Pieces, pawns and chessmen In English as far as I know, pawns were once not pieces. A player had eight pieces and eight pawns which, together, totaled 16 chessmen.

When did this usage change? Why?

And (if you happen to know) how is it in the other major chess languages, like French, German and Russian?

The terms are a bit loose. To quote from Wikipedia:

  In chess, the word "piece" has three meanings, depending on the context.

  1) It may mean any of the physical pieces of the set, including the pawns. When used this way, "piece" is synonymous with "chessman" (Hooper & Whyld 1992:307) or simply "man" (Hooper & Whyld 1987:200).

  2) In play, the term is usually used to exclude pawns, referring only to a queen, rook, bishop, knight, or king. In this context, the pieces can be broken down into three groups: major pieces (queen and rook), minor pieces (bishop and knight), and the king (Brace 1977:220).

  3) In phrases such as "winning a piece", "losing a piece" or "sacrificing a piece", it refers only to a bishop or knight. The queen, rook, and pawn are specified by name in these cases, for example, "winning a queen", "losing a rook", or "sacrificing a pawn" (Just & Burg 2003:5)

Source: Wikipedia, emphasis is mine.

From the same article, the term pieces to include pawns has been noted since the late 1980's. Speculating, it may be that commentators did not see the need to distinguish between the terms pieces and men, hence coming into common use. For example, Josh Waitzkin's tutorials in Chessmaster, first made in the 1990's, use the term pieces instead of men. I've seen terminology become more lax over time, e.g. pieces being 'killed' instead of 'captured'.

As for other languages, I am unable to say I'm afraid.


Can I reply to an illegal move with checkmate? I was playing with my brother, and we both had equal number of pieces.
He carelessly moved his king in the direction of my queen. I was about to checkmate my brother, but he told that my mating move was invalid.  If his king comes in my direction and gets caught, I must say that I don't keep there.

I was confused. Can anyone please help me?

Yes. Putting your own king into danger is considered an illegal move. Depending on the context, illegal moves can be treated in different ways:

In most casual games, players just agree to roll back to the position before the illegal move was made.
In tournament games, the player who didn't make the illegal move gets 2 extra minutes on the clock. I guess this does not apply, as most likely you aren't playing with a chess clock. Anyway, the second illegal move is punished with a loss

Since you're playing a casual game with your brother, just go for the one you agree on!


Could chess puzzles change with the introduction of stronger engines? Something I've noticed is even older chess puzzles never seem to age, somehow they even seem more masterful and demanding then the puzzles created today, but what if the solution for a puzzle is refuted by a program such as AlphaZero, or when quantum super computers are made, stronger engines, different engines?Will there be any shift with established puzzles, or do we just get to enjoy new theory and different puzzles?

Our modern chess engines are already perfect for solving tactical puzzles. @Bad_Bishop's example is an easy problem for Stockfish.

If you're talking about artificial deep chess problems (not puzzles), even AlphaZero might have problems. Some chess engines (e.g. Houdini) has a "tactic" mode for those problems.

No. Nothing much will change with stronger engines.


How to mate a king already in the corner with a knight and a bishop? How can white mate black in 4 moves in this position? This might be easy but I am a beginner.

7k/7N/6K1/8/7p/7B/8/8 w - - 1 0

Normally, when mating with bishop and knight, the black king needs to be in a corner of the same color as the bishop. So this is actually the wrong corner, but thanks to the black pawn, it's still possible.

1. Be6 is the first thing I would try, as it confines the king to the corner; with the king on h6 and the knight on g6 it would be mate. However, the pawn will promote too soon (with check) which spoils this plan.

So let's try to move the king first: 1. Kh6 Kg8. Now 2. Be6+ forces the king back in the corner with tempo: 2... Kh8 and now the knight arrives in time: 3. Nf8 h3 4. Ng6 mate.

7k/7N/6K1/8/7p/7B/8/8 w - - 1 0

1. Kh6 (1. Be6 h3 2. Kh6 h2 3. Nf8 h1=Q+) Kg8 2. Be6+ Kh8 3. Nf8 h3 4. Ng6


Why was 5...Nf6 traditionally preferred to 5...e6 in the Two Knights Caro-Kann? Wells (2007) p165 asserts that 5...Nf6 was traditionally preferred over 5...e6 because

[FEN "..."]
1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 Nf6 6. d4 dxe4 7. Nxe4 Qxd4 8. Bd3 Nbd7!

"is an unsound pawn sacrifice" whereas

[FEN "..."]
1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. Nc3 Bg4 4. h3 Bxf3 5. Qxf3 e6 6. d4 dxe4 7. Nxe4 Qxd4 8. Bd3

"is much more dangerous".

He goes on to state that in the latter line 8...Nd7! may overturn the old assessment, but the implication is that 6 d4 is still more dangerous against 5...e6 than against 5...Nf6.

Regardless of the current status of this line, what was the traditional explanation for why 8 Bd3 is more dangerous in the 5...e6 line than the 5...Nf6 line? Wells does not explain this.

Wells, Peter (2007). Grandmaster Secrets: The Caro-Kann. Gambit Books.

After 5....Nf6 6.d4 dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 (1), 8.Bd3 seems the only move for white to prove he has enough compensation for the pawn. Now black has two good options: 8....Nbd7 or 8....Nxe4 9.Bxe4 Nd7.

After 5....e6 6.d4 dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 (2), white has more options. He can play 8.Bd3, but also 8.c3! is a popular option.

In terms of objective evaluation, both variants probably don't differ much, but black should have less problems in (1) compared to (2).

Should black play 5....Nf6 or 5....e6? Difficult to say.
According to the Game Database of ChessTempo, the latter is more popular, but, after white's most popular answer 6.d3, both moves often transpose. On the other hand, after 5....e6, black keeps the option to develop with g6, Bg7, Ne7.

      [FEN ""]
      [StartPly "9"]

      1.e4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Nc3 Bg4 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 Nf6 (5...e6 6.d4 (6.d3) dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 8.c3 (8.Bd3)) 6.d4 (6.d3) dxe4 7.Nxe4 Qxd4 8.Bd3 Nxe4 (8...Nbd7) 9.Bxe4 Nd7


Prophylactic defenses I'm a beginner and I haven't gotten into memorizing games. I don't like the idea of memorizing but now I think I have to learn a few to get to a higher level. Can someone give me a list of prophylactic defenses that a beginner should learn. Taking into account the basics like the control of the center, early development of minor pieces et cetera.

I don't play aggressive. I like building up positions (prophylaxis). I need a few defenses that are an answer to most openings and doesn't block my minor pieces. Maybe I'm being naive?

You're not being naive.

It sounds like you're a positional player.  You'll probably favor closed games.  Closed games are ones where there are pawns in the center, reducing the long-range power of many of the pieces on the board.

Too much memorization is unhelpful. You will need to memorize a a few openings, and not too deeply. As long as you understand what the openings are trying to accomplish and you know basic principles you'll be fine.

For openings, play 1. d4, and work through some main lines of the Queen's Gambit.  From this link, you'll see that your play won't change much for the first few moves; there's a theme.

If you're on the black side of the board, you have more choices.  You'll probably see 1. e4 more than 1. d4.  For the latter, look at the 'closed game' and similar:

1. d4 d5
2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 Nf6
4. Bg5 Be7
5. e3 O-O
6. Nf3 Nbd7

See how black avoids lines where the center pawns get traded off?

Against 1. e4 you'll be looking for the same thing - lines that leave the pawns on the board or at least, like this Caro-Kann, leave a solid position:

1. e4 c6
2. d4 d5
3. Nc3 dxe4
4. Nxe4 Bf5
5. Ng3 Bg6
6. h4 h6
7. Nf3 Nd7
8. h5 Bh7
9. Bd3 Bxd3

Here's a link for a plethora of e4 openings.

Which opening to pick?  Narrow down the field by examining games of Anatoly Karpov, Tigran Petrosian, Aron Nimzovitch, and Mikhail Botvinnik.  Nimzovitch is the godfather of the 'prophylactic' style you describe.  You might get a copy of 'My System', one of the first books to collect, state, and explain the principles of positional play.  Be advised this book (and many others) are old and were written using the now-obsolete 'descriptive' notation.  You probably want your copies to be in algebraic or figurine algebraic notation.  If you buy a copy off of e-bay etc you should verify what you're getting.


Where can I find a list of all theoretically possible piece combinations where checkmate is possible? (e.g. bishop and knight and pawn vs knight) There are obvious ones that I know, like queen and rook (or either) vs lone king, and I also know you can't checkmate with only a bishop or knight, for instance.

But what if you have a rook and bishop vs a knight, is that possible?  What if it's vs a knight but with eight pawns?  I mean the list is endless.  In short, I just want to know when it's a good idea just to say it's a draw vs other times you just keep trying and trying to get a checkmate.  Thank you.

The ones that are not possible are:

King + Bishop vs King
King + Knight vs King
King + Bishop vs King + Bishop if the bishops are on the same color square.

For the bishops, imagine black king on h1, black bishop on g1, white king on g3, white bishop on f3 giving mate. That isn't possible if the black bishop is also on a white square, say f1.

Otherwise, checkmate is possible with a given material balance.

For instance, of course rook and bishop vs knight can lead to checkmate, because checkmate with a lone rook is possible, and it is possible that the rest is captured.

Any material balance that includes a pawn can lead to checkmate, because pawns can turn into queens.


What is a sharp line against the Lion? What is a sharp line for White against the Philidor Lion:

[FEN ""]
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nbd7

with 4...e5

The majority of games seem to be slow positional battles where Black is quite solid.  4.g4 looks interesting, but are there other aggressive ideas?

As you mentioned, 4.g4 is interesting and not as stupid as it may look. If you don't like the positional maneuvering game, I think 4.f4 could be try for you.

There is one suicidal line that really isn't my taste, but for sure it is aggressive, at least till you get mated. It's

[FEN ""]
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e5 4.Nf3 Nbd7 5.Bc4 Be7 6.Ng5 O-O 7.Bxf7+ Rxf7 8.Ne6

even some correspondence player advocated it for white, but I'm not sure I would prefer white's position here. Anyway, good to know such a line exists and is probably not complete nonsense.


Plans for black in Pirc when white responds to e5 with d5 Intuitively I would think that this line should just be a better (for black) version of the usual Mar Del Plata KID, seeing that the white c pawn is less advanced and the knight is somewhat passively placed on d2, and that black therefore should simply go on with the usual f5 push. However, in the few practical games I've had, this has not worked out for me so well, and I see the engine is actually recommending c6 (after many logical next moves from white), which strikes me as a tad odd position ally. Is there somehow something in this position that makes the f5 plan less attractive than in the Mar Del Plata?

[FEN "r1bq1rk1/ppp1npbp/3p1np1/3Pp3/4P3/2PB1N2/PP1N1PPP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 1 9"]
1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nf3 d6 4. c3 Nf6 5. Nbd2 O-O 6. Bc4 Nc6 7. O-O e5 8. d5 Ne7

Engines don't like philosophy behind KID and if they are forced to play KID, they play c6 there all day long too. Here it's quite similar. You can play for both plans but I see nothing wrong with the f5 ideas. It seems to be much better version of main line KID.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Reason why Kasparov resigned in the "Enrage the Beast" game [White "Garry Kasparov"]
    [Black " Vassily Ivanchuk"]
[fen ""]
[StartPly "62"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 b6 5. a3 Bf8 6. Nf3 Ne7 7. h4 h6 8. h5 a5 9. Bb5+ c6 10. Ba4 Nd7 11. Ne2 b5 12. Bb3 c5 13. c3 Nc6 14. O-O Qc7 15. Re1 c4 16. Bc2 Nb6 17. Bf4 Be7 18. Bg3 Rb8 19. Nh2 Qd8 20. Ng4 b4 21. axb4 axb4 22. cxb4 Nxb4 23. Bb1 Bd7 24. b3 Ra8 25. Rxa8 Qxa8 26. bxc4 Nxc4 27. Nc1 Ba4 28. Qe2 Qa7 29. Ne3 Qxd4 30. Nxc4 dxc4 31. Qf1 O-O 0-1

This is a game from  Horgen 1995, well-known because of Ivanchuk's 5th move ("enrage the beast"). As a fairly limited player, it is not obvious to me why Kasparov resigned at this stage. Is it obvious that the c-pawn cannot be stopped without losing material? Is there another reason to resign?

White's position is just bad overall. The main reasons:

The passed c-pawn is a huge asset. It's likely it will eventually cost White a piece, but in the meantime it cramps White's forces.
All Black's pieces are far more active than their White counterparts, with the sole exception of the rooks (which are roughly equal in activity).
Knowing Kasparov, he was probably disgusted with his play at this point and fed up with the game. White's position is already objectively resignable in any case due to the two points above.


Strange 16-move semi-slav loss (black) [FEN ""]
[Date "6/9/2018"]
[White "Opponent"]
[Black "Me"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2217"]
[BlackElo "1874"]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 h6 6. Bxf6 Qxf6 7. e4 dxe4 8. Nxe4 Bb4+ 9. Ned2 O-O 10. a3 Ba5 11. Qc2 Nd7 12. O-O-O c5 13. Ne4 Qf4+ 14. Kb1 cxd4 15. Rxd4 Nf6 16. Nd6 1-0

My rating: 1874

Opponent's rating: 2217

This was an odd game with a quick blunder but I found myself not understanding much of the opening. Feel free to go over the following points or any other important pieces of analysis that I left out:

I understand from looking over some of the theory that it's best to play c5 sooner than later. 9...c5 would have been straight to the point or maybe even I could have played 10...Bxd2+ 11.Qxd2 c5.
Perhaps 10...Ba5 was a mistake because if white played b4 then he would have superior control over the c5 square
Once again 11...c5? Or is playing Nd7 first plausible?
White's queenside castling almost comes unexpected to me because of all the open space there. Should my plan still be to play c5 like I did in the game or should it shift to something else with perhaps a b5 push? I feel like white may be the one who is now better prepared to handle c5.
13...Qf4+ seems a little odd, maybe Qe7 instead?
Maybe I can try holding with 14...b6 instead of taking so soon in the center? With the rook on d4 I find that my only actual safe square is b8.
Obviously 15...Nf6 seems to be a blunder and I should have pulled my queen out of harm's way immediately.

Also, no computer analysis please unless there's something that can hardly be explained or justified without it. Thanks!

9...c5 seems too early to me.  Castling into safety is better.

10...Ba5 is reasonable.  It's often played in the Marshall Gambit of the QGD.
I prefer Bd6 to maximize it's potential and to protect the center dark squares.

11...Nd7 is fine.  I think c5 first is wrong as after 12. dxc5 Nd7 13. Rd1 (or 0-0-0) the threat of b4 forces you to give up your two bishop advantage.

12...b5 looks very interesting; opening the lines even at the cost of a pawn is worth it.  c5 is also fine,  I would consider e5, just to get my LSB to e6.

13...Qf4+ seems best, as it puts more pressure on white--especially the f3-knight.  13...Qe7 may have problems after 14. d5.  This requires much calculation with many nuances.

I definitely prefer 14...b6. The LSB needs to get active and out of the way to the rooks.  However, you must still watch for dxc5, with a discovered attack on the knight (after the bishop moves), and d5 with problems getting your pieces to an effective square.

On move 7, opening the center while behind in development is not recommended.  Qd8 is better on general principles, but hard to make OTB.  7...Bb4 is an option.


How do you have Arena show the second and third best move in analysis? How do you have Arena show the second and third best moves in analysis?
I seem to be able to only see the evaluation for the engine's best move.

Right click on the analysis output window to be able to enable Multi-PV mode:


Is there any website that generates and hosts board position with PGN as input? Is there any website out there that takes PGN input and generates and hosts board positions (To show as image in the question or answer), till the time we get something like this done on this website itself, we can at least borrow?

Found one, after googling for quite a while!

Here is the diagram I just generated at the URL
http://www.chessvideos.tv/bimg/3etzqdenimww8.png

Anand vs Gelfand Game 1 Grunfeld Defence, WCC 2012

The website to generate the diagram is http://www.chessvideos.tv/genboard.php

[Edit]
Found another one, this one is far better, it generates Animated gifs

Anand vs Gelfand Game 2 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav, WCC 2012

This can be done here http://www.caissa.com/chess-tools/pgn-editor.php


Finding a mating net in a RRN vs RRN endgame This question relates to a game I played on LiChess (link), from which we have the following position:

[FEN "8/2rn4/2pN2k1/r1Pp2p1/p2P4/3KPP2/R7/7R w - - 4 42"]

In this position with white to move, I played 48. Rha1, eventually winning the a pawn.  LiChess's version of Stockfish declared this a blunder and gives 48. Rah2 a score of +5.6.  Playing it through, it even looks like white forces mate after giving many checks, although Stockfish doesn't claim this.

Question: In this two-rook and knight position, does 48. Rah2 lead to mate after a gajillion checks?

Ideally, it'd be nice if there was some way to understand the mate, as a human, if it exists.

This is really a concrete-calculation question, to which you should find an answer yourself by either going through the obvious candidate lines or playing it out with the help of an engine. Your calculation techniques will benefit far more from that process, even if you don't find the answer, than asking for the direct answer.

In any case, clearly black is doing terribly poorly: there's no initiative, the rooks are completely out of play and stand defensively, and the king is quite isolated on g6, and even in the worst case scenario the passed a pawn is not hard to defend against. On the other hand, white's able to easily coordinate all 3 pieces for an attack on the king, either forcing material loss or checkmate.
So the game's really lost even if you fail to find the mate, simplest being to mount an attack on the defense-free king on g6 well caged thanks to the monster knight on d6. Focus on winning material first and then convert if the mate does not appear to be a trivial one. That said, the only way black can delay the imminent mate threat is to bring the knight into the defense, namely, Nf6 which at least stops a rook landing on h7 and secures some space for the king. As far as I see, even if black ignored the threat and just pushed the a pawn after Rah2, the cage around the king may be enough to force mate but it may easily be a case of mate in 12-15 moves1, which means, it's far simpler to grab material first and simplify the task before calculating for such forced lines.

Here's one line (among the various ways this can unfold) where black attempts a defense by bringing the knight, to which white can reply with a e3-e4 pawn push in order to advance a pawn to e5 forcing the knight away from its "ideal" defensive post on f6.

 [FEN "8/2rn4/2pN2k1/r1Pp2p1/p2P4/3KPP2/R7/7R w - - 4 42"]

 1.Rah2 Nf6 2.Rh6+ {The immediate e4 may allow Rh7 for black, forcing the trade of a pair of rooks} Kg7 3.e4 {e5 is unavoidable, best black can do is to take once to at least free up the g4 square for the knight.} a3 {ignoring white's threat just to see what the mating net looks like} 4.e5 Ng8 5.Rh7+ Kf8 6.Rxc7  {Mate on f7 next} Ne7 7.Rxe7 Kxe7  {at this point, even if you don't see the mating pattern, you can simply win the a pawn first and then convert the game.} 8.Rh8 a2 9.Re8+ Kd7 10.e6+ Kc7 11.Rc8#

1: This is far too deep to calculate mentally, what players (at any level really) do in such a case, they simply go with the first few obvious moves (checks), moves they know cannot be possibly wrong, and after a while if it appears to have simplified then you can sit down and calculate a forced mate (assuming there's time) else you just have to be practical and go with the first best line you see, specially in such case where the position is trivially winning for white anyway.


How many windmills types exist in chess? I'm interested in chess patterns similar to the windmill. If you think there are none more than the ones that I'm listing I'm interested in a proof that satisfies me to stop looking for more of them. Wikipedia gives this definition for a windmill:

In chess, a windmill is a tactic in which a combination of discovered
checks and regular checks, usually by a rook and a bishop, can win
massive amounts of material. This tactic is also sometimes referred to
as a see-saw.

I know two windmills. First the one in the "game of the century" between Fisher and Byrne (moves between 18 and 23 black does a windmill), it involves a bishop and a knight (also a rook, but it's not essential. For example see this game for a windmill knight-bishop without white rook.
[FEN "K7/8/8/2B5/4N3/7q/6pp/3r1b1k w - - 0 9"]

9.Nf2+ Kg1 10.Nxh3+ Kh1 11.Nf2+ Kg1 12.Nxd1+ Kh1 13.Nf2+ Kg1 14.Ne4+ Kh1 15.Nf2+ Kg1 16.Ng4+ Kh1 *

This can also be seen as a royal fork constantly attacking the black king, but windmill contains and "mechanic" that allows the knight to do whatever it wants but black is still restricted to move his king back and forth.
A second example is this article.
The other type of windmill is of this game. Starts at move 26, white does a windmill this time with rook and a bishop.
I want to know if you can share more types of windmills with me. I realized you can substitute the bishop that remains still in both tecniques (B+R & B+N) with a queen carrying out the same function. So I have 4 types. Do you know similar positions?
PD: I realized also that if I change the bishop for a queen that allows sometimes checkmate, for example smothered checkmate can be seen as a windmill with the queen.

Yet more possibilities . . .

: Two-way windmill, with either Rook or Bishop as the front piece;
e.g. with a Rook:

5n2/3bb2k/6pp/4B1pr/8/8/8/5RK1 w - - 0 0

1. Rf7+ Kg8
2. Rg7+ Kh8
3. Rxe7+ Kg8
4. Rg7+ Kh8
5. Rxd7+ Kg8
6. Rg7+ Kh8
7. Rxg6+ Kh7
8. Rg7+ Kh8
9. Rxg5+ Kh7
10. Rxh5

(it's important to capture g5 last, else Black has Rh5xe5)

: Windmill against a piece other than a King:

5kr1/6pp/8/4N1p1/6p1/6P1/6BP/6K1 w - - 0 0

1. Bd5! Rh8
2. Nf7! Rg8
3. Nxg5 Rh8
4. Nf7 Rg8
5. Ne5 Rh8
6. Nxg4

(with better winning chances than the immediate 1 Nxg4)

: That means that even the King can be the front piece of a
windmill of sorts against a Knight:

8/8/1n1p1p2/3K1k2/8/1P6/6B1/8 w - - 0 0

1. Kc6! Na8
2. Kxd6 Nb6
3. Kc7

(or first 3. Bb7 and then 4. Kc7(c6); if 1...Nc8 then 2 Bh3+ wins.)


Take away which pawns? In a hypothetical variant of chess, before the start of the game black is allowed to remove one white pawn and one black pawn. Which pawns should they remove? The pawns don't have to be on the same file.

My hope is that the answer should give some insight into opening dynamics and the relative value of pawns in normal chess.

If you are trying to remove the pawn to cause the most damage to the starting position, I'd go with the f pawn.  Since f2/f7 is already a tender spot, as it is only covered by the King in the early parts of the game, it's a bit more likely to cause overall positional damage.

You could make the argument that removing the d or e pawn could be worse, as they are important for central control.  However, removing them does add a certain value, in that the pieces can develop more quickly from the starting position.

If you are trying to cause the least damage to your own position, definitely either the a or h pawn.  They have the least influence on the board, and there is something to be said for having that open file for the rook.

As to which one to remove...if you followed the above advice and removed the f pawn of your opponent, I'd remove my own a pawn, so that they don't feel comfortable castling on either side of the board.


Strategic implications in this puzzle by S. Polgar/P. Truong Usually chess puzzles at my level (beginner) have just one or two forced variations and a clear achievement, like a substantial material gain or checkmate. Once in a while, though, a puzzle leaves me wondering, why the solution is actually supposed to be such a good thing.

The following puzzle is from Susan Polgar's and Paul Truong's book "Chess Tactics for Champions", #11 from the chapter on trapping. White to move:

[White "Puzzle by Susan Polgar"]
[Black "Trapping: #11"]
[Result "*"]
[FEN "2rr2k1/p3bpp1/1p2pn1p/2p5/8/2P1PPB1/PP2B1PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1"]

The solution is:

  This example demonstrates well the power of the pair of bishops 1.♗a6 ♖c6 (1...♖a8 2.♗b7) 2.♗b7.

After 2...♖cd6 3.♗xd6 ♗xd6 (or 3...♖xd6?) White wins the exchange. So far, so good, numerical material gain. However, I'm trying to make my very first baby steps in understanding strategy: In an actual game, assuming I'd see the variation, I'd be hesitating to play it. My -- probably naive -- reasoning would go like this: "A rook is worth five pawns, a bishop three. But White has the bishop pair. Moreover, the rook on c8 doesn't do much, while the dark squared bishop has a nice diagonal. So, I'm not convinced that it's really 5 vs 3."

It's not that I don't trust Polgar/Truong, but I would like to understand. Is it, because after the exchange White is now able to control the d-file? Or am I completely off the track somewhere else?

A rook is worth five pawns, a bishop three. But White has the bishop pair. Moreover, the rook on c8 doesn't do much, while the dark squared bishop has a nice diagonal. So, I'm not convinced that it's really 5 vs 3.

Congratulations! You are taking your first steps to moving away from using the Reinfeld piece values as a method of evaluation.

The reason why winning the exchange is good here is because:

Material appreciates as the endgame approaches. For example, if you have 8 pawns vs. 7, you are up a pawn. If you reduce that to 1 pawn to 0, you are still up a pawn but now you are very likely to win (or certain to draw)
Building from point 1, white can take control of the crucial d-file and likely trade down more material, going into an even better endgame
Owning the bishop pair is usually worth 1/2 a pawn, but in this position the rooks are the most important pieces because the pawn structure means that the black minor pieces don't have great squares (a somewhat blocked bishop and a knight with no forward outpost)

Please note that winning material isn't always advantageous. This example in Mastering Chess Strategy by GM Hellsten shows white sacrifice the exchange to gain a good outpost for his knight and play against a bad bishop:

[FEN "r4r2/1pp1q1bk/3p2b1/p2Ppp2/1nP5/1PN1BP2/P2N2PP/2RQ1RK1 w - - 0 1"]
[White "Hellsten"]
[Black "Cramling"]

  1. Qe2            f4
  2. Bf2            Bd3
  3. Qd1            Bxf1
  4. Qxf1           Bf6
  5. Kh1            Bh4
  6. Bg1            Rf7
  7. Nde4           Rg8
  8. a3             Na6
  9. Rc2            Rg6
 10. Rb2            Qd8
 11. b4             axb4
 12. axb4           Be7
 13. c5             Nb8
 14. Qc4            Kh8
 15. b5             Nd7
 16. c6             Nb8
 17. cxb7           Rg8
 18. Ra2            Bh4
 19. Ra8            Rfg7
 20. Qf1            Qd7
 21. Ba7             1-0

Addendum: Regarding how material appreciates as the ending nears, consider the case of K+8P vs. K+7P:

[FEN "4k3/pppp1ppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/4K3 w - - 0 1"]

Compared to K+P vs. K, which is the same material difference of 1 pawn but a higher material ratio for the attacker, the first example is a likely draw, whereas the second example is a theoretical win.

[FEN "4k3/8/8/8/8/8/4P3/4K3 w - - 0 1"]


Has anyone used the Anki decks to learn tactics? I'm trying to learn how to build a deck in Anki so that I can improve my play by creating positions that I need to learn and by improving tactics. I'm looking for a guide on that process.

Well, what exactly do you want to know? The essentials are very simple: Have a "front side" showing a tactical position and a "back side" showing the answer. For the former you can just use images taken from scans. But there's also a note type available for Anki which lets you store positions in FEN notation. Search for "chess" on AnkiWeb to find it. This method is more memory efficient (and in some cases looks better), but might require a little more work than images, unless you also have the puzzles in e.g. PGN format.

I started out as an absolute beginner a little less than a year ago. I'm still a beginner and at the very bottom of food chain in the chess club I joined recently, but compared to from where I started I have improved a lot.

In my informed opinion spaced repetition in learning chess aims at pattern recognition. In other words: It's not about actually memorizing the solutions (so don't bother creating very short repetition circles), but developing an intuition for where possible solutions might be. In effect, though, it trains tactical intuition more than calculation. So I find that I need to compliment my Anki training not only with actual play, but also with solving composed mate-in-2 puzzles that I set up on the board to improve my board vision and calculation ability.

The specifics of what types of puzzles/questions are suitable depend on your level of play. As always with spaced repetition the cards should have clear, unambigous, easy to state answers. Though what exactly constitutes a "clear, unambigous, easy to state answer" probably differs from person to person and today I find solutions clear that were confusing to me a year ago. That being said, at my level basic tactics still work best. I gave up on creating more strategic cards for now, until my abilities have improved.

I guess that, since this is about pattern recognition, it matters what book you are using. I'm using Susan Polgar's tactics book for tactical motifs and the mate-in-two puzzles from L. Polgars 5000-something book for piece-interaction, mating patterns etc. Since solving puzzles on your smart phone is a great way to pass the time in the subway, I also have a deck with beginner puzzles from the 'Manual of chess combinations': unlike with the other two, I don't put any pressure on myself to go through this deck every day, but use it only when I want some 'extra chess'.


Why is a player allowed to resign in an impossible to lose position? Today I played a game on lichess where my opponent had a King and two Knights vs my lone King. I believe my opponent intended to offer a draw, but they accidentally resigned.
What is the rationale for allowing this?
In my opinion resignation means: "I trust my opponent's skill to convert this position into a win". Therefore, if it is impossible for someone to win then resignation should not be an option, and the game should be drawn.
(My question is inspired by Resignation when a draw is offered, but though my question is related, it is not the same question.)

Unfortunately, there is no objective way of saying that a position is 'completely winning'. The rules of chess try to avoid subjectivity as much as possible. Consider the following example (which is related, but not directly pertaining, to your question):

Player A is clearly winning against Player B. In practical terms, there is no way in which Player B could beat Player A, although in theory it is still possible
Player A's flag falls, meaning that B wins the game

Obviously, this situation is not ideal. Player A was clearly winning, and yet they still lost the game. Now consider this related scenario:

Player A is clearly winning against Player B. It is impossible for Player B to achieve a win against Player A through a legal sequence of moves
Player A's flag falls, meaning that the game is drawn

In the vast majority of cases, there is no difference between these two situations, and it is unfortunate that in one case Player A loses, and in the other, Player A draws. However, declaring that 'completely winning' positions should also be drawn in this scenario opens up a Pandora's Box that makes the rules of chess much more difficult to enforce. The main issue is, how do you define 'completely winning'? Let's consider a couple of possibilities:

'Completely winning' means that the arbiter believes there is no conceivable way in which Player B could beat Player A, even if it is technically possible.

What if the arbiter misreads the position and doesn't realise that it is 'completely winning'. Or, even worse, they declare a position to be 'completely winning' even though Player B has many more chances than you might expect. Wouldn't one arbiter have a different interpretation to another?

'Completely winning' means that when the position is fed into an engine, it spits out +10.00 or -10.00.

Well, engines are giving an objective assessment of the position. A position which is in theory +10 might be much harder to win than a position evaluated as +2, but is in reality just a well-known theoretical endgame. Also, what engine do you use? How long do you let the engine inspect the position? The list goes on...
In summary, it is much harder to enforce 'clearly winning' positions instead of just saying, firmly and clearly: 'if it is impossible for a player to win this game, then the following rules apply...'
Applying these lessons to your question gives us the answer: allowing accidental resignations is the least worst option when it comes to enforcing the rules of the game. And yes, in practice, two knights vs a king should end up as a draw, and your opponent was very unlucky. But it is possible for two knights vs a king endgame to end in a win, and changing the rules of the game would have far worse consequences than first thought.


Any chess software with "force move" facility? Does anyone know if there is a chess program on the market (PC or iPad) which provides force-move functionality while it is the computer's turn to play (the opponent tells the computer program which move it must make)?
I think that is the best option to practice one's openings serially.

That's different from the "switch side" functionality which, as far as I know, can only be made while it is your turn to play. Thanks!

I know Chessmaster does this (see Ubisoft's list of controls for Chessmaster X), since I've used Chessmaster X.  In certain (i.e. non-competitive) game modes, Ctrl-F will force the computer to move during its turn.  It isn't a free program, but it has a lot of good resources for a beginner which IMO make it worth it.

Edit: It looks as if I have misread the question; I believe you actually meant the player can force the computer to make a certain move when it is the computer's turn.  As far as I know, you cannot do this without setting up the board to a certain position, then playing from that position.  E.g. you are White: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 ... and you want to make the computer play 2... f6 to practice your advantage against this opening.  In this case, you would set up the board manually (which Chessmaster as well as most other chess programs allow you to do) as FEN rnbqkbnr/pppp2pp/5p2/4p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 1 2, and play as White from there  In most programs, including Chessmaster, you can manually move around/add/remove pieces to attain the desired position.


Quickly losing a queen in style I accidentally ran into this game again.
[FEN ""]
[startply "7"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 Qf6 3. e5 Qf5 4. Bd3

What would be the fastest way to lose a queen by a direct attack on it (i.e. no pin, no discovered, no mate threats, etc.), when it has a maximum of 27 moves, but all fields attacked by the enemy? I estimate around 20 moves and very silly play. Avoid prematurely hanging of the queen (or mate in 1) if possible.

Under the requirement of treating the attacked queen as if subject to check, 31 plies is possible. Additionally, there is not a White ply to spare here!
[FEN ""]
[startply "31"]

1. c4 d5 2. Qa4+ Nc6 3. d4 Bh3 4. g4 Rb8 5. Na3 b5 6. Nxb5 a6 7. Qxa6 Nxd4 8. Nxd4 f5 9. Nxf5 Nh6 10. Nxh6 dxc4 11. Be3 c3 12. f4 Qd7 13. Nxh3 Qd8 14. Nf2 Qd5 15. Rd1


As Black, against 1. d4, what opening would you recommend me which is solid, positional, slow, strategic, quiet, closed, and similar to the Caro-Kann? I'm a 1750 Elo player. I have a very positional, quiet and strategic style of play.

As White I play 1. d4, but I plan to also learn 1. Nf3 soon. As Black against 1. e4 I play the Caro-Kann.

I would like an opening for Black against 1. d4 which meets these two conditions:

It needs to be as much similar to the Caro-Kann as possible (since I already play the Caro-Kann against 1. e4).
On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).

It needs to be as much similar to the Caro-Kann as possible (since I already play the Caro-Kann against 1. e4).

Impossible. The problem with this approach is that you have already stopped e4 with ...d5 so White simply can not transpose even if he wished to do so. Your best bet is the Slav defense, as it is very similar to Caro-Kann ( same pawn structure for Black, with the Bf5 bishop ), but even then there are ways for White to deviate into sharp and very different lines.

  On average it must tend to lead to positions which are as much solid, positional, slow, closed, strategic and quiet as possible (I want nothing sharp and tactical).

The best candidate fitting into this description is Queen's Gambit Declined.

Only Black can sharpen the game by transposing into Semi-Slav with Botvinnik system or with some sharp lines in the Slav with ...b5, but if you wish you can always steer the game into solid, positional lines. Then White will have no way to sharpen the game ( neither do you ), and you both will have to battle with dull, positional maneuvers and plans.

Be warned, it is very hard to play these positions as Black and tactical skill here is practically irrelevant! Most of the time you will have a hard time defending, and you will have to learn how to properly engineer a freeing break. That is not an easy task, just so you know ( I am speaking this from experience )!

In order to play this opening well with either color you also must know how to play typical positions very very well ( not to mention you need strong endgame knowledge! ), but this might suit your style ( based on your description in second criteria ).

SUMMARY:

Chess would be too simple if you could play one opening against every opponent's reply. This especially applies for Black! I once too wanted to play the Caro-Kann against everything, but after very thorough study I was forced to realize that it isn't possible.

As for positional opening against 1.d4, your best bet are the dull lines of the Queen's gambit declined. In every other opening White always have a chance to sharpen the game ( always! ), but if you choose this path be ready for a long defense which will usually give you no more than a draw. Still, you will get the solidity and quietness you seek...

If you need further help or clarifications leave a comment.

Best regards.


How to play better with Knight? I'm solving tactics on http://chesstempo.com .

One of the things that I struggle with, is tactics involving moving the Knight several times. I find it very odd to calculate Knight movement beyond the first move and often miss very simple tactics as a result.

I have an ELO of ~1600 on chess.com and still sometimes miss simple tactics involving this piece.

Are there any ways to train yourself to be better at calculating Knight movement?

I've mulled this over a number of times.  Here is what helps me play better with a knight.  I offer it not as a general solution, but as a solution that has worked for me.  I hope you find it useful:

Understand how the Knight moves COMPLETELY.
Understand ALL the Knight threatens COMPLETELY.
Understand that the value of the Knight relative to the Bishop may change.
Understand by colour, what the Knight threatens when he sits still or moves twice (Rule of Even).
Understand by colour, what the Knight threatens once he moves (Rule of Odd).

  Point 1. Most people know how the Knight moves described as a "L".  I've found this to be inefficient since this is only visualizing one of his possible moves and it's possible to miss some of his possible moves thinking this way.

To truly see his potential a player needs to know all of his possible moves at once.  Here's how I visualize it (and will try to explain clearly how I see it):

  Around the Knight is a box the corners of which match the colour he is sitting on.  The Knight jumps outside of the box to the opposite colour squares touching the corners.

It is possible to look at a board and see this "box" while playing and see all of Knights potential moves at once, rather than just one.  The ability to see this box rather than a single move is something of an epiphany.

  Point 2.  Understanding all the Knight threatens at once, rather than a single threat allows the player to understand all the pieces he can attack.

Just as above (Point 1) where seeing all of a Knights moves show his true potential, seeing all he threatens shows all of his attacking potential.  Many players identify what he threatens (in a somewhat sequential manner) one threat at a time.  However, this is inefficient and may inevitably miss some.  The ability to visualize his box allows a player to see all he threatens which allows a player to realize his full attacking potential.

  Point 3.  Some theories of Chess don't assign the Knight a static value relative to the Bishop (meaning the same unchanging value). Consider this for a moment:

If the Bishop works best on an open board with far reaching open diagonals BUT the Knight can jump around pieces on a crowded board but whose reach is always limited, it stands to reason the Bishop's value increases over time as the board opens up and as the game goes on; whereas the Knight's value decreases overtime since the board opening up removes his advantage.  Accordingly, consider assigning the Knight a value of 3.5 in the beginning of the game (Bishop at 3.0), and flip these values as the game goes on as it's appropriate.

  Point 4. An un-moved Knight threatens the opposite colour he's sitting on (or if he moves twice).

A Knight on BLACK is threatening WHITE.  A Knight on WHITE is threatening BLACK.  Remember this and consider it when considering position.

  Point 5. A moved Knight threatens the same colour he sat upon before moving.

A Knight moving off BLACK will threaten BLACK once he comes to rest.  A Knight moving off WHITE will threaten WHITE once he comes to rest.  Remember this and consider it when considering position.

These last 2 points really help in end-game situations where you're forced to chase an odious opponent around the board.  If you want to threaten the same colour you sit upon, you must move. If you want to threaten the opposite colour, stay or move twice.

Good luck!


Why play Nb5 in this line of the sicilian? After 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 why is 5. Nb5 the best move?
The game usually continues 5. Nb5 d6 6. N1c3 a6 7. Na3 and it looks to me like whites knight on a3 is misplaced. What makes this line good for white?

      [StartPly "8"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.N1c3 a6 7.Na3

The real reason why this is the main line lies in the many possible variations after 5.Nb5 and its alternatives. Any verbal explanation will at best be approximately correct. With that in mind, here is my take:

5.Nb5 is the variation that best keeps control of the weakened d5 square. If black achieves d5 its only strategic problem will vanish, so keeping control of d5 is whites main strategic objective. 5.Nb5 provokes d6, which makes it impossible for the Nc3 to be neutralised by Bb4. This Bb4 move is a problem if the knight retreats to f3 or b3. If the knight goes to f5, d5 is even immediately possible.


Mate-in-10 that Stockfish missed! Stockfish 10+ at depth 19 evaluated this position as a draw:

[Title "White to play and mate in 10"]
[FEN "r1b2r2/5pk1/pq2p3/1p5Q/3p1P2/P2Rn1NP/1P4P1/7K w - - 0 28"]

However, it is actually checkmate in 10! I understand that Stockfish prunes the search tree heavily, which can (in theory) result in such errors in evaluation. But this is the first time (in practice) that I have seen a non-contrived position (it came from a variant line of an actual game that I was exploring with Stockfish) with a completely wrong evaluation. Can anyone who is very familiar with the Stockfish code provide an explanation of the main factors here? Is it simply that there were too many quiescent moves? I count only 5 moves that are not a check or a forced move (i.e. the only move that does not result in mate-in-3) or a capture, and these 5 are the moves that I as a human player would consider as quiescent (even if I ignore the great king danger). Am I missing some other reason here?

The principal variation is:

[Title "White checkmates in 10"]
[FEN "r1b2r2/5pk1/pq2p3/1p5Q/3p1P2/P2Rn1NP/1P4P1/7K w - - 0 0"]

1. Qg5+ Kh7 2. Nh5 Nf5 3. Nf6+ Kh8 4. Kh2 e5
5. Rg3 Qxf6 6. Qxf6+ Kh7 7. Rg5 d3 8. Rh5+ Nh6
9. Qxh6+ Kg8 10. Qh8#

Stockfish 10+ at depth 19 evaluates it as draw until 29. Nh5. After the next move Nf5, Stockfish thought it was +7.5. After the next move Nf6+ Stockfish knew it was game over.

Depth 19 refers to 19 plies, not 19 moves (which would be 2 plies each). So it's reasonable that Stockfish would only find the mate shortly after depth 19, since 10.Qh8# is the 19th ply from the starting position you posted.


How do you castle in one smooth motion? One time I saw GM Gawain Jones playing a blitz game where he castled by placing one hand on his King and Rook. With a quick twist, the pieces were in the castled position. It happened so quickly, I didn't quite see how he did it, but I was mighty impressed.

Normally, a player will move his King, then use the same hand to move the Rook afterwards, but has anybody else seen (or done themselves) a one-motion castling?

I do this often in blitz, although it is considered somewhat inappropriate in a tournament setting.

The quick way to castle with one hand is to make a motion where you "capture" the rook. In a typical capture, you pick up your piece and knock the opposing piece into your hand. You then take the piece off the board.

What I mean by "capturing" your rook is that you perform the same motion, but instead of using your palm to carry the piece off the board, you use it to guide the rook to its appropriate square. At the same time, your king is knocking the rook over to where it belongs.

It takes a bit of practice to knock the rook over, but when done properly you can castle in a fluid motion without having to make multiple motions with your hand.


Where should I start? So, I am returning to chess after not playing for about 10 years. I learned the basic rules when I was in elementary school and then didn't play for a while. I am starting to get back into chess and am wondering where I should start.

Just for reference here is what I know:

How to set up the board
How the pieces move
How Castling works
How Check/Checkmate works
Other basic rules needed to play at a beginner level

I've been a "life-long beginner" - my USCF rating hovered around 900 for years and years, and just playing OTB chess wasn't helping to improve my ability because I was losing almost every game, for years (though usually against players rated much higher than me, so it didn't affect my rating much).  It was a long time before I made even a minimal plan to actually improve - so my situation is/was not totally different from yours.  I can't tell you what's best for you.  What I can tell you is what worked for me:

Watching chess classes on YouTube.  The Saint Louis Chess Club has some amazing classes on YouTube.  There was a series of classes called "Beginner Breakdown" that was incredibly helpful for me.  It mainly consists of looking at novice level games - games that have situations that you or I could conceivably get into - and seeing what mistakes were made (and what should have been done instead).  GM Ben Finegold also did a series of kids' classes while he was a GM In Residence at the Club, I found those extremely helpful as well, for the same reasons.  And both of these series are actually entertaining as well as informative, so they kept me engaged very effectively.  Don't feel funny about consuming instructional materials aimed at kids.  It's about level of chess ability, not age (and I know many of the kids that were in these classes when they were recorded were probably rated higher I was).  I can also tell you that the chess instructional videos on YouTube that are the least effective for me are the ones where the "video" is just a screencast of playing through games using Chessbase or something, with an unseen narrator describing the game.
Tactics, tactics, tactics...  Find novice to intermediate level tactics problems and work them.  A lot of them.  On a daily basis.  I worked through all of the problems in the "Tactics Time" books by Tim Brennan and Anthea Carson.  These books were great because they are tactics studies from novice to intermediate level games.  They are not studies from grandmaster games where you have to calculate ahead 6 or 8 moves to see the solution, they're problems from games played by people at "our level", and situations like what we might face - and they're solvable by people at our level of ability.  Going through these books is even easier and more convenient if you get the Kindle versions, and you can work through a couple of problems at a time while waiting in line at the store, riding on the train, or whatever.  Also, the Lichess site / app is a fabulous never-ending source of tactics studies, and I also find that they're easily consumable by novice to intermediate level players, and with the app on a mobile phone you can do a couple of studies at a time, anywhere you happen to be.

This was (and still is) really my whole study plan.  Just doing these two things (and playing OTB chess in tournaments when I have the chance), I (finally!) was able to pull my USCF rating up by about 200 points in the space of a year or so, and my "Training" rating on Lichess is now over 1700 (though how that might correspond to actual play - if it even corresponds at all - is difficult to say).


Shorter game for play with kids I am teaching my children (5 and 7) to play chess, and we are pretty much at the which piece can move where phase. However while they do enjoy the game, they don't really have an attention span that can play a full game.

What I would like is some way to make changes to the game that will cut game time down so that my kids can enjoy the game, as quality time with Dad and hopefully learn something.

A few ideas:

Michael Goeller's Pawn Battle  which introduces a checkers-like game (that still follows the rules of chess) that wonderfully folds in key pawn concepts like break moves, sacrificing to clear a line and even zugzwang. This exercise also helps kids learn to appreciate calculating outcomes beyond just "Hope Chess"-ing it out.
Some of the handouts at ProfessorChess.com contain exercises and drills that are fun and instructive.
Basic won endgames :  These can be fun, simple positions which very direct goals and often gets done within minutes as they start to figure out how to solve them.  Start up with KQ vs K setups and move up the ladder of complexity to KR vs K and even KP vs K.  These fundamental skills stay with them as they progress with their chess.

An added funsy way of doing the above is to use 2 x 8-sided dice to randomly assign squares for pieces in the starting position (e.g. K goes here, other K goes there, the Queen goes here. Play to win!). You could go all out and even create a roulette wheel of different drills to perform!


How to play the Albin Counter Gambit The Albin Counter Gambit starts 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 d4, and there is a well known and beautiful trap with a pawn to knight promotion if white plays e3.

Recently players such as Morozevich and Nakamura have been playing the Counter Gambit at the highest levels, and I found this page which discusses things.

Essentially, I am looking for more discussion of the key ideas in the gambit.  How long should I try to hold onto the pawn on d4?  Where do I end up castling?  (I find occasionally I end up with some choice.)  Which squares and minor pieces are usually the most important?  I am looking for some abstract goals and ideas.  What kind of plan should one have in mind when playing this opening as black?

Czechoslovakian Master Karel Prucha formulated some correct principles on how to play the Albin Counter Gambit and published them in Ceskoslovensky Sach 9/1962:

1. The Albin is playable only if it is treated as a pure gambit.
   Black should not try to regain the pawn by attacking White's e5-pawn,
   but must continue in gambit style with ...f7-f6.

2. After that, Black must castle short. Long castling leads to mutual attacks where
   White's extra pawn becomes a factor.

3. Black should keep the d4-pawn at any cost.

4. Black's Queen should be posted on d7 with the idea of exchanging of the
   light-squared Bishops by ...Bh3 and enabling additional support for the
   d4-pawn by ...Rad8.

5. It is best to place the dark-squared Bishop on c5, which means that if White plays
   a2-a3, then a7-a5 is necessary to stop White's advance b2-b4.


Instructive chess positions (and famous games/studies containing these) that engines do not understand well Basically, I would like to ask people to share their knowledge on famous and/or particularly instructive examples of chess positions, which chess engines do not understand well (i.e. do not evaluate correctly).

A good example of the kind of positions I am interested in is the Vančura Position-Wiki (cf. also Vančura Position-Chessbase), which occurred very recently (at the Sinquefield Cup 2014) in the game Carlsen-Aronian. Although the engine was saying white is completely winning, the game was a theoretical draw after black's 48th move.

Thanks in advance!

P.S. I should stress that I am looking for realistic examples, i.e. those which are likely to happen in a real game. Positions of the following type,

[fen "4k3/4p3/3pPp2/2pP1Pp1/1pP3Pp/pP1K3P/P2RRR2/8 w - - 0 1"]

and similar artificial positions is not the kind of thing I am looking for.

I should also say that endgame tablebase examples are OK. The only requirement is that engines (run on an average computer) are not able to evaluate the position correctly after given, say, 10-15 minutes time to "think".

The following two links seem to be exactly what you are looking for (many such positions in each one of them).

http://en.chessbase.com/post/can-we-still-deceive-computers-in-chess

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/positions-engines-get-wrong--please-contribute

A cute study, which engines are unable to solve last I checked (white to move and win):

6r1/p1p1p1pP/P1PpP1P1/8/2P1B3/2K3pp/3P2rq/R5bk w - - 1 0


Making the giuoco piano interesting as white Does anyone have advice to give against the giuoco piano ? I find this opening boring for white after 3... Bc5 and I'd like to find a way to keep playing the italian without risking to play a boring game. I know the Evan's gambit, but I'd rather develop a repertoire on openings I can comprehend instead of relying on preparation.
I'm looking for sharper lines that don't require sacrifices a computer or theorician would consider unsound. Would you recommend, 4. O-O, d3, c3, Nc3, or do I have to avoid the italian game completely ? That would be a shame because I enjoy playing against all other replies.

What about slow plan (1.e4, Nf3, Bc4, d3, c3, 0-0, Nd2), then depending on what the opponent does, you can play d4 or move the knight on d2 -> f1 -> g3 (and potentially f5) and make something happen on the king side.


Where can I find mobile software for Fischer random chess? Fischer had a chess variation (chess960) but I cannot find any mobile app to play it.

Does anyone knows where I can get the best software (if possible free or cheap) to play it?

There are a number of websites and tools listed on the Chess960 wikipedia page. Scroll to the bottom for the complete list. These should all be playable on your mobile device.

http://en.lichess.org/
http://www.chesshotel.com/play-random-chess.php
http://www.mychess.de/


Did it make sense for Lasker to play the Exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez in 1914? In 1914, world champion Emanuel Lasker was trailing future world champion J.R. Capablanca in a tournament, meaning that he needed to win, not just draw, against Capablanca.

He played the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez, trading his best attacking pieces, his queen and light squared bishop, early in this classic game.
For these reasons, the variation was considered "drawish." Except that Lasker won.

Here's some background that may explain why:

Lasker was the best endgame player in the world. Capablanca was inferior (at the time) in this regard. (Both of these opinions are Capablanca's.)
Capablanca was already a ferocious middle game player (and seen as such).
At the time, Lasker was 46 years old and Capablanca was 26. Lasker was more "mature."

In "Chess Fundamentals," Capablanca noted that immediately after the queen exchange, "The reader should note that if all the pieces were exchanged, White would be practically a pawn ahead and therefore have a won game." In fact, Capablanca was "rattled" by the prospect of a lost endgame and therefore misplayed what passed for a middle game.

Even though it was regarded as "unconventional," did Lasker's strategy make sense from the point of view of his endgame advantage?

It made perfect sense.

He was very familiar with the opening:

  Lasker played hundreds of practice games with the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez and discovered what he thought was every mistake White or Black could make.

Source: #247: 300 Wisest Things Said about Chess: With 300 Annotated Positions

Lasker was well known to adapt his playing style to the opponent's psychology.

  Lasker was considered to have a "psychological" method of play in which he considered the subjective qualities of his opponent, in addition to the objective requirements of his position on the board. Richard Réti published a lengthy analysis of Lasker's play in which he concluded that Lasker deliberately played inferior moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable.

Source: wikipedia

Your research has shown that the opening took Capablanca out of his stride and scored the full point, so yes it made perfect sense.


Looking for a real game ending by ... Nf6! leading to a perpetual check by White My colleague Prof. Dr. S. writes a fictional story with symbolic elements involved.  One of them is a simultaneous game played by a grandmaster with a gifted schoolboy. Prof. S. wants to represent it by a real game by players of similar strength. But for some symbolic reasons, unknown even to the author, :-) the end of the game must match the following pattern. At the final stage Black finds a unique saving move ... Nf6 and after one move White has nothing better than a perpetual check. I failed to find such a game by Google and I am not acquainted with chess databases, so I ask here for a game instance matching the given pattern, preferable with mentioned strength of the players. Thanks.

Update (May 7). I have a talk with Prof. S. He thanks to all who offered help. Below are results of our discussion of the problem conditions.

The move …Nf6 followed by a perpetual check is a necessary game condition. But between ... Nf4 and the start of the perpetual check (which we consider as the first check in the series) are allowed a few intermediate moves, preferable at most three (at most four  in the worst case).

Prof. S. understands how hard is to find a required game and thinks that it is needed a lot of luck for this. If it will fail than then, as  already proposed @Brandon_J and @Scounged, there is an option to construct a fake game of sufficiently strong players (especially White) which satisfies the above conditions and does not looks artificial. In this case it is preferable to start a game from a move 1. d4.

On the very worst case when even a construction will fail there is a option to construct only the final position, which looks as a plausible position from a game of sufficiently strong players.

Unfortunately, the game between Ward and Lalic does not fit the purpose of Prof. S. He needs a material advantage for White which is kept after the move …Nf6. Nevertheless, also is required that this move is not an obvious, and this is a problem. The advantage, the bigger the better, but it can be sufficient for White to have a superfluous or a passed pawn. The aim of this condition is to provide for the amateur audience a game position which seems to be winning for White.

This game meets the criteria of Black plays the best move Nf6, and after one move, White has nothing better than a perpetual. However, it's probably not quite what you're looking for. If Black plays the second best move, Stockfish evaluates the position as +0.12, which is a rather slim advantage for White. So it's hardly the "only saving move". Furthermore, White has the option of not pursuing the perpetual and playing on - according to Stockfish, the resulting position is "nothing better than" the perpetual, but it's not really worse either.

The Nf6 move that is relevant occurs on move 44 by black, and soon thereafter white perpetually checks black with their rook. 17 moves later a draw occurs.

White was rated 2500, and Black was rated 2537. Both were grandmasters at the time.

[Event "Redbus KO"]
[Site "Southend"]
[Date "2002.04.01"]
[Round "4.2"]
[White "Ward, Chris G"]
[Black "Lalic, Bogdan"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2500"]
[BlackElo "2537"]
[ECO "A20"]
[EventDate "2002.03.29"]
[PlyCount "122"]
[Source "ChessliB"]
[SourceDate "2003.01.21"]
[FEN ""]

1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 c6 4.Nf3 e4 5.Nd4 d5 6.cxd5 Qxd5 7.Nc2 Qh5 8.h3 Bc5
9.b4 Bb6 10.Bb2 Nbd7 11.Ne3 O-O 12.Nc3 Re8 13.Qc2 Qg6 14.b5 Bd4 15.bxc6
bxc6 16.Qa4 c5 17.Rb1 Nb6 18.Qc2 Bd7 19.a4 Bxc3 20.Bxc3 Bxa4 21.Qa2 Nfd7
22.h4 Qe6 23.Qxe6 Rxe6 24.h5 Bc6 25.h6 g6 26.O-O f5 27.Ra1 Na4 28.Bg7 Ndb6
29.Rfc1 Rd8 30.Ra2 Bb5 31.Kf1 a6 32.Ke1 c4 33.Nc2 Red6 34.Na3 Nc5 35.f3
Nb3 36.Rcc2 e3 37.dxe3 Nd5 38.Nxc4 Rc6 39.Ne5 Re6 40.Rcb2 Nc5 41.Rd2 Red6
42.Kf2 Ne6 43.f4 Nxg7 44.hxg7 Nf6 45.Rxd6 Rxd6 46.Rc2 Kxg7 47.Rc7+ Kg8 48.
Rc8+ Kg7 49.Rc7+ Kg8 50.Ra7 Nd7 51.Nf3 Nf6 52.Ne5 Nd7 53.Ra8+ Kg7 54.Ra7
Kg8 55.Ra8+ Kg7 56.Ra7 Kg8 57.Nf3 Nf6 58.Ne5 Nd7 59.Nf3 Nf6 60.Ne5 Nd7 61.
Nf3 Nf6 ( 61...Nf6 32:+0.00 62.Ne5 Rd2 63.Ra8+ Kg7 64.Ra7+ Kg8) 1/2-1/2


Game analysis: What would motivate a human player to sacrifice White Knight at move 10 in this game? I am a beginner player (rating on Lichess.org around 1550). While analyzing one of my own games (pasted below), Stockfish calculated that a Knight sacrifice at 10th move is a good idea. I tried playing through the position after the Knight sacrifice, and white is able to regain a minor piece after ~10 moves, and it possibly worsens Black's position after ~10 more moves (but I'm not so sure about that).

But, my question is: is it possible for a human player to recognize that a Knight sacrifice at move 10 in this game is going to benefit White? Is there a simple heuristic thought process that can help a player recognize that the position after 10. Nxe5 is beneficial for White?

(My chess knowledge level: trying to play without hanging pieces. No knowledge of openings or positional games or any formal theory)

The game is as follows:

[fen ""]
[White "White"]
[WhiteElo "1585"]
[Black "Black"]
[BlackElo "1354"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Qf6 { C40 King's Pawn Game: McConnell Defense } 3. Nc3 c6 4. Bc4 h6 5. O-O Be7 6. d4 d6 7. d5 c5 8. Nb5 Na6 9. c3 Qg6 { I am surprised that Stockfish thinks a Knight sacrifice Nxe5 is better here. Let me see how that line goes.... } 10. Re1 (10. Nxe5 dxe5 11. d6 Bh3 (11... Bd8 12. d7+ Bxd7 13. Nd6+ Kf8 14. Nxf7 Bc6 15. Nxd8 Qxe4 16. Nxc6 Qxc6 17. Qh5 Qc7 18. f4 e4 19. f5 Nf6 20. Qg6 b5 21. Bf4 Qd7 22. Bd6+ Qxd6 23. Qf7#) 12. Qf3 Be6 13. Bxe6 Qxe6 14. dxe7 Nxe7 15. Rd1 O-O 16. Rd6 Qc4 17. Na3 Qa4 18. b3 Qe8 19. Nc4 Ng6 20. Be3 Rd8) 10... Bh3 11. Bf1 Bf6 12. Qa4 Bd7 13. b4 c4 14. Bxc4 Ne7 15. Nxd6+ Kd8 16. Nxb7+ Kc8 17. Qxa6 Bg5 18. Nd6+ Kd8 { Here White missed a mate in 1 with Qa5 } 19. Nxe5 Qf6 20. Qb7 Qxd6 21. Nxf7+ Ke8 22. Nxd6+ { Black resigns. } 1-0

I am quite certain that it is possible to find this move for a higher level chess player.

This has little to do with calculation depth actually. Yes, the engine is able to look 10 moves ahead and conclude that White is going to win his piece back in most or all positions resulting from the sacrifice. But for a human player, all that matters is if he can "see" (recognize) the right pattern. Concrete calculation only follows to make sure that this pattern is actually winning (and most of the work is done in the first 3 moves, instead of 10). Unfortunately, there is no easy heuristic blueprint (else we would all be GMs), most of this ability to "see" comes from experience. However, there are a few hints:

First of all, White has the more active position (he has castled already, his pieces are much better developed (to active squares), and he has some space advantage), so he should generally put himself in the mindset of the attacker, not the defender.
Looking at the developed pieces in particular, the knight on b5 is very strong and puts pressure on c7 and d6 - and from the latter could attack f7 as well - which also happens to be in the scope of his bishop on c4.
His queen and other bishop are ready to attack as well, but for now, there are pawns in the way. A friendly one blocks the file for the queen, and a hostile one defends f4 from the bishop. Nxe5 will help in both cases, but that alone does of course not justify a sacrifice.
Now the crucial part is to switch focus from attacking d6 to occupying d6. Important features that make this pawn advance really strong all by themselves (aside from the fact that passed pawns on the 6th rank are rarely a bad idea): Black's bishop on e7 will be attacked immediately, and Black has not castled yet, so d7+ is a very serious threat.
Additionally, all of White's pieces gain activity: The bishop on c4 gets freed, the queen gets additional scope along the d-file, the knight on b5 gets additional safety on c7 and without a black pawn on d6, the ones on c5 and e5 become very vulnerable to the other knight and bishop.

So, White's position would be overwhelmingly strong - if only the black pawn on d6 did not exist. A GM will probably see this immediately. For us normal folks, maybe that is the mental exercise you are looking for: If you "sense" that you have an advantageous position that possibly allows some tactics, check the important pieces and pawns (not the one on a6 obviously) of your opponent and judge the position with them missing. Once you have found a keystone, the actual calculation often is not that difficult. You just have to find a way to deflect the pawn/piece you identified as holding your opponent's position together, leading you to look out for moves like Nxe5.

Now in this case, the real calculation would merely amount to:

Bh3 counter attack - easily defended by Qf3, even adding pressure on f7 at the same time
Bxd6 - you can simply retake, regaining your piece while maintaining a good attack
Black retreats his bishop (e.g Bd8) - you can continue with d7+, and after Bxd7, d6 is open for the knight. At this point, you may have to calculate 2-3 additional moves, but really, if you have arrived here, you have done most of the work already.
Additionally, Tony Ennis' idea around f4 is worth having a look at, too.
Last but not least, you always have to consider that Black can refuse the sacrifice. Well, then Nxe5 either just won a pawn (probably the safer choice by Black) or has opened another attack angle after ...Qxe4 - you can now play Re1 with pressure along the opened e-file on an uncastled king.

As a contrast, list of reasons why people tend to overlook opportunities like this:

They are too occupied with the last move of Black (Qg6) that threatens Qxe4 and focus solely on the defense of that threat. End of list.

In all honesty, I still belong to that group too. Hindsight is 20/20.


Does this opening gambit have a name? I have had some success with this gambit in blitz, does it have a name?

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Ng5 h6 5. Nxf7 Kxf7 6. Bc4+ Ke8 7. Qh5+ Ke7 8. Qf7+ Kd6 9. Bf4+ Kc5 10. Qd5+ Kb6 11. Qb5#

I think it is the "Silent-Tiger variation of the Scotch Gambit"!

From Wikipedia:

  After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4, the most important continuations
  are:

    4.Nxd4 (Main line)

      4...Bc5 (Classical Variation)

      4...Nf6 (Schmidt Variation)

      4...Qh4!? (Steinitz Variation)

      4...Qf6

      4...Nxd4?!

      4...Bb4+?!

    4.Bc4 (Scotch Gambit)

    4.c3 (Göring Gambit)

    4.Bb5


What is the theoretical maximal material difference of a dead draw which is not a stalemate? I have noticed the following example, which should be a dead draw:

I am wondering what is the theoretical material difference of a dead draw which is not a stalemate? (I am not asking about agreed draws.) Apparently we could not add more rooks to the diagram as all white pawns have not been promoted.

By the way, the game above is not drawn by the insufficient material rule, as white can theoretically win the game if black makes a blunder such as capturing the rook.

[fen ""]

1. a4 b5 2. b4 bxa4 3. c4 c5 4. d4 cxb4 5. e4 d5 6. f4 dxc4 7. g4 e5
8. h4 exd4 9. Ba3 g5 10. Nc3 gxh4 11. Qb3 f5 12. Kf2 h3 13. Kg3 h2
14. Bd3 Qa5 15. Kh4 dxc3 16. Kg5 h5 17. Kg6 cxb3 18. g5 Rh7 19. Ra2 Rc7
20. Bc4 Rxc4 21. Kh7 Bd6 22. g6 fxe4 23. Kg7 hxg1=Q 24. Kh7 h4 25. Kg7 h3
26. Kh7 h2
27. Kg7 bxa3 28. Kh7 bxa2 29. Kg7 Qgb6 30. Rg1 hxg1=Q 31. Kh7 Nc6
32. Kg7 Nd8 33. Kh7 Nf6+ 34. Kg7 Nd7 35. Kh7 a1=Q 36. Kg7 c2+ 37. Kh7 Qab1
38. Kg7 Qb8 39. Kh7 Q1b7 40. Kg7 c1=Q 41. Kh7 a2 42. Kg7 a1=Q+
43. Kh7 Qab1 44. Kg7 Qb1b6 45. Kh7 a3 46. Kg7 a2 47. Kh7 a1=Q 48. Kg8 Qab1
49. Kg7 Q1b5 50. Kh7 Nf6+ 51. Kh8 Bd7 52. Kg7 Nc6 53. Kh8 Be7 54. Kg7 Bd8
55. Kh8 e3 56. g7 Ne4 57. Kh7 Qab4 58. Kh8 a5 59. Kh7 a4 60. Kh8 a3
61. Kh7 a2 62. Kh8 Qxf4 63. Kh7 a1=Q 64. Kg8 e2 65. Kh8 Nc5 66. Kh7 Re4
67. Kh8 Re6 68. Kh7 Qf4b8 69. Kh8 Ra6 70. Kh7 Qb6a7 71. Kh8 Nd4
72. Kh7 Rad6 73. Kh8 e1=Q 74. Kh7 Qg1e3

White can force a draw from this position with 75. g8=Q+ and perpetually check the black king.  The end position given above (before the pawn promotes) is the moment of maximum material difference in this forced draw.


Alternatives to the paid analysis on chess.com On chess.com we get only one full depth analysis in a day, which is very little. Is there a way to analyze more chess games and get all the accuracy metrics as well? Are there any other website which can help me do this analysis? This is because I want to analyze my games and learn from my mistakes.

If you have a lichess.org account you can analyze both games you played yourself there or games you imported. I think currently the limit is 25 of your games played in the site and (not 100% sure) half of that for games you did not play on the site, so either games from other players or ones that you imported.
Not sure exactly which stats you want however it gives you the number of blunders, mistakes and inaccuracies, as well as your average centi pawn loss which is a rough measure of how good your play was on average. Then you can for example use the "Learn from my mistakes" feature to see the positions where you made a mistake, and try to find a better move. Or you can simply look at the computer line in that position.


About how to compose retrograde analysis problems Are there any books or articles devoted to composing retrograde analysis problems? It seems that you would need some techniques beyond ones for standard problems.

See my answer to About retrograde analysis. The Retro Corner is not about composing. but it has lots of easy and hard examples with detailed solutions, comments, etc.


Attack or defend? Which is best approach to win? In chess, most people argue that the first to attack wins the game.
What is the best approach early in a game? Attack or defend?

There are tons of chess materials online, talking about attacking, but I could find only a few lessons on how to defend in chess.

For those who say attacking is the best, I vehemently deny it, as a player who can't defend can be a best chess player. Some say both attack and defence is the best, whilst some say winning is all about in the end game.

What do you think?

A lot depends on your opponent. Finding the right moves in defence is generally much easier than finding the right moves in attack.

If you are playing a much stronger player your best chance will be if he attacks you and you can survive the attack. If he doesn't attack then part of the reason will be that he doesn't think he has built up the kind of position that warrants him launching an attack. If you try and attack in that situation then you will likely get beaten quickly. So, the best advice is to try and play openings and positions you are familiar with and concentrate on prophylaxis. Strengthen and reinforce your position. Make sure you don't have any weaknesses and always be alert to your opponents threats and the areas of the board he is building up in. Don't waste too much time looking for chances to attack him.

Conversely when you are playing a much weaker opponent your best chance will be to launch a sound attack. If both of you just try and defend there is a much greater chance of the game petering out in a long draw. But the emphasis really is on sound. Use your superior positional knowledge and experience to build up a better position with your pieces working together in the area of the board you want to launch your attack from. Don't launch it prematurely or your opponent may be able to defend correctly and successfully and either get the draw or even win on the counterattack!

If you and your opponent are evenly matched again strengthen your position first and build up before any attack. Be on the lookout for chances to attack more than you would against a much stronger player but make sure you do so from a position of strength.

In all 3 cases it is clear that early in the game you should be developing your pieces to good squares and strengthening your position. Sometimes these good squares will be in attacking positions because it makes developing other pieces easier for you and more difficult for your opponent. For example, pinning knights in openings like the Ruy Lopez. But the emphasis should be on building a sound position first and not trying to make a string of attacking moves before your position warrants it.


Are there any tri dimensional chess rules utilising traditional starting positions? I have a tri dimensional chess game for my phone which let's the player select different rule sets to play by.
They all start with the king and queen on the attack boards which I find incredibly distasteful.
Is there a rule set which starts the king and queen in the centre positions?

If you search for a guy by the name of Larry Smith, he has produced numerous rule sets for tri dimensional chess, although they appear to be directly reverse engineering games played on the Star Trek television series.
The official rules of the World Tri Dimensional Chess Federation start with the king and queen in the centre of the rear rank, flanked by two bishops, with the knights and the rooks assigned to the rear ranks of the attack boards.


Question about Arena and strength of chess engines I had downloaded Delfi because I read that it function in the range "1000..2300 ELO" so that means I will be able to play with it at a level that I am (beginner/intermediate).  But I'm confused about how to get it to the particular strength.  I am using Arena and the only thing I notice is that in the "details" section of the engine I can change the "strength" of the engine from 1-100%.  But how does that correspond to a particular ELO rating?

This is not just an issue with Delfi but with other engines too I assume.  If you want to bring them down to, say, 1200-1300, or 1600-1700?  Thanks.

You cannot compare human (FIDE) Elo ratings with settings of any engine. Besides of the problems of comparing human Elo and any computer ratings (see below), I see another problem:

Making a chess engine as strong as possible is a well defined task, but having it play at a certain level is not so clear. You could cripple it by limiting the depth, or force it to make a blunder every second game or... Lots of options that can affect the playing strength, in the same way that you have all kinds of different human players. For instance Alice at rating 1800 could be a very stable player, drawing most of the games because of her rather conservative playing style. On the other hand you can have Bob at the same rating of 1800 playing attacking chess winning brilliant games, but also blundering many games.

Trying to map these options to a single number (1-100%) is impossible. Personally if I was to play against engines, I'd rather have settings to let me chose the playing style of the engine (e.g. attacking, defensive, passive, "opening guru", endgame nerd,...) than having it play at a certain strength (whatever that means).

In order to find a setting of your engine which you like, why not play a few games at some setting and depending on the outcome change it? But if you want to get better don't set it too low.

Personally I find playing against humans on or off-line much more enjoyable. And if you do this you will not have a problem finding a player that is of comparable strength.

Why computer Elo cannot be compared with human Elo?

This should really go into some kind of FAQ as it pops up very regularly here.

In principle you can give an ELO rating to a chess engine. However ELO (or glicko or any other rating) is made in such a way that it will only give you the relative strength of people or computers in the pool of people/computers that use this same rating system.

So if you have a FIDE Elo as many human chess players do, this will tell you how good you are among all these FIDE Elo human players, because the FIDE Elo is calculated from the outcome of many games between FIDE players only.

There are also people running engines against each other (CCRL, CEGT,...) creating Elo lists for computer engines. These Elo lists will tell you how good computer engines are relative to each other, because the computer ELo are calculated from the outcome of many games between computer engines only. They do not tell you how good computers are relative to FIDE Elo players because they are separate pools.


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

[FEN ""]
[StartPly "7"]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Can I capture my own piece? This may seem like a very amateur question, but I was playing chess with my dad, and when my dad won, I realized that I could've captured my own pawn in order to evade checkmate. I tried to do this move, but my dad said that it was cheating to do so. So can anybody settle this debate?

From the FIDE Laws of Chess, §3.1:

  It is not permitted to move a piece to a square occupied by a piece of the same colour. If a  piece  moves  to  a  square  occupied  by  an  opponent’s  piece the  latter  is  captured  and  removed  from  the  chessboard  as  part  of  the  same  move.

(emphasis mine).

So you can't capture your own piece.


Caro-Kann Apocalypse Attack What are the main points, tactical or otherwise, backing up the so-called Apocalypse Attack vs the Caro-Kann?

[Title "Caro-Kann Apocalypse Attack"]
[fen "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Ne5!?

Is it an opening based on a few cheap tricks? And if so, what are these tricks?

There is a long article here

http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/articles/opening/apocalypse/apocalypse.htm

but it is difficult to me to sum up the main ideas or tactical themes in a more concise way.

Maybe it's about having a Knight on e5, which cannot be dislodged easily with pawn moves. I think it's not so significant though, because black can still at least exchange it against the knight on b8, which could come to d7 or c6. d7 might prevent the exchange o black's bishop against the knight on e5.
If white manages to get black to exchange on e5, white will have a pawn on e5 most likely. Maybe a point is to still have a pawn there, although white didn't move e4-e5 earlier?
I don't really see how Ne5 is really that helpful to be honest. It doesn't even look that interesting to me or much different than other positions.


Why are these sacrifices good moves? What are the winning follow-ups? I was using a phone-app called Chessrating to get an estimation of my ELO rating. It gives me 16 chess positions and I have four attempts to find the best move. There were some positions that I did not understand the app's move choice. Why are those the best moves in the given positions? Is the app correct on all of them?

These are the 7 positions that I didn't understand, out of about 50 positions I played. They are all about sacrifices, except positions 4 and 7.

I realize that if the sacrifice is accepted, some attacking chances show up, but I can't find a winning follow-up, and in the end, to me it looks like the player is just down the sacrifice.
Of course, it is not obligatory to accept the sacrifice, and for that reason I don't see some of those sacrifices as winning. For the moves to be really winning, they must be winning in both cases (if either the sac is accepted or declined).

Position 1 - Black to play, why Rh2?

1r2k2r/p4pp1/2n1p3/q2pP1N1/3P1PB1/1Pb5/P1Q5/1K1R2R1 b - - 0 1

My thoughts: after Qxh2, maybe black could play Rxb3+, but I don't see a checkmate follow-up, so it looks like black will be down a Rook.

Position 2 - White to play, why Re8?

r1bq4/1p4kp/3p1n2/p4pB1/2pQ4/8/1P4PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1

My thoughts: I think there is no problem with black accepting the rook sacrifice, by Qxe8. Of course black can then take the Knight on f6 with check, but I don't see a checkmate follow-up, so it seems to me that white would be down an exchange.

Position 3 - White to play, why Nd7?

2rq1rk1/1b2bppp/p1n5/1p1BN3/5B2/P7/1P3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1

My thoughts: This time, I realize that if black accepts the knight sacrifice, they will lose their Queen in a follow-up tactic. But black could just decline the sacrifice with Re8, and I don't see a winning follow-up for white.

Position 4 - White to play, why Bf6+?

r4rk1/p6p/2q5/1p2pnB1/3p2Q1/P2P4/1P5P/R4RK1 w - - 0 1

My thoughts: after black plays Kf7, I don't see any special follow-up for white, and this check doesn't seem to have anything special.

Position 5 - Black to play, why e5?

1nr5/2rbkppp/p3p3/Np6/2PRPP2/8/PKP1B1PP/3R4 b - - 0 1

My thoughts: to me it looks like white can just take with the pawn (fxe5) and I don't see nothing special going on.

Position 6 - White to play, why Qh6?

2r2rk1/pp2pp1p/2np2p1/q4P2/2PBP1b1/2N5/PP1Q2PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1

My thoughts: after the queen goes to h6, if I was playing black I would immediately capture the bishop with the Knight, that is, Nxd4. Now I don't see any compensation for white.

Position 7 - Black to play, why Bxf3?

2rr2k1/p4p1p/2n3pb/2Ppp3/3Pb3/P1R1PNqP/4Q1P1/B3RB1K b - - 0 1

My thoughts: to me it just looks like a simple exchange, exchanging the bishop for the knight. Of course white should take back with the pawn, because taking back with the queen leads to losing the rook. Why is this exchange considered good/useful?

So why are those considered the best moves on those positions? Do you see a better move in each position? In my opinion, a sacrifice can only be considered good if independently of the opponent accepting or declining the sacrifice, there is a good outcome. I don't want to hope that my opponent will play poorly.

(I know this is a long question, should I split it in several (seven) questions instead?)

This is a very long question. And you can use Stockfish to check tactical solutions.

Solutions of all positions except the 5th ends with mate or huge material gain. In position 5, Black plays a positional sacrifice, to turn that cramped position into a nice attacking one.

Position 1 - Black to play, why Rh2?

[FEN "1r2k2r/p4pp1/2n1p3/q2pP1N1/3P1PB1/1Pb5/P1Q5/1K1R2R1 b - - 0 1"]

1... Rh2 2. Qxh2 Rxb3 3. Kc2 (3.Kc1 Qa3 4. Kc2 Nb4#) (3. axb3 Qa1 4. Kc2 Nb4#) Qxa2 4. Kc1 Qb1#

Position 2 - White to play, why Re8?

[FEN "r1bq4/1p4kp/3p1n2/p4pB1/2pQ4/8/1P4PP/4RRK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Re8 Qe8 2. Qf6 Kg8 3. Bh6 Qf7 4. Qd8 Qf8 5. Qf8#

Position 3 - White to play, why Nd7?

[FEN "2rq1rk1/1b2bppp/p1n5/1p1BN3/5B2/P7/1P3PPP/R2Q1RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Nd7 Re8 2. Bxf7+ Kxf7 3. Qd5+ Kg6 4. g4 Bg5 ( 4... h6 5. Qf5# ) 5. Qf5+ Kh6
6. h4 g6 7. Bxg5+ Kg7 8. Bf6+ Kf7 9. Qd5+ Re6 10. Bxd8

Position 4 - Black to play, why Bf6?

[FEN "r4rk1/p6p/2q5/1p2pnB1/3p2Q1/P2P4/1P5P/R4RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Bf6+ Kf7 2. Rxf5 Ke6 3. Rxe5+ Kd6 4. Re6+ Kc7 5. Qg7+ Kb6 6. Rxc6+ Kxc6 7.
Rc1+ Kb6 8. Qc7+ Ka6 9. Rc6#

Position 5 - Black to play, why e5?

[FEN "1nr5/2rbkppp/p3p3/Np6/2PRPP2/8/PKP1B1PP/3R4 b - - 0 1"]

1... e5 $1 { Black has a cramped position. White rooks are dominating d-file,
bishop and knight pressing hard on queenside. Black can't move.

With ...e5,
sacrificing pawn, Black vacates e6 square for bishop and doubles  and isolates
White's pawns in the center. After fxe5, White's pawns are not threatening any
more.}  2. fxe5 Be6 { Now it's the Black is attacking the c4 pawn, and c2 pawn
with doubled rooks. Black turned a cramped position into attacking one with a
very clever pawn sacrifice, which ruined White's pawn formation.}

Position 6 - Black to play, why Qh6?

[FEN "2r2rk1/pp2pp1p/2np2p1/q4P2/2PBP1b1/2N5/PP1Q2PP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qh6 Nxd4 2. Nd5 Qd8 ( 2... Rfe8 3. f6 Ne6 4. fxe7 Qc5+ 5. Kh1 Qd4 6. Nf6+
Qxf6 7. Rxf6 ) 3. Nxe7+ Qxe7 4. f6 Qxf6 5. Rxf6

Position 7 - Black to play, why Bxf3?

[FEN "2rr2k1/p4p1p/2n3pb/2Ppp3/3Pb3/P1R1PNqP/4Q1P1/B3RB1K b - - 0 1"]

1... Bxf3 2. gxf3 exd4 3. exd4 ( 3. Rcc1 Bxe3 4. Qg2 Qxg2+ 5. Kxg2 Bxc1 6. Rxc1
) 3... Nxd4 4. Qe7 ( 4. Qd1 Bf4 5. Re2 Nxe2 6. Qxe2 Re8 7. Qg2 Re1 8. Qxg3 Bxg3
9. Kg2 Rxa1 10. Kxg3 Rxf1 ) 4... Bf4 5. Re2 Nxe2 6. Qxe2 Rb8 7. Rc2 Rb1 8. Qg2
Qxg2+ 9. Kxg2 Rxa1


How to host an own chess ICS server? I want to host my own chess server (just in my home network, nothing public) to play chess with some friends.

I did some research on it and found out that the protocol used to realize a chess server is called - like the server - ICS.
The results I've found were very vague, most of them point to the existing big hosters like freechess.org, chess.com etc.

Are there any tools to host an own chess server?

You can setup lichess locally with this guide: github.com/ornicar/lila/wiki/Lichess-Development-Onboarding. The creator of lichess said this should work over irc.


Advanced Middle Game Attacking Tactics Before I get into the details of my questions, I already know the f, g and h pawn attack tactics, bishops sacrifices such as the greek gift and Lasker's double bishop sacrifice among a few others and of course things such as the isolated queen pawn positions(which is usually something that ends up in the end game part).

So what I am looking for are some advanced middle game tactics, be it from books, online teachers or anything of the sort. I do not have the money to buy the rest of Daniel King's power play series and I already exhausted the few books I have. Any help would be appreciated.

The attacking manual by Jacob Aagaard might be just what you are looking for. I enjoyed it a lot. It contains instructive games and exercises.

Other good books on attacking: Spielmann, The Art of Sacrifice, Vukovic, The Art of Attack,  Christiansen, Storming the barricades.


Standard for current position evaluation via UCIs I am trying to interact with stockfish via UCI to get a current evaluation of the board. When you do a simple

position startpos
go depth 10

The board will helpfully return

...[previous depths]

info depth 10 seldepth 11 multipv 1 score cp 29 nodes 1463 nps 731500 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e4 e7e5 g1f3 b8c6 f1b5 a7a6 b5c6 d7c6 e1g1 c8g4 d2d3
bestmove e2e4 ponder e7e5

From this I can see that the evaluation for the next move is cp29 and this is corroborated by a previous question. However, looking at another question, it seems like the initial question is technically wrong since the evaluation is for the position that will be resulted from the next best move, rather than the score for a current position. The second question also explains a way to get the technically correct evaluation for the current position.

My questions are

What score is commonly outputted by UIs that interact with stockfish? Do other UIs also go back in history to get a score when given a position?
Is it correct that the score I get is the score for the next move when I use the standard go whatever notation?
Is there anyway to get the current score without going back in game history and force stockfish to calculate scores for all those other positions as explained in the second SE question? This forces me to fake a move backwards in time if I am using a FEN and don't know the game history for instance which doesn't seem like the right thing to do, nor it should be necessary.

Game theoretically the evaluation of the current position is equal to the evaluation of the position after the optimal move is played, since the evaluation of a position is defined as the result with optimal play from both sides. So although the engine technically speaking prints the score of the position after the (supposedly) best move, it at the same time gives the score for the current position, since they are identical.

If you want to get the static evaluation of a position without any search, you can use the eval command in stockfish, which returns something like:

     Term    |    White    |    Black    |    Total
             |   MG    EG  |   MG    EG  |   MG    EG
 ------------+-------------+-------------+------------
    Material |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00
   Imbalance |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00
       Pawns |  0.34 -0.08 |  0.34 -0.08 |  0.00  0.00
     Knights |  0.00 -0.16 |  0.00 -0.16 |  0.00  0.00
     Bishops | -0.04 -0.35 | -0.04 -0.35 |  0.00  0.00
       Rooks | -0.22 -0.02 | -0.22 -0.02 |  0.00  0.00
      Queens |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00
    Mobility | -0.92 -1.08 | -0.92 -1.08 |  0.00  0.00
 King safety |  0.70 -0.08 |  0.70 -0.08 |  0.00  0.00
     Threats |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00
      Passed |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00 |  0.00  0.00
       Space |  0.60  0.00 |  0.60  0.00 |  0.00  0.00
  Initiative |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00
 ------------+-------------+-------------+------------
       Total |  ----  ---- |  ----  ---- |  0.00  0.00

Total evaluation: 0.13 (white side)


What is the best strategy for white in this position? 1n3r2/q4pbk/3p2pp/r1pPp3/1pB1P3/1P2BP2/2PQ2PP/3R1RK1 w - - 0 1

I was white in the diagram position in an OTB game I played recently. However, I couldn't find a satisfactory plan. Playing f4 is always tricky because it vacates the e5 square for the black knight and opens up the diagonal for the black bishop. I have the feeling I evaluated this position wrong and it is in fact just equal and not better for white. Any thoughts?

I think the f4-plan is doomed to fail. It would be beautiful if we could achieve it in good conditions, however, as you pointed out, f4 is met with ...exf4 followed by probably ...Qe7 and Nd7-e5. We get rid of the pressure on the 'a' file though, so it's better than doing nothing.

If we went for g3, preparing for gxf4 after f4, our effort will be met by ...f5! shattering our dreams.

It would be interesting to try to put our light-squared bishop on a4, but I don't see it working either after 1.Qd3 Nd7 2.Bb5 and now even Nb6 does fine

For those reasons, I think the best answer here is to immediately play c3!? It's true that Black has ...Ra2, but after Qe1 I don't really think it does much. If Black captured on c3, our queen would be now in a great square to fight for the a file. If Black does NOT capture, then we can begin to put some pressure on b4


Why is it so hard to find a free downloadable chess database with older/historical chess games? The best free, downloadable chess database I've found is Kingbase (http://www.kingbase-chess.net). It only has games since 1990. I also have the Android Chessbase Online app, which also appears to only have relatively newer games. The only source I know of that has historical chess games is www.chessgames.com (but I don't think you can download the entire database into something like SCID).

Why are these older games so hard to come by?

I invite you do it yourself...

  https://github.com/student-t/ExtractPGN

This is my Python repository for web crawling chess games. I use it to extract PGN chess games from Chessgames. This is an example of the games I extracted:

http://smallchess.com/Games

It's trivial to change the code such that you extract all games from chessgames (entire database) into a single PGN file. I believe you're a programmer, so that shouldn't be an issue for you.


How do you copy PGN from the chess.com iPhone app? I'm on wondering how to copy/paste the PGN from a game played on the chess.com iPhone app. How do you do it? NB: without logging into the website or using any device other than the chess.com iPhone app.

Take up the menu in the bottom left corner of the completed game, press "share" and then "copy" and you should then be able to paste it wherever you want.


Is there ant database that will return the reversed position? I recently started an online game as White that began as follows.

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1. Nf3 f5  2. d3 Nc6  3. e4 e5

Here I deliberately decided to lose a tempo with 4. d4 and transpose into a Vienna reversed with the Black pieces.  I knew what I was doing and therefore was able to avail myself of various resources (books/databases) on the Vienna game, but this got me to wondering. Are there any databases against which you can enter a position, and it will also look for the reversed position?

Chessbase opening trees (ctg) detect white/black transpositions.  My database has 59 games starting 1.e3, 9 games where black answered 1...e5, but then 28000+ games for 2.e4.