. Are there any methods to encourage the engine to go for mate rather than a massive material imbalance?

Are there any methods to encourage the engine to go for mate rather
than a massive material imbalance?

Any reasonably sophisticated position evaluation function is going to give extra points for certain positional elements (passed pawns, advanced pawns, bishop pair, etc.) and deduct points for other negative positional elements (doubled pawns, isolated pawns, bad bishop, unsafe king, etc)
Obviously any halfway decent evaluation function is also going to handle positional elements like checkmate (add MAXINT), stalemate (assign 0.0), 3-fold repetition (0.0), 50 move rule (0.0), insufficient material (0.0), etc.
If all your evaluation function does is use piece values and nothing else then you still have a lot of work to do to have an engine that is any good.


Can a player ever lose her or his rating (voluntarily)? I am just curious. Is it possible for a rated player to quit his association with FIDE and start afresh, as an unrated player?

I found FIDE regulations 7.21 which state:

  Players whose ratings drop below 1000 are listed on the next list as
  ‘delisted’. Thereafter, they are treated in the same manner as any
  other unrated player.

This sounds like a "reset" to me.

Note that this is different to an inactive player which you become after not playing rated games for a year. However in the case of inactive players you retain your rating.

Other than this "delisting" I don't think there is a way to lose your rating.


What is the result of this endgame? Can Black draw this position or does White win after all:

[Title "Black to move"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "8/P4R2/8/6kp/3K4/6P1/r7/8 b - - 0 1"]

I need variations that clearly illustrate your answer.

White has a very simple strategy to win this position -

Prevent the g-pawn from being captured for free by the Black king (the Black rook cannot capture it because it is tied to the defense of the a-pawn promoting on a8. White wins if White can win the h-pawn)
Move the White king over to support the promotion of the a-pawn.
At the right moment, occupy the b-file with the White rook and support the g-pawn from b3. Then White's king can have a safe square on the b-file to promote the a-pawn.

 [FEN "8/5R2/P7/6kp/3K4/6P1/r7/8 w - - 0 1"]

 1. a7 Kg4 (1... Kg6 2. Rc7 Ra5 3. Kc4 Kf6 4. Kb4 Ra1 5. Kc5 Ke6 6. Rh7 Rc1+ 7.
 Kb6 Rb1+ 8. Ka6 Ra1+ 9. Kb7 Rb1+ 10. Kc8 Rc1+ 11. Kb8 Rb1+ 12. Rb7 Ra1 13. a8=Q
 ) 2. Rg7+ Kh3 3. Kc3 Kg2 4. Kb4 Kh3 5. Kb5 Ra3 (5... Rxa7 6. Rxa7 Kxg3 7. Rg7+
 Kf3 (7... Kh3 8. Kc4 h4 9. Kd3 Kh2 10. Ke2 h3 11. Kf2 Kh1 12. Rg1+ Kh2 13. Rg3
 Kh1 14. Rxh3#) 8. Rh7 Kg4 9. Kc4 h4 10. Kd3 Kg3 11. Ke2 h3 12. Kf1 h2 13. Rh6
 Kg4 14. Rxh2)6. Kb6 Rb3+ 7. Ka6 Ra3+ 8. Kb7
 Rb3+ 9. Ka8 Rb5 (9... Rb2 10. Rg5 Rb1 11. Rxh5+ Kxg3 12. Rh8 Kf4 13. Rb8 Ra1
 14. Kb7 Rb1+ 15. Kc7 Rc1+ 16. Kd7 Rd1+ 17. Ke7 Re1+ 18. Kf7 Ra1 19. a8=Q) 10.
 Rb7 Ra5 11. Rb3! Kg4 12. Kb8 Ra2 13. a8=Q


Is it worth putting small kids in competitive chess? I saw some chess tournaments with kids under the age of 7, and even under 5!
Surprisingly, including their performance.

Is adding the pressure of competition at this early age worth it?

If the interest, competitive drive, and knowledge of the rules are there, then I wouldn't recommend against it.  Even if they play competitively and find their talent for the game perhaps to be lacking, they can still take away much from the game, I feel.

Personally, I was pushed hard when I was young at the game (started at age 5, pushed relatively hard until about age 10), took a lackadaisical approach to the game as a rebellious result, but kept playing competitively through high school.  I didn't do so bad, but not great either.  What I took from the game though provided a niche for me for a time.  Even if not used in any professional sense it can provide a potential life-long hobby.  Even if it provides neither, denying them the opportunity given a desire to play competitively seems bad.  It's just how one prepares.

Try and get an idea early of how good your child is.  Playing with them a lot outside of tournaments first is a good way to do this.  Then, you'll be able to gauge how hard to push them.  If they're really good, push them just a little bit.  If not, don't press them to play at all.  Either way, if the desire remains to play and they're doing well in school, why not?  I know I always had the desire to play competitively, and I'm glad in ways that I was pressed to play competitively.


Why do women need less ELO to obtain FIDE titles? As well as FIDE norms, you need a certain ELO to obtain a certain title. Women need a lower ELO to obtain the same title as men:

Grandmaster (GM) 2500+
International master (IM) 2400+
FIDE master (FM) 2300+
Candidate master (CM) 2200+

Woman grandmaster (WGM) 2300+
Woman international master (WIM) 2200+
Woman FIDE master (WFM) 2100+
Woman candidate master (WCM) 2000+

I have read many times the reason why women don't reach the super GM level is social and not cognitive. For example in this interview to WFM Rodrigo she is asked:

XL. Why are there still no women in the elite?
M.R. For various reasons, but basically for two. For a statistical
question (we are less players) and for a cultural factor.
Evolutionarily, women are more used to collaborating and men to
compete. It is an imprint that comes to us from the hunter-gatherer
tribes. In addition, the male brain processes visual information
faster, which favors the recognition of patterns on the board, while
women have more developed memory. But in ten years we will see girls
fighting for the world title.

So why is FIDE giving titles to women with less chess knowledge than the equivalent title for men? I know there are fewer women players than men, but women can play in men's tournaments.

I think WFM Rodrigo is correct when she says that the reasons are statistical and that having fewer female players means having far fewer players at the top.
If you assume that males and females have the same mean and standard deviation (we shall see soon that this assumption is false) and you draw the two normal curves you see that the curve with fewer members (females make up only 15% of FIDE registered players) tails off to zero long before the one with more members.
However WFM Rodrigo also mentions "cultural" reasons. Translated into mathematical terms I think she is suggesting that females have a lower mean (average) FIDE rating than males. This we can check by loading the latest FIDE rating data into a database and doing some SQL queries.
Doing that gives us:
Female
Mean = 1505, standard deviation = 339
Male
Mean = 1675, standard deviation = 346
We see that there is little difference between male and female standard deviation but the mean female ELO is 170 points lower than the mean male ELO. This is half a standard deviation which is a lot. It looks to me that WFM Rodrigo is right about this too.
Comparing these figures with the rating differences between the open (there are no male only titles) titles and the female only titles it looks like FIDE are being generous to the females by a margin of 30 points. Perhaps they rounded the difference up to the nearest hundred?


Why did Bobby Fischer quit chess after the match with Spassky? I am not asking about the 1975 "resignation" to Karpov, but for which reasons did Bobby Fischer gradually lose interest in competitive chess after becoming World Champion? Jews or not Jews, he did not play a single tournament or match game until the 1992 so-called "re-match".

There is no real definite answer for this question.  Many people have floated different theories, most of which borrow bits and pieces from each other.  It is quite possible that his mental struggles just got the best of him or that he lost interest after attaining the summit of the game.  Psychologically, it must have been hard to cope when you get the thing you've been working for most of your life.  In My Great Predecessors, Volume IV, Garry Kasparov offers a few reasons, arguing that Fischer probably would have lost to Karpov and probably knew it (that point is debatable).

Regardless, Fischer forfeiting the title was not without precedent in his career.  He dropped out or quit major competitions or chess itself on more than one occasion.  In fact, despite his spell of dominance in the candidate's and title match, his career had almost always been erratic. The reasons for this are debatable as well--I've seen people argue that it was mental illness, strategy, or just intimidation--but the answer is probably a mix of reasons.


How to setup ChessX to tell the name of the current opening? I have ChessX 1.0 for Mac OSX. Is there a way for it to tell the name of the current opening position?

Easy, post a feature request on chessx.sourceforge.net, as ChessX only displays eco codes. But this can easily be changed, as the names are part of the eco file loaded at startup.


Why ...g6 before ...Bxa6 in the Benko Gambit? [FEN ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 g6 6.Nc3 Bxa6

This is a main line of the Benko Gambit. Black could also have played 5...Bxa6, followed by 6...g6 to get the same position.

However, 5...Bxa6 is played only half as often as 5...g6, and the majority of those games go 6.Nc3 d6 in my database, more often than 6...g6. So to reach the game position, g6+Bxa6 is about four times as popular as Bxa6+g6.

Is there some minor detail that makes 5...Bxa6, 6...g6 less attractive?

No, there are no real differences between the 2 lines. White has no way to defend the pawn, so black can choose the move order they feel most comfortable with.

You see something similar in the french defence:

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 Nc6

Black could have regained a pawn straightaway with 4...Bc5, but decided to develop a knight first, seeing as white has no way to defend that pawn.

Edit

I found this explanation of 5...g6 on wikipedia

  The main line continues with the moves 4. cxb5 a6 5. bxa6 Bxa6 followed by Black fianchettoing the f8-bishop. (Black players leery of the double-fianchetto system, where White plays g3 and b3, and fianchettos both bishops, have preferred 5...g6 intending 6.b3 Bg7 7.Bb2 Nxa6! The point is that it is awkward for White to meet the threat of ...Nb4, hitting d5 and a2, when Nc3 may often be met by ...Nfxd5 because of the latent pin down the long diagonal.)

The double fianchetto has fallen out of favour seeing as the king's walk variation gives a good game for white.


In encountering a draw by [x number of moves], when does the draw actually occur? I played a game of chess recently where we agreed to a rules modification: When one player was reduced to a lone King, a draw could be declared after 16 moves without capture/Pawn move. During this game, the player with material delivered checkmate on move 16. So what happens? Does the checkmate count first, or does the draw?

Typically for the 50 move rule it's 50 ply from both sides without a pawn move or capture so the claim can only be made AFTER 50 moves.  The position on the board always stands so checkmate is checkmate.


Queen's Gambit Accepted line for white Have just started reading a bit about this line and was wondering if any one can explain the pros and cons of preferring e4 over e3 in the 3rd move - apart from the fact that e4 gives positional advantage at the possible expense of the lost c4 pawn.

I can see the logical advantages of e3 but why has e4 come to be the preferred choice now?

rn1qkbnr/p2bpppp/8/1p6/2pPP3/2N5/1P3PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 7
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 b5 4.a4 c6 5. axb5 cxb5 6.Nc3 Bd7

That's known as "D20 Queen's Gambit Accepted, 3.e4"

The Queen's Gambit has two points:

Develop the King's Bishop with tempo
Take the center that black abandons

in that regard, 3. e4 is the better move though masters play 3. e3 with nearly the same frequency.

I wouldn't worry about the loss of the c pawn;  the purpose of a gambit is to gain time.  If you're going to offer a gambit, you must know enough to keep the pressure on, to keep the initiative on your side.  If White plays a non-threatening move and Black plays a move with good purpose, White has lost the pawn as well as the time gained when Black took it.

3... b5 is not played often - it's not much of a move.  I checked your entire variation; it was only occurred in my masters database 3 times, yielding White 2.5 points.

Here's a master game demonstrating the Queens Gambit Accepted (D20).  White has an excellent game up through the middle game seemingly having the game in hand... and then he allows Black to make a passed pawn, and the walls came down.

Robert Aghasaryan vs. Tigran Kotanjian, 1/13/2013

[fen ""]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6 7. dxc5 Qxd1 8. Rxd1 Bxc5 9. Nbd2 b6 10. Be2 Bb7 11. Nc4 Nbd7 12. a3 O-O 13. b4 Be7 14. Bb2 Bd5 15. Nfe5 Nxe5 16. Bxe5 Bxc4 17. Bxc4 a5 18. b5 Rac8 19. Be2 Nd5 20. Bf3 Nc3 21. Rd7 Bf6 22. Bxf6 gxf6 23. Rd6 Rb8 24. a4 Rfc8 25. Rd4 f5 26. Kf1 e5 27. Rd7 Rc4 28. Rc1 Rc5 29. Bh5 Nxa4 30. Bxf7+ Kh8 31. Rxc5 Nxc5 32. Re7 Rb7 33. Re8+ Kg7 34. Bd5 Rd7 35. Rxe5 Kf6 36. f4 a4 37. Ke2 a3 38. Bc4 Ra7 39. Ba2 Ra5 40. Kd2 Rxb5 41. Kc3 Ne4+ 42. Kd4 Rb4+ 43. Kd3 Rb2 44. Re6+ Kg7 0-1

Here's a game where black played b5. Ruslan Ponomariov vs. Ivan Sokolov, 3/17/2007

[fen ""]
1.  d4  d5
2.  c4  dxc4
3.  e4  b5
4.  a4  c6
5.  axb5    cxb5
6.  Nc3 Bd7
7.  Nf3 e6
8.  Be2 Nf6
9.  O-O Be7
10. d5  exd5
11. exd5    Qb6
12. Bf4 Bc5
13. Bxc4    bxc4
14. Qe2+    Kf8
15. Ne5 Bf5
16. Na4 Qb5
17. Nxc5    Qxc5
18. Nxc4    Qd4
19. Be5 Bd3
20. Qd2 Qxd5
21. Rfd1    Qxc4
22. Rac1    Qa6
23. Bxf6    Nd7 (23... gxf6?! 24.Qh6+ Ke7 25.Qe3+ Qe6 26.Qxd3 Nd7 27.Qa3+ Ke8 28.Qa4 Kf8 29.Rxd7 Kg7 30.h3 Rhd8 31.Rxd8 Rxd8 32.Qxa7 Qe2 33.Qb6 Rd2 34.b4 h5 35.Qc5 Rb2 36.Qd4 Qe5 37.Qc4 Qb8 38.Qh4 Qxb4 39.Qxh5)
24. Bc3 Bb5
25. Qg5 Nf6
26. Qc5+    Kg8
27. Bxf6    h6
28. Bc3 Re8
29. Rd6 Qb7
30. Qf5 Qe7
31. Qxb5     1-0

After Black's 6th move, it looks like maybe he'll be able to shove those pawns forward, overpower White's Queen's Knight pawn, and win. Sometimes, advanced pawns are not easy to support.  By the end of move 11, both players have developed some pieces but neither side is pushing very hard.  Black's Queen on b6 eyes the perpetually weak f2 square and the King hiding beyond while threatening, perhaps, b4.  White's 14th exploits Black's uncastled King. Black's response seals in the Rook.

After 17, both Black rooks and a knight are in the box.  His King is exposed.  He has a good bishop and Knight and his Queen is well placed.  His c pawn looks lonely and has to be defended by the Queen.  White has a great Knight and a good Bishop.  His isolated b pawn is sad but not endangered.  His d pawn is kinda hanging out. One of his Rooks is sort of developed and the other has good squares.  But White has sacrificed a piece and needs to make something happen.

After  move 24, White maintains a slight lead, even though he's down a piece. Black needs to activate his rooks to win.  White must not allow this.  This is where every tempo counts.  White's 25th hits the weak g7 pawn while his 26th exploits Black's exposed King.  White's follow-up, 27. Bxf6 exploits the overloaded Black Queen.  It protects the Bishop as well as the Knight since the last thing Black needs is for his pawns to be ripped open with Rooks on the board.  if 27... gxf6 then 28. Rc3 followed by Rg3+ and it's lights-out for Black.  White saves his Bishop but the cost is that Black now has time to develop a Rook to e8.  The end of the game isn't spectacular, it looks like Black blundered in time pressure.


What’s the difference between Partial Retrograde Analysis and Retro Strategy? What’s the difference between Partial Retrograde Analysis (PRA) and Retro Strategy (RS) which are different ways of interpreting retrograde analysis chess problems?

The history of some chess positions can be determined with certainty and some cannot.
PRA looks at each alternative history and finds their different solutions.  These typically revolve around if the right to castle exist, then you have some solution; or if last move allows en-passant then another solution exists.

RS involves 'mutual dependency', for example if a pieces existence on a square can mean either one side can't castle or the other side can't castle; Then the first to castle proves the other couldn't.

There is also the AP (a posteriori) convention, which is controversial as the variations can involve moves motivated more toward proving if certain moves are legal than by real chess motivations.

Tim Krabbé's book Chess Curiosities covers these things.


Value of a Thorn Pawn? When did chess engines first assign a high value to a pawn on the sixth rank, with an opposing pawn in front of it?  (This pawn is called a "thorn pawn", "fawn pawn", or "nail pawn".)

I would assume such pawns have always be valued somewhat higher (generally) by chess engines since they were around. Doing so follows from rather basic heuristics, that weak engines long ago could have followed:

1) Controlling important squares. Taking the example of the e6-pawn (for the points below as well), it controls the f7- and d7-squares.

2) Potentially blocking in enemy pieces. If Black's bishop were still on f8 then it would have to come out via ...g6 and ...Bg7. Black's major pieces are also prevented from fighting for the e-file.

3) Conversely, White's major pieces have free reign over the e-file.

Of course, sometimes a pawn on the 6th rank could prove to be a weakness. But if it's protected enough, usually the benefits are clear.