Can Black successfully finish this opening? I am trying to revive an old line in the Scandinavian defense. Among the many lines I am analyzing, there is one position that looks promising.

I will leave out the lines / opening moves, to keep the post short, so here is the position I am interested in:

[Title "Black to move"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

I am currently analyzing 1...e6, but my question is following: Can Black survive the opening with equal chances ?

Please back up your answers with concrete analysis.

Refrain from a "Let me Fritz / StockFish / Ryubka/ Houdini / ... this for you" approach. I have an engine and can do this myself. I need an answer that is clear and illustrates its point with concrete moves.

I am well aware that the question is hard and requires a lot of work, so I will understand if there will be no answers in the near future. Still, I will always be interested in this position (even after 10 years have passed or more), so if you have a solution, please feel free to post it if you like.

I actually used to play the Scandinavian a lot in blitz a couple of years ago, then got bored with my line and never used it again. The starting position in your diagram is actually one of the typical positions one reaches in this opening, although with slight variations, (like same position with e6, c6 already played etc.)

Since you said you've been working on e6 on your own, I figured I should spend time figuring out other lines. I have a lot of experience in Catalan like openings, so the main line I am going to suggest is slightly inspired by that.

Main line that I suggest is ...g6. For a couple of reasons:

This position can be transposed into a semi-Catalan because black has kept all the pawns on the 7th rank still, which allows for a very robust-slow type of development with a passive activation of pieces. Hence the fianchetto.
Although e6 may look very natural, and does cover a number of things, it doesn't create any prospect for the bishop as it will have to stay on e7 and not contribute much. Whereas a fianchetto'ed bishop on g7, for one thing avoids any exchange any time soon, and very importantly covers a crucial diagonal in the position, because as long as there's pressure on d4, c4 cannot be played easily by white, and queen may be temporarily restrained to defending d4 (e.g. in quick Qf3 lines d4 becomes very vulnerable) and we keep an eye on b2. Finally a possible expansion with c5 or e5 becomes plausible with Bg7.
Another strong element in our position which we should definitely leverage, is the queen, being already very active and not necessarily too exposed. Its main use in this position should be defensive (and of course space control) until black has securely finished development. So in the lines I will suggest, the queen will often end up defending here and there, but why not? After all the point is to make this position work in a sensible way.

Let's see some lines:

[Title "..g6 2.Re1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Re1 Bg7 3.Bf4 O-O 4.c3 Nd7 5.b4 Qd5 6.Bxc7 Rfc8 7.Bf4 Nf6 8.f3 a5

With a very playable active position for black, if anyone's winning here, it's black. B6-g1 diagonal is very weak, the b4-c3-d4 structure is very shaky and will cost white either some pawns or loss of activity if he goes for a complete defensive plan. Black has no worries and all the pieces are active, perfect so far!

Second g6 continuation:

[Title "..g6 ...Bg5 instead of Bf4"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Re1 Bg7 3.Bg5 h6 4.Bh4 g5 5.Bg3 Nd7 6.Qe2 O-O-O

Again black ends up with a solid structure and possible attacks all around: a king-side attack on white is the most natural plan from here. But a simple plan like exchanging knights and going for a better end-game works as well since our pawn advances haven't exhausted their possibilities yet (all on 7th rank) and the queen can immediately start putting pressure on white's queen-side and gain tempo for whatever other plan we may have.

Third line with g6:

[Title "..g6 2.Qf3 very crudely by white"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Ng5 Qf5 4.Qxf5 gxf5 5.c3 e6 6.Re1 h6 7.Nf3 O-O-O

A perfectly fine endgame for black, covering both g5 and e5 squares, an open line already available to us (g-file), no real worry in the position. Again an example leveraging the queen activity for defensive purposes.

4th line: (the only real dodgy line, but manageable)

[Title "..g6 2.Qf3...Nc5 instead of Ng5"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Bg7 6.Nxc7+ Kf8 7.Be3 Bf6

Sure we lost a pawn in the process, but instead once Kg7 happens, our plan is pretty clear: Use the open files b-c for the rooks, make white lose tempo with mis-placed knight (almost trapped) on c7, gain tempo on his exposed queen, and finally we have 2 fine minor pieces on f6 and d4! Very playable.

5th line:

[Title "..g6 2.c4"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Bg5 O-O 4.Re1 Re8 5.b3 Nd7

Perfect position, 0 weaknesses, completed development, everything ready to plan any further attacks.

6th and last line with g6, the toughest for black:

[Title "..g6 2.Nc5 again crudely by white"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Nc5 Qb6 3.Re1 Na6 4.Nxa6 Qxa6 5.Bf4 O-O-O 6.Qf3 Rd7 7.c3 Bg7

I spent a lot of time to find a refutation to Nc5 and Qb6 was the only one that really worked(I went through very scary lines to finally find this one, hope it was worth it). Again the final position, goes without saying, is perfect for black considering the starting point for us was "being behind in development". No weaknesses, and once we have h5 and Qb5 played, everything is ready to focus our coordination on white's king-side. (useful moves for us here: e6, Bf6, Rg8...h5 g5..).

These were all the lines for g6 continuations, and honestly I like them all and find them very playable (practical terms), yeah it's true that they don't lead to very exciting middle games but hey we started off with a Scandinavian after all!!

Second alternative I had in mind was Nd7:

[Title "..Nd7 2.Qf3 "]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... Nd7 2.Qf3 f6 3.Bd2 Qa6 4.a4 e5 5.dxe5 Nxe5 6.Qf5 Be7 7.Bc3 Ng6 8.Rfe1 O-O

No pawns lost, development completed and easily refuted white's crude Qf3 with an active plan involving f6 instead of the passive h6. May seem shaky at first but we are no tempo behind in our defense.

[Title "..Nd7 2.Re1 "]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... Nd7 2.Re1 Nf6 3.Bd2 Qf5 4.Nc5 O-O-O 5.Re5 Qg4

Very solid position, with a quick queen side castle and we've kept all our g6 and e6 ideas active and open.

[Title "..Nd7 2.b3 passive-slow option for white "]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... Nd7 2.b3 e6 3.Bb2 Be7 4.c4 O-O-O 5.Bc3 Qf5 6.Ng3 Qg6 7.Qf3 Kb8

An example of white taking it slowly and us finishing development rather straightforwardly. With loads of options still on the table.

Finally two e6 lines to finish off my reply:

[Title "..e6 2.Qf3 "]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... e6 2.Qf3 Qf5 3.Bf4 Nc6 4.Ng3 Qa5 5.c3 O-O-O 6.Be3 f6 7.Qg4 Qd5 8.Nh5 f5

Another good example showing how useful the queen is in this position when it comes to immediate defensive needs (i.e. replying to crude ideas by white)

Last line e6 again, probably the most basic continuation of them all:

[Title "..e6 2.Re1"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... e6 2.Re1 Be7 3.c3 O-O 4.Bf4 Nd7

Absolutely fine for black.
I hope you find these ideas helpful, I personally like all the outcomes resulting from g6, with a lot of options left in the position. Basically I tried to consistently show that although the starting position (you've given) looks rather worrisome for black, the active queen on a5 can still save the day whenever white gets over ambitious and plays for crude attacks, and if he doesn't then black gets to finish development and keep a perfect composure in his position. From this point on, we should just discuss the specific lines that you may find interesting, in the lines I've discussed so far.

Last note: I have no idea whether all these lines will hold against an engine or in long long correspondence chess, but then again we don't care about those formats here, the idea was to make one of the variants of Scandinavian work, an opening one doesn't play against an engine anyway! Don't hesitate asking any question that you may have.

EDIT: As pointed out by Wes, the 4th line suggested for ..g6 contained some inaccuracies, hereby I suggest some improvements:

[Title "7..Be5"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Bg7 6.Nxc7+ Kf8 7.Be3 Be5 8.Bxd4 Bxd4 9.c3 Bf6 10.a4 Kg7 11.b4 Qf5 12.Rac1 Rd7

Very active position for black, pressure on c3, rooks doubling soon, white knight in an awkward pin, queen limited to knight's defense...very playable

[Title "7..Be5 8.Rfd1 To Be Avoided by black"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Bg7 6.Nxc7+ Kf8 7.Be3 Be5 8.Rfd1 Bxc7 9.Bxd4 Bxh2+ Kf1

Here is one line to be avoided by black (Bxc7 not possible) as Kf1 can be replied after taking on h2, otherwise if Kxh2, Rxd4 Rxd4..Qe5+ wins back rook and equal position. So after Rfd1 black is kinda stuck with his pieces, maybe some h-pawn move to free up room for the other rook (so g8 square remains available for the king if needed). But all this can be avoided by playing Qb6 after Na6, a complete transposition, as follows:

[Title "5..Qb6 Queen-king combo: Saving the day"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Qb6 6.Nxc7+ Kd7 7.Qe4 Bg7 8.c3 f5 9.Qe1 Kxc7

And black is back in game, after having found the nice resource with Qb6 and Kd7 making use of the mis-placed knight. (note here Qxe7+ not possible as Rd7 wins a piece). If white exchanges queens on b6 then it's equilibrated again as c2 pawn falls:

[Title "Queen exchange line"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Qb6 6.Nxc7+ Kd7 7.Qxb6 axb6 8.Nd5 Nxc2

One last variation (there are many others of course):

[Title "8.Nd5 line for white"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn2kb1r/ppp1pppp/8/q7/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 1"]

1... g6 2.Qf3 Nc6 3.Nc5 Nxd4 4.Qxb7 Rd8 5.Na6 Qb6 6.Nxc7+ Kd7 7.Qe4 Bg7 8.Nd5 Qe6 9.Qxe6+ fxe6 10.Nc3 Nxc2 11.Rb1 e5

With the knight coming back to land on d4, very promising endgame.


Game Analysis Software What I need

Is there any software/engine/website (preferably free) that can analyze a given game (or PGN) of mine and tell me:

Whether my moves were excellent, good, bad or terrible.
Possible variations at different positions.
Reasons why a bad move was bad, and suggestions for a better move.

What I found

The thing I found closest to that is the computer analysis option on Chess.com , which tells me how many of my (and my opponent's) moves were good, bad and awful, and also suggests better moves in place of my errors. However, despite being rather good, it seems (to me) that it analyzes only the games I play on the site.

Any suggestions?

LiChess.org is free and easy, but you have to register. Almost every interface can give you what the computer thinks is best.

http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/ is a good program for beginners, but at more advanced levels the computer seems to hang.
Lucas chess has a game analysis.

The output shows current evaluation, best move, your score relative to the best score, and, under indexes, average centipawn loss with other stats.

The program comes with many adjustable parameters.  The main problem, other the the hanging engine, is that it is difficult to find which function you want.  They do have links to many videos showing how to use their program.

If after watching the videos you still have problems, we could start a thread about this problem.


What openings are good for the repertoire of a tactical player? I'm preparing an opening repertoire for a small "open tournament" that will take place in a few weeks.

I think I'm quite decent at tactical play, and I like situations that give me the initiative - that is, attacking; or counterattacking when my opponent is attacking, since I can't stand rocky but passive defense. I also like games in which I can concentrate my attacks against specific targets (isolated pawn, opponent's blocked center, etc.).

So far, my repertoire is built this way:

with White: basically 1.e4

against 1...e5, Italian (all variations) and 2-Knights (all variations), 4-Knights (all variations), and some variations of the Russian. Perhaps I'll add some variations of the Scotch Game;
for 1...c5 I've studied some of the main lines of the Open Sicilian, the Alapin and the Closed Sicilian;
for 1...c6 (Caro-Kann) I have prepared the Advance Variation and some of the main lines;
against 1...e6 (French) I know the lines of the Advance Variation;

Against other defenses, I've simply studied the strategical ideas behind the most famous "lesser" defences (Scandinavian, Pirc, Nimzowitsch, etc.), and I plan to play natural moves without searching for "early confutation".

with Black:

against 1.e4 I think I know kinda well Sicilian Kan, Paulsen and Sveshnikov, and many variations of the French Defense;
against 1.c4 I usually play the Reverse-Sicilian, and sometimes the Symmetrical English.

But I cannot find a decent opening to play against 1.d4 (just a lesser opening, indeed xD). And this can be a problem also against 1.Nf3, due to the many transpositions.

I used to play the "Nimzo-Indian + Queen's Indian" pair, but recently I found that those openings do not suit my playing style, especially the Queen's Indian. I've looked something about the Slav Defense, but I'm really scared of the many transposition into Semi-Slav and Queen's Gambit Declined (and the study that lies behind!). And I'm even more scared of theory speaking of King's Indian and Gruenfeld.

So, does anyone know defenses that may suit my playing style with Black against 1.d4? Do you think that, if I fill this void, my repertoire is complete enough?

TL;DR

Good repertoire for fighting chess for white.  As black, you can play 1...c5 against 1.Nf3, and against 1.d4 I would recommend looking at the following openings and picking your favorite:

Grunfeld
King's Indian Defense
Slav
Dutch

This is going to be a long answer, so bear with me...

Your white opening looks acceptable.  I won't really get into the merits of any of your specific choices other than to say be careful with the Advance Caro and Advance French - those don't always let you play a tactical game against strong opposition.  You could look into the French Tarrasch (surprising, I know, but even the closed main line gives white kingside attacking chances) and the Panov-Botvinnik Attack against the Caro.

Against 1.d4, almost all players have difficulty right now.  From the very best GM's down to the average club players, the last 5-10 years have shown that white has excellent chances for an advantage with queen pawn openings.  There are two openings that are currently "in vogue" at the top level - the Grunfeld and the Slav.  These two openings are by no means the only options, but current theory holds that black can maintain equality with best play, and additionally, black has chances to win with both openings.  I'll also mention the Dutch, the King's Indian Defense, the Nimzo/QID, and the classical QGD in this answer.

Grunfeld

The Grunfeld is one of the best openings for black against 1.d4 right now.  Black does not occupy the center, but instead attacks it from afar with moves like Bg7, c5, Nc6, and sometimes e5 and Rd8.  White has not been able to find a clear advantage against black's best play, and most Grunfeld endgames favor black due to the queenside pawn structure.  I would recommend the Grunfeld for players who are not afraid to study theory - sometimes a LOT of theory.  Furthermore, Grunfeld players should be willing to take on certain disadvantages in exchange for counterplay.  Black will frequently have a large space disadvantage early in the game and it takes experience to push back white to get to an advantageous endgame.  That said, the Grunfeld offers EXCELLENT winning chances against lower rated players, especially in endgames that look equal at first.

Slav

The Slav is another very common opening right now.  If you want a crash course on the Slav, you can look at Anand's games in the last few matches that he has played.  The Slav is another opening that can require a lot of theory, especially when you get into the Botvinnik System and the Moscow/Anti-Moscow variations.  The biggest drawback to the Slav is that white can force a symmetrical game by playing an early cxd5.  The Exchange Slav is very boring, but if you are a higher rated player, it is still possible to grind your way to victory in the Exchange Slav.

Dutch

The Dutch is quite possibly the best opening for a tactical game, but black is really playing with fire.  It is very easy to slip into a lost position if you are not playing every move accurately.  Within the Dutch, there are a few systems that are all playable - the Stonewall, the Leningrad, and the Classical.  The biggest advantage to playing the Dutch is that white players that have memorized 25 moves in the Catalan won't be able to play by memory and will have to figure out what to do at the board.  Furthermore, black frequently will get a kingside attack going with the Leningrad Dutch.

King's Indian Defense

The KID is another opening where black can be positionally lost without many mistakes.  For example, if you play the Queen's Gambit Declined as black, you can make 3 or 4 subpar moves without really getting a bad position.  The Dutch and the KID are another story - one misstep and black might already be losing.  If you are willing to take that chance, or you are confident in your ability to deal with tactics, then the KID is a good choice.  It offers black a kingside attack (usually) and chances for the full point.

Other Openings

Just to touch on alternatives - the QGD is always a solid choice, but black can have a very hard time finishing development.  The bishop on c8 sometimes cannot be developed until move 20 or even later.  If you are not comfortable playing a cramped position, stay away from the QGD.

The Indian Systems (Nimzo and QID) are good choices, but per your question, I didn't mention them very much.  At the GM level, these defenses are still played, but white has found ways to get a good game against both the Nimzo (look into 4.Qc2) and the QID.  Furthermore, since the Catalan is so popular, you will frequently not get the chance to play a true Indian Defense.

Final Thoughts

You might notice that I did not recommend any gambits like the Albin Countergambit or the Budapest.  With good play, white gets a great position against both of those choices.  With quiet play, white still gets an equal position and black's initiative dries up quite quickly (for example g3 against the Budapest).  Additionally, the Benoni and the Benko Gambit are not mentioned because black has to solve quite a few problems according to modern theory.

Ultimately, you will have to try out all of these openings and decide which one you like the best.  Personally, I play the KID, the Grunfeld, and the Dutch mostly.  The main point is that if you want a super sharp game, don't allow symmetrical positions (for example, your choice to play the Sicilian as black against 1.e4).


I blunder too much on wooden sets? I have played 99% of my games online, I have seen and learn almost everything related to chess with the fonts Alpha or Mérida, either through diagrams or games, etc .

However, when I play with actual wooden set (or any other material), I blunder too much, I have trouble with my board vision, I completely miss threats and can't really focus well (I play with around half of my strength even with take-backs).

Anyone ever heard or read about this issue?
Are there some tricks I can use to make the process of getting used to them faster, different than the obvious "just play a lot on them"?
Can this issue appear on people who play 99% wooden chess and then try online chess?

I had the same problem which (to some extent) I've managed to overcome.

I didn't ever get enough chances to practice OTB games so I could never get used to it. My solution was to play online games with a real board in front of me. I made myself play out the moves on the board and used my computer only to get my opponents move and to enter mine. As long as time constraints aren't too much of an issue it's not much hassle. After a while playing with actual boards was just as easy as without.


What is the idea behind 10.h3 in the Scotch Four Knights Kramnik introduced this idea in a couple of his games against Aroninan, but I am struggling to justify such a slow move in a rather open position:

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bd3 d5 8. exd5 cxd5 9. O-O O-O 10. h3

Is there any other idea besides preparing Qf3 and avoiding Bg4?

Bg4 could be annoying to meet in this position for a few reasons:

It would force white to move the queen to an awkward square, play f3 opening the g1-a7 diagonal or play the passive Ne2.
White would prefer not to trade light squared bishops (with Be2) here as Bc8 is black's worse piece.
Ne2, Qd2 and f3 all allow Bh5 with the idea of Bg6 essentially forcing a trade of black's bad bishop


Because of the distortion of the computer era, is it preferable to study mainly old opening lines? I realize that you get rather a lot of questions from lower-rated players who ask, should I try this? should I play that? how can I improve? Many of you have been extraordinarily patient with these questions over the years; but, still, I have never myself thought of such a question worth asking you until today.

Consider a student of chess who plays in the ELO 1400-to-1700 range. Might it be wiser for such a student to study old opening lines from old books, printed during the precomputer era, than to study the new, computer-analyzed lines?

ARONIAN, CARUANA, AND THE REASON FOR MY QUESTION

The question occurred to me while reading Chessbase's recent report of Aronian's entertaining attack against Caruana during the Candidates tournament. The attack failed; the game was drawn; but, of course, when a titan like Caruana plays black, one does not assume that the draw proved Aronian's strategy bad! On the contrary, both players played this game in a most interesting way, beginning to end; so I am now wondering if Aronian's approach does not conceal an important lesson for a player like me, a lesson I have heretofore overlooked.

The question regards which kinds of opening lines are profitable, or edifying, to study.  And by kinds, I do not mean open game, closed game, tactical, positional, symmetric, asymmetric, gambit, with rooks, without rooks, hypermodern, classical, etc. (I like almost all those kinds). I mean what Aronian meant during his recent Candidates game.

Now, if you rate around ELO 1500 as I do, you never really begin to understand a Candidates game without the benefit of master commentary. I should never have discovered any lesson in Aronian's play on my own! Fortunately, Sagar Shah of ChessBase gives us the commentary; and, after Aronian's 8. Be2, this is what Shah writes:

  Aronian chooses the classical setup of the good olden days with Be2, Nd2, Qc2 etc. Much more modern and aggressive is Bd3 followed by h3. But once you play something modern, it becomes theoretical, while with Be2 there quite some scope for creativity.

Does this mean that, by trying to play something modern, the ELO 1400-to-1700 player denies himself the crucial opportunity to develop needed creativity?

If so, I had never thought of this before.  Do today's computer-analyzed lines impose a sterile, insightless, unprincipled quality upon the player who studies them?  Maybe I should instead dust off some hearty old books?

SOURCES?

So, suppose that it were indeed preferable to study mainly old, precomputer-era opening lines. What would be a good, available source from which to learn those?

Admittedly, aged in my late forties, I have no pretensions to master chess.  I just like playing chess occasionally, but if I could boost my play from 1500 to, say, 1600 or 1700, without turning chess from an occasional hobby to a serious avocation, I should like to do so. This is why, if Aronian has a lesson to teach, I should like to learn it.

I never played Sicilian Defense as Black for this reason.

A quote from Larsen:

  Had I not played the Sicilian with Black I could have saved myself the trouble of studying for more than 20 years all the more popular lines of this opening, which comprise probably more than 25 percent of all published opening theory!

Constantly following updates and remembering a modern, popular line has no benefit for a non-professional player (if you are professional, that's different). Instead, a chess player who wants to improve himself/herself should focus on understanding openings (not remembering them).

What improves your chess is to understand an opening, ideas behind, advantages, disadvantages etc. Remembering openings are like remembering opening traps, they can help you win the game without much effort, but they don't improve your chess.

A quote from Fischer, about memorizing opening theory:

  I don't know when, but I think we are approaching that [the end of chess] very rapidly. I think we need a change in the rules of chess. For example, I think it would be a good idea to shuffle the first row of the pieces by computer ... and this way you will get rid of all the theory. One reason that computers are strong in chess is that they have access to enormous theory [...] I think if you can turn off the computer's book, which I've done when I've played the computer, they are still rather weak, at least at the opening part of the game, so I think this would be a good improvement, and also just for humans. It is much better, I think, because chess is becoming more and more simply memorization, because the power of memorization is so tremendous in chess now. Theory is so advanced, it used to be theory to maybe 10 or 15 moves, 18 moves; now, theory is going to 30 moves, 40 moves. I think I saw one game in Informator, the Yugoslav chess publication, where they give an N [theoretical novelty] to a new move, and I recall this new move was around move 50. [...] I think it is true, we are coming to the end of the history of chess with the present rules, but I don't say we have to do away with the present rules. I mean, people can still play, but I think it's time for those who want to start playing on new rules that I think are better.

He propose random starting position chess which is widely know as Chess960, because chess is becoming more and more a memory game.

My experience tells me, if I play an opening, which is playable but not the best, and out of the book I get better results comparing to a popular line. Because I know the ideas behind, while my opponents often only memorize the best continuations. This is similar to what Aronian did in his game.

So, what sources are there? Actually, every good opening book covers the ideas behind, you don't need special sources. Just focus on the ideas next time when you read them, instead of variations.

Edit

I remembered that this FritzTrainer with topic of creativity in e4 was really good: https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/e4_for_the_creative


Only being able to move and not capture while in check I was playing chess with my Dad, and he was shocked when I made a capture while check. He said that when he learned to play, that, when you are in check, you cannot capture with the king or any other piece to get out of check. This means that all you can do is move out of check. Is there a special rule or game type where this is true? We live in Hungary, so maybe they play different here.

Below is for regular chess. I don't know about any chess variant which would have a rule like you describe.

If you are in check you have to deal with it somehow, i.e. after your move you should not be in check anymore. If there is no move which achieves this, it is check-mate.

There are at most three different ways to get out of check:

move the king out of check
capture the piece which attacks your king
put a piece in-between the piece which attacks your king and your king (this can only work if a bishop, rook or queen attacks your king)

A simple example:

White is in check by the rook on h7. There are three possible moves for white: Kg1 (see "1"), Bxh7 ("2"), Nh3 (see "3").

As a side note, you cannot castle out of check.


Alpha Zero vs Stockfish, French Defence, is this move for Black better? I'm referring to the French Defense (C11 ECO code) game where Alpha Zero played 30. Bxg6 ! , sacrificing a bishop for a better position. After Alpha Zero's move 30. , I couldn't find any good moves for Black. However, after the earlier move by White 28. Rc2, Houdini suggests after many hours the reply 28... Qe7 instead of 28... Kd7 which was played by Stockfish. And if 29. Ng5 , then 29... Bh6. All in all, analysis with the Houdini chess engine strongly suggests that 28... Qe7 is a much better move than 28... Kd7 for Black.
Am I missing anything?

The position after 28. Rc2 is:

[StartFlipped "0"]
[FEN "3kqb1r/1b3p2/1p2p1p1/pP1pP3/P2P1PQP/3BKN2/2R5/8 b - - 3 28"]

=====================
Added: Dec 18, 9am
I'm doing an infinite analysis on 4 threads using Houdini 6, with 2 Gb of hash memory. After 4 hours and a depth ~= 33, Houdini still prefers 28. ... Kd7 for Black, with an evaluation of +0.15 .

Eventually, Houdini 6 had 28. ... Ba3 as its first choice for Black. Moving the Bishop from the f8 square to the a3 square allows the Black Queen and rook to connect on the back rank. It also allows moving the Queen to the f8 or g8 squares...

Perhaps Alpha Zero's play is too deep, some of the time, to get reasonnably accurate evaluations in a few hours. Or, to simulate Alpha Zero's play could take an inordinate amount of time per move...

P.S. I upgraded to Houdini 6 today, and at 4 hours of infinite analysis with it, it's a lot less than the time spent analyzing before the upgrade.

If you analysed for hours on end with Houdini, chances are its recommendation is stronger than what Stockfish played. There are two main reasons:

1) Stockfish didn't have hours to think during the game with AlphaZero.

2) Stockfish isn't especially renowned for how well it evaluates positions. Its main strength is how deep it can look ahead in such a short time. Larry Kaufman himself said that Komodo would be superior to Stockfish if it weren't for Stockfish's speed (I'm paraphrasing). Since the diagram you posted is very positional and involves quiet maneuvers, Stockfish must rely on its evaluation abilities more. In this domain, Houdini could very well be equal (or possibly better).

You're right though that AlphaZero's play is too deep for a normal engine like Stockfish/Houdini to fully understand. Through machine learning, AlphaZero developed an extremely intelligent intuition, which cannot usually be matched by brute-force calculation (especially in such a strategic position that you posted).


Why is an early e5 against a Yugoslav setup evaluated at +2.6 according to Stockfish? I was looking at analysis on one of my games and found this variation against a Yugoslav attempt against the Sicilian Dragon which Stockfish 12 instantly says is +2.6 for white:
[FEN ""]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B50"]
[Opening "Sicilian Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 e5 1-0

Once black plays e5 on move 7, Stockfish changes its +0.8 evaluation to +2.6, but if I play the game out with best moves from both sides using Stockfish I kind of don't see why it is so good. White wins by a lot, but I don't really understand why. Could somebody please help me understand why this move is so bad for black considering it doesn't seem to lose material if black plays correctly? And moreover, is this something I can punish if I see it again or is it just some weird super deep engine idea that a (non-GM) human couldn't really use?

This move creates several weaknesses, at f6, d5, and d6, and restricts the movement of the Bg7.
The outpost weakness is usually shown by the game https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1257953.
The d6 weakness is basically using all you pieces to attack the pawn and, once all of black's pieces on defending it, to shift the attack to another point and, hopefully, the black pieces can't respond quickly enough.
The f6 weakness is harder, but basically pushing a pawn to f5 forces black to capture and expose f7 to attack.
The restricted movement of the bishop is exploited in the endgame when the bishop can't react quickly enough to both protect d6 and the dark square weaknesses.


Tools for helping to learn openings by heart Is there any tool that can help us learn openings by heart? I tried to use Fritz but without success.

Two well-known programs that are meant specifically to aid in the memorization of opening variations are

Chess Position Trainer
Chess Openings Wizard (formerly Bookup)

Both programs are designed to recognize and handle transpositions seamlessly, and they allow a player to drill all the positions that are part of any repertoires that he or she inputs.


Using Stockfish in an automated way, for example, to analyze games in pgn format I am looking for a way to use Stockfish for an automated analysis of games which I have in pgn format. Similar to Fritz/Chessbase's Blunder Check function I would like Stockfish (or any other UCI engine) to "simply" go through each position of each game in the pgn-file (convert to FENs?), let Stockfish run for a fixed amount of seconds and then return the evaluation and depth reached. Maybe later I would like to add things like node count or the eval in each depth reached. Finally, the program should format the output to a human readable format.

Maybe there is a similar program already out there which I could use as a template but if not what would be the easiest way to get started. I have limited programming skills in Python and VB.

There is a library for Python (import chess.engine) that allows you to use an engine (like Stockfish) to analyse games in a PGN file.


Fischer vs. Geller, Curacao Candidates 1962 I recently came across a very interesting rook and pawn endgame from one of the games between Fischer and Geller from the Curacao Candidates Tournament in 1962. More precisely, I am talking about the endgame from this game, appearing after 33. Rc4 (see the diagram below).

It looks like a draw (to me, at least). Fischer himself was of the opinion, that the endgame is holdable, since after the game was adjourned after the 42. move, he allegedly said something like

  "I'll draw that game with my eyes shut!"

However, Geller managed to win the game.

This endgame is unfortunately out of reach of my chess understanding, but I would like to remedy that. This brings me to my question:

Is there a detailed expert analysis of this endgame in chess literature (or on chess websites)?

The endgame is rather long and technical. Therefore, I am primarily asking for a reference with detailed end extensive expert analysis, rather than a personal opinion or basic analysis. Of course, explanation of general ideas governing the way this endgame unfolded or any comments in that direction are also welcome, but please name a reference where I can learn more about it first. Thank you!

[FEN ""]
[StartPly "65"]
[StartFlipped "1"]
[Event "Curacao Candidates"]
[Site "Willemstad CUW"]
[Date "1962.05.16"]
[EventDate "1962.05.02"]
[Round "9"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Robert James Fischer"]
[Black "Efim Geller"]
[ECO "B88"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "136"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bc4 e6
7. Bb3 Be7 8. f4 O-O 9. Be3 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 b5 11. e5 dxe5
12. fxe5 Nd7 13. O-O Bc5 14. Bxc5 Nxc5 15. Qxd8 Rxd8 16. Nxb5
Ba6 17. Bc4 Rab8 18. a4 Nxa4 19. Nd6 Bxc4 20. Nxc4 Nxb2
21. Nd6 Rd7 22. Rfb1 Rc7 23. h3 Rb6 24. c4 h6 25. Nb5 Rc5
26. Rxb2 a6 27. Rf2 axb5 28. Ra7 Rxe5 29. Rfxf7 Rg5 30. Rfb7
Rxb7 31. Rxb7 bxc4 32. Rc7 Rf5 33. Rxc4 Kf7 34. g4 Rf3 35. Kg2
Rd3 36. Rc7+ Kf6 37. h4 Ra3 38. Rb7 Rc3 39. g5+ hxg5 40. hxg5+
Kg6 41. Re7 Re3 42. Kf2 Re5 43. Kf3 Rf5+ 44. Ke3 e5 45. Ke4
Rxg5 46. Re8 Rg1 47. Kf3 Rf1+ 48. Kg3 Rf5 49. Rb8 Kg5 50. Re8
Kf6 51. Rf8+ Ke6 52. Re8+ Kf6 53. Rf8+ Ke6 54. Re8+ Kd5
55. Ra8 Rf7 56. Kg4 Re7 57. Ra5+ Ke6 58. Ra6+ Kf7 59. Kf3 Re6
60. Ra8 e4+ 61. Ke3 g5 62. Ra1 Kg6 63. Rb1 Re5 64. Kd4 Kf6
65. Re1 Ra5 66. Rxe4 Kf5 67. Re8 Kg4 68. Ke3 Kg3 0-1

Geller himself analyzed this endgame in The Application of Chess Theory. I'm not sure if it's quite as in-depth as you're looking for but I've reproduced the post-move-33 annotations here.

[FEN ""]
[StartPly "65"]
[StartFlipped "1"]
[Event "Curacao Candidates"]
[Site "Willemstad CUW"]
[Date "1962.05.16"]
[EventDate "1962.05.02"]
[Round "9"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Robert James Fischer"]
[Black "Efim Geller"]
[ECO "B88"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "136"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bc4 e6
7. Bb3 Be7 8. f4 O-O 9. Be3 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 b5 11. e5 dxe5
12. fxe5 Nd7 13. O-O Bc5 14. Bxc5 Nxc5 15. Qxd8 Rxd8 16. Nxb5
Ba6 17. Bc4 Rab8 18. a4 Nxa4 19. Nd6 Bxc4 20. Nxc4 Nxb2
21. Nd6 Rd7 22. Rfb1 Rc7 23. h3 Rb6 24. c4 h6 25. Nb5 Rc5
26. Rxb2 a6 27. Rf2 axb5 28. Ra7 Rxe5 29. Rfxf7 Rg5 30. Rfb7
Rxb7 31. Rxb7 bxc4 32. Rc7 Rf5 33. Rxc4 Kf7 34. g4 (34. g3) {An inaccuracy. Of course, the white king has come into play, but for this 34. g3 was more appropriate, retaining the possibility in certain cases of continuing h3-h4 and Kg2-h3-g4. But now the white king is cut off along the third rank, and the white pawns are insufficiently defended} Rf3 35. Kg2
Rd3 36. Rc7+ Kf6 37. h4 Ra3 38. Rb7 Rc3 {Both sides have been making waiting moves before the time control, but White suddenly changes the character of the position} 39. g5+ hxg5 40. hxg5+
Kg6 41. Re7 Re3 42. Kf2? (42. Kh2!! Re5 (42... Kxg5 43. Rxg7 Kf6 44. Rg1 Rf3 45. Kg2 Rf5 46. Re1) 43. Kh3){This last move before the adjournment loses by force. White could still have drawn with 42. Kf2!!, so as to answer 42... Re5 with 43. Kh3, not allowing the black rook to take the g5 pawn with check or to leave the e-file with check. And in the event of 42... Kxg5 43. Rxg7+ Kf6 44. Rg1 Rf3 45. Kg2 Rf5 46. Re1 a theoretically drawn position would have been reached} Re5 {By this sealed move Black wins a second pawn, and with it the game} 43. Kf3 Rf5+ 44. Ke3 (44. Ke4 Rf7! (44... e5?? 45. Rxg7) 45. Rxe6 Kxg5) {In the event of 44. Ke4 Black of course would not have continued 44... e5?? 45. Rxg7+, but 44... Rf7! 45. Rxe6+ Kxg5, and since here White's king is cut off on the so-called "long" side of the board, he is lost. Something similar also occurs in the game} e5 45. Ke4
Rxg5 46. Re8 Rg1 47. Kf3 (47. Re6+ Kf7 48. Rxe5 Re1+ 49. Kf5 Rxe5+ 50. Kxe5 Kg6! 51. Kf4 Kh5) {The e-pawn is immune, since the pawn ending in the variation is lost} Rf1+ 48. Kg3 Rf5 49. Rb8 (49. Kg4 Rf4 50. Kg3 Kf5 51. Rf8+ Ke4 52. Rg8 Rf3+ 53. Kg2 (53. Kg4 Rf1) Rf7 {and Black completes his regrouping}) Kg5 50. Re8
Kf6 51. Rf8+ Ke6 52. Re8+ Kf6 53. Rf8+ Ke6 54. Re8+ Kd5 {Before the second control Black gains time on the clock by repeating moves}
55. Ra8 Rf7 56. Kg4 Re7 {The control is passed, the rook is ideally placed, and Black has merely to escape from the checks and advance his pawns} 57. Ra5+ Ke6 58. Ra6+ Kf7 59. Kf3 Re6
60. Ra8 e4+ 61. Ke3 g5 {All the conditions have been fulfilled, and the win is not far off} 62. Ra1 Kg6 63. Rb1 Re5 64. Kd4 Kf6
65. Re1 (65. Rf1 Ke6 66. Ke3 (66. Re1 g4 67. Rg1 e3) Rf5 67. Ra1 Rf4 68. Ra5 Kf6 {and the king breaks through at h4}) Ra5! {A typical plan. Black gives up one of his pawns to break through with his king and obtain a theoretically won position} 66. Rxe4 Kf5! {Here the pawn ending would have been drawn} 67. Re8 Kg4 68. Ke3 Kg3 {White resigned in view of the following plan, which is typical} (69. Ke2 g4 70. Rg8 Rf5 71. Rg7 Kh3 72. Rg8 g3 73. Rg7 Kh2 74. Rh7 Kg1 75. Rg7 g2 76. Ra7 (76. Rh7 Re5 77. Kd3 Kf2 78. Rf7 Kg3 79. Rg7 Kf3 80. Rf7 Kg4 81. Rg7 Rg5-+) Rh5 77. Kf3 Kh1)  0-1


What are the normal black responses to rookside openings? Does the Rookside opening have a name? It is not very popular, I believe so I'm wondering what the best defense could be.

One of the foremost principles of chess is to control the center squares.  Side pawn openings do not do this, which is why they are unpopular.  My recommendation would be to simply control the center with your pawns and develop normally.

An old chess saying goes like so: "When your opponent attacks on the side, strike in the center".  The logic behind this is when your opponent is occupied on an insignificant region of the side, they will be unprepared for a direct assault in the most important section of the board - the center.

There is no need to treat these kinds of openings differently - just develop your pieces and control the center like you normally would against a normal opening.  Then once you reach the middlegame, you will be far better prepared for the inevitable struggle due to having more pieces out and in much better outposts.

If you would like to read a further discussion on this topic, here is a link to a chess.com forum on it, where various chess players throw in their two cents:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/the-rook-pawn-opening

If you want a cheap book on this, here is a link to Chess Grandmaster Kontronias' book on "Beating the Flank Openings".  It only costs about $9:

https://www.amazon.com/Beating-Flank-Openings-Vassilios-Kotronias/dp/0713477814


How do we identify opening lines? How many opening moves are needed before we can identify that such moves fall into a particular well-known opening such as  Ruy Lopez, London, kings gambit, an so on? And after such identifying moves, can we we say that such opening is already completed and the player is on his own for the development of his pieces?

Openings are typically decided by ECO Codes.

So as few as one move and as many as 5-6 or more moves could decide an opening. For example, as soon as you play 1. b3 it is a Nimzo-Larsen attack. (A01)

As soon as 1. e4 c5 is played it is a Sicilian defence. (B20) But there are many variations. If the game continues 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6, it becomes the Kan variation. (B41) So on and so forth. You can find a full list of recognized openings and their ECO codes in the link above.

As for your second question, no, after the identifying moves have been played, the opening is typically not completed yet. For example, take this line of the Budapest gambit.

[FEN ""]
[Event "Budapest Gambit"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3

This is as many moves as it takes to recognize the opening as Budapest Gambit, Adler Variation (A52). However, you can hardly say the opening is over.

[FEN ""]
[Event "Budapest Gambit"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Bf4 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 Bxc3 7. bxc3 Qe7 8. Qd5 f6 (8... Qa3)

This is a very common continuation to the Budapest Gambit, even though these moves aren't needed to identify it as such - it is all still theory. The player isn't "on his own", there are still many established lines to follow.


What happens if a strong chess engine plays with itself many times? If a strong engine (eg. Stockfish) plays with itself many times (say, 100 times), what will be the outcomes in terms of the following:

What will be the proportion of draws? Will there be wins/losses? If so, what could determine wins? Will it tend to be predominantly white (because of opening advantage) or just random?
Will all the games played be along a narrow repertoire? Will there be diversity in games played?

http://tests.stockfishchess.org/tests

has information on exactly what you want. They are self-playing tests for improving the Stockfish code base.

The draw rate is roughly about 60% - 70%. There're lots of wins and losses. I believe white has more wins but it's not shown on the page.

Chess engines aren't perfect, they do make mistakes. If SF makes a bad move at move 20, the same algorithm might find the win a move later (21) because it can search deeper and further.


What is the right path to be followed on Chess.com for learning Chess? I am a beginner in Chess. I know the basics but I have very very little practice as of now and I've shortlisted Chess.com to learn and improve my game.

I am yet to buy a premium subscription there but before that I want to test the website with (as much as possible) content available in the basic (free) version. But, there are so many sections in the 'Learn' area only like Puzzles, Lessons, Videos, Openings, Drills and then so many lessons inside each of them.

I'm getting a little confused as to where to start. The reason I'm asking for a right path is because I don't want to mistakenly throw away the option of learning from Chess.com just because I started with things that were probably too advanced for me to start with.

Also, if anyone has any other suggestion besides Chess.com for online platforms for a beginner to learn Chess, then that's also most welcome.

Have a look at The path of learning chess and see how you can match this with what chess.com offers.

Starting with tactics, a couple of basic general chess principles and playing slower time controls is probably a good start. Avoid learning openings by heart. Watch videos aimed at beginners on youtube, chess24 or any other website (there are questions on SE about recommended websites as well).

IMO there is so much free material for beginners out there that I'd rather invest the money in a good book or for joining a chess club than paying for some website.

Once you are beyond the beginner stage you will want to figure out your main weaknesses and work more on those. Having a stronger player look over your game is very useful in this respect.


Are there any attempts at writing Stockfish MCTS? As of time of writing, there is one major traditional engine using Monte Carlo Tree Search for its search algorithm - Komodo. The MCTS version of Komodo started out weak but gained strength quickly, and Komodo MCTS recently defeated Komodo AB (i.e. Komodo using the more traditional alpha-beta pruning) in the TCEC Cup 3. That indicates that MCTS is at least comparable to standard AB search.

Are there any attempts at converting Stockfish to MCTS search?

This is difficult to answer definitively as there is obviously no way to say that there isn't someone somewhere working on an MCTS version of Stockfish. However, as of the time of writing, there exists no official attempt to create an MCTS version of Stockfish.

While some forks of Stockfish, such as ShashChess and SugaR have MCTS-like modes, they differ from what you are looking for:

One of these modes applies a simple neural network to determine R in Late Move Reductions in Stockfish's alpha-beta search.
The alternative collects MCTS-like information for each root move by collecting the evaluation of every node visited in a standard alpha-beta search. This is not really MCTS as it only collects additional statistics on the same alpha-beta search function.

Komodo MCTS, which does use its own handcrafted evaluation function and a full-fledged MCTS search, is only competitive with the standard version due to the fact that its implementation of MCTS applies alpha-beta rollouts: i.e. the alpha-beta search used in standard Komodo is used to determine the expected win % for leaf nodes, and also as the policy to determine which nodes should be preferentially expanded.

The exact methods by which Komodo MCTS converts its alpha-beta score to an expected win probability, as well as the details in how alpha-beta searches are used to determine which node MCTS should expand, are all proprietary. As such, it's unlikely that implementing MCTS in Stockfish is anything close to trivial.


Strategy in middlegame from boring positions I get into these rather vanilla, or as I call them, boring positions. Not much is happening tactically, and I can't fathom what the right course of action should be strategically.

Here is an example. I am White in this position. My pieces are in what I view as "neutral" (not good, not bad) position, I think the position is about even, and I have no clue what plans to form next.

[fen "r4rk1/p2nbp1p/1qp1bpp1/3p4/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1"]

Obviously there is no right answer for strategy, but maybe some more experienced players could give me some general heuristics to ponder as I plot my chess board domination. Walking through this example would help too =)

Cheers

"Tactics is knowing what to do when there is something to do. Strategy is knowing what to do when there is nothing to do." -- Savielly Tartakower

What follow are the most salient features of the position that jump out at me, and these are the sorts of things one needs to look for when there seems to be nothing to do:

You have no structural weaknesses yourself.
Black has a weak backward pawn on the c-file that could become a very nice target.
Black can attack down the semi-open b-file, but that's less significant since the move b3 leaves White's pawn secure.
At the moment, Black's bishop pair isn't of much use due to the relatively closed nature of the position.

Having noted those things, it's safe to say that Black would love to get in the freeing move ... c5, which would allow her to exchange off her most significant weakness, while also starting to open up the position for her bishops. So a good course of action for White here is to try and prevent that move from Black, or at the least to make it as disadvantageous for her as possible.

With that in mind, a good start is 1. Na4, which leaves both the knight and the Qc2 eyeing the c5 square (and opens the way for the rooks to bear down on it as well), and doing so with tempo thanks to the attack on the Qb6. After 1. ... Qb7 2. Rac1 Rfc8 (note: it's these rooks in particular because White might want his other rook being able to go to the d-file if ... c5 -> dxc5 occurs, and Black might want her other rook to have access to the b-file), we see Black trying to support the ... c5 break and White trying to stop it.

[fen "r4rk1/p2nbp1p/1qp1bpp1/3p4/3P4/2NBPN2/PPQ2PPP/R4RK1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Na4 Qb7 2. Rac1 Rfc8 3. Qe2 a5 4. Rfd1 c5 5. dxc5 Nxc5 6. Nxc5 Bxc5

In this case, Black cannot be prevented from achieving the desired pawn break, and so White will need to switch gears and find new goals. For instance, here 3. Qe2 (threatening Ba6) ... a5 4. Rfd1 is a good idea (as mentioned before), so that we will be well-positioned after dxc5, with our rook on the newly half-opened d-file pressuring Black's isolated pawn. For instance, play might proceed 4. ... c5 5. dxc5 Nxc5 6. Nxc5 Bxc5:

[fen "r1r3k1/1q3p1p/4bpp1/p1bp4/8/3BPN2/PP2QPPP/2RR2K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. h3

Now Black's bishop pair is improved, but d4 is an inviting outpost for the white knight. If Black were to trade the dark bishop for the knight after it lands on d4, and we could recapture with a piece, then our structure and our bishop would be significantly better than Black's remaining one, and we would have good prospects for strong pressure against the isolated d-pawn. With that in mind, a good next step is 7. h3, which prevents Black playing ... Bg4 and trading off that bishop for our knight instead, and has the side benefit of creating luft for our king. Unfortunately for us, everything is basically level, as Black has ideas like playing ... d4 herself to open up her bishops and rid herself of her remaining weakness.

Anyway, I hope this gives you some idea of the kinds of thought processes that can be fruitful in "boring" positions like this one, the kinds of features that you should be thinking about when you're not calculating tactical possibilities (which you can never forget about!), and the sort of improvements that White could aim for from your initial position if Black were to fall asleep at the wheel.


Analysis of a chess position? Is there a site I can go to or a software which I can use which will help me to analyse a chess position?

That depends on what you mean by 'analyse'. Any chess engine with a GUI will allow you to input a position and get sample lines from the engine, while letting you try out variations. Online services that allow this include http://lichess.org (you'd have to upload a game's PGN there first) or http://analysis.cpuchess.com/.

If by 'analyse' you mean study and learn from the nuances of a position, then the short answer is no - while a GUI might provide a way of easily resetting the board to certain states, it can't do the hard work for you.


Rating calculation problem Firstly I got 1018 rating last year. Then next tournament deducted 25 and my FIDE rating became zero.

Then I faced next tournament opponent 03 players 1352, 1255 and 1174 respectively. All 03 games I lost.
Then I faced next tournament opponent 03 players 1288, 1315 and 1153 respectively. I won 1315 rated game and other 02 lost.
Then I faced next tournament opponent 02 players 1227 and 1334 respectively. I won 0.5 with draw 1334 rated player and other one lost.

Then I already got 1.5 points, but still my FIDE rating is showing 0. I want to know how many games I need to play and win to again take my FIDE rating.

please check Ekanayake E M Anindu Rehan Fide ID is 29909279

OK, so this is your playing record -

2017-10
1754    0
1155    0
1371    0

2017-11
1112    0

2018-04 (1018)
1286    0
1079    0
1018    1
1318    0
1067    1
1090    0

2018-05 (1018 - 25.2 -> 0)
1418    0
1332    0
1221    0
1292    0

2018-10
1352    0
1255    0
1174    0

2018-11
1288    0
1315    1
1153    0

2019-02
1227    0
1334    0.5

Let's go back and check the FIDE rating regulations.

  6.1 If an unrated player scores zero in his first tournament, his score and that of his opponents against him are disregarded.
  Otherwise if an unrated player has played rated games, then this
  result is included in computing his overall rating.

In your first two tournaments you scored zero points so these are not used in any rating calculations.

You got your first rating of 1018 in the April 2018 list after a tournament in the previous month. Let's see how the calculation works. First the relevant parts of rating regulations:

  8.2 Determining the Rating 'Ru' in a given event of a previously unrated player.
  8.21 If an unrated player scores zero in his first event his score is disregarded.    First determine the average rating of his competition
  'Rc'.
  (a) In a Swiss or Team tournament: this is simply the average
  rating of his opponents.    ...
  8.24 If he scores less than 50% in a Swiss or team tournament:  Ru = Ra + dp

2018-04 (1018)
1286    0
1079    0
1018    1
1318    0
1067    1
1090    0
Sum of opponents' ratings = 6858
Average of opponents' ratings = Rc = 6858 / 6 = 1143
You scored 2/6 which is 33%. Hence:
Fractional score = p = .33,
Then I look up in table 8.1a from the rating regulations to find 'dp'
dp = -125 so new rating = 1143 - 125 = 1018

Now if we repeat the calculation for what your current rating would be we again throw away the first two tournaments (2017-10 and 2017-11) and use all the tournaments since then.

We get:
Total sum of opponents' ratings = 6858 + 5263 + 3781 + 3756 + 2561 = 22219
Total games = 18
Rc = 22219 / 18 = 1234.39
p = 3.5/18 x 100 = 19.4%
dp = -251 (looking up in table 8.1a for p=0.19)
So new rating = 1234.39 - 251 = 983.39

This is less than 1000 so you are recorded as unrated.

If your fractional score had been 0.21 (i.e. you scored 4 / 18) then dp according to table 8.1a would be -230.4 and you would have had a rating of 1004.

So, basically you fell short by one draw. If you continue winning one game in three against similar opposition then you should make it.


Is PGN split utility available anywhere? A couple of places on the web mention a free utility called pgnsplit, that does the following:
"A commandline tool to convert pgn-files including games with variation into pgn-files where each variation get its own game."

Sadly, all links to it seem dead. Does anyone know if it is possible to download it anywhere, or to find similar functionality in any other common chess database software?

As of 2017.04.01, pgn-extract (version 17-38) does provide variation splitting functionality via its --splitvariants flag. So, if you want this in a Windows/Linux/Mac OS environment it is available. Disclosure: I am the author of pgn-extract.


How to deal with your opponent's queen if your opponent rejects any trades? If my opponent brings out his/her queen early in the game, I usually attack it with my own queen. The opponent can either accept the trade or reject it. If he/she accepts, I have no questions at all. The game continues, and I am happy.

The question is: what if the opponent refuses to make any trades after I suggest the trade of queens? E. g. I am playing white; my opponent, black. He brings out the queen, I attack it. Then he simply moves the queen to a safe square. Quite
often it results in me being checkmated in about 10 next moves, or I lose a piece.

So if the opponent constantly refuses to trade queens in the opening, what should I do? Keep attacking the queen (possibly searching for forks/pins/skewers?), or develop my minor pieces, or try to defend my king? Thanks.

There is no need for an early queen trade. Just develop your pieces, if possible by attacking the queen. Here is an example from the Wayward Queen Attack also known as Patzer Opening.

[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Qh5 Nc6 3. Bc4 g6 4. Qf3 Nf6 5. Ne2 Bg7 6. Nbc3 O-O 7. d3 d6

2.Qh5 threatens to take e5, so we defend it by developing a piece: Nc6 (d6 is also possible).
3.Bc4 threatens to mate on f7, so we defend it by attacking the queen with g6, creating a square for our bishop as a side effect.
4.Qf3 renews the threat, so we develop another piece, Nf6 and block the queen's access to f7.
Then we develop our bishop, castle and get a nice game with a development advantage.

The best punishment for an early queen development is not a queen trade, but using this queen to develop your minor pieces with a tempo: by forcing the queen to move again and again.

Update

In the example you gave in the comment, you play just the same way: Develop your other knight, get castling in, and have a good game. There is a reason why you don't see this line in games by players with a decent rating.

[fen ""]

1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 Qa5 3. Nc3 d5 4. Be2 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bf5 6. Ng3 Bg6 7. O-O Nd7 8. d4

First let me say that 2.Nf3 is not the best move against the Caro-Kann. d4, Nc3 or even c4 are better and therefore more common. See my Caro-Kann study for more ideas.

After 2…Qa5 you just play Nc3 which develops a piece and unpins the d-pawn. Then you clear the f1 square by developing yet another piece, Be2, castle as soon as possible, and then play d4.
Black is at this point seriously behind in development: the entire kingside is still in the default position while you have already some very annoying moves like Nh4,  c4, or Bf4. Your queen on d1 is keeping everything together. It's not in the way of any other piece and much better than Black's queen – and you didn't even move it!

So, again: stay calm, develop your pieces, castle, and then question your opponent's position with your own minor pieces.


How should white push for advantage in the Nimzowitsh attack of the Petrov's defense? This line of the Petrov defense can often lead to opposite side castling and the general rule for that is attacks happening on both sides of the board. However, I noticed that it's very difficult to attack black in the Petrov defense.

My question is basically this: In what way should I play to get an advantage against this line of the Petrov defense, whether it should be in a dynamic or positional manner?

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3, Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7

I noticed that it's very difficult to attack black in the Petrov
  defense.

That is why it is popular at the elite levels: It is super-solid. The character of the game is going to depend on black, and the choice of where to castle. If black castles short, since white castles long, it is going to be an all-out pawn storm on opposite wings, and the person, who calculates, and attacks, better will win. in practice, white has fared better there, scoring about 70% per the Mega 2020 database compared to about 60% in the other lines where both sides castle long. It is a much more dangerous choice.

When both sides castle long, the game definitely becomes more positional since both sides have relatively safe kings. It will come down to things like h4, and Ng5 by white, and if that Ng5 can either be traded for the Be6, gaining the two bishops, or if white can force black to capture the Ng5 with the Be7(Bf6), again, gaining the two bishops. White has doubled pawns, but they are not a big deal, and in fact, they give white more maneuvering room since he has an extra semi-open file to use. If white can post a piece, maybe the Bf1-c4-d5 on d5, if may force a concession c6, weakening the black queenside. After c6, d5 is often forced, and then white can hit at that center with c4 if timed right.

If this type of semi-positional game occurs, it is not quite the same as the positional games that occur in d-pawn openings. The positions are much more fluid than those with blocked centers, so there is much more calculating, and by that, I mean exact calculation, and positional evaluation. And, black is more cramped.

Lastly, of course there is the open e-file. no matter what, it is likely to lead to the trade of the rooks, because neither side can afford to let the other dominate the only fully open file, and not contest it. In positions that have only one open file, if you can fully control it, it is often a decisive factor. In the distant past, when I played e4, I "made a living" playing the Exchange French, and often, before my opponents knew it, I owned the e-file, and the game.

In the end, white's slight space advantage is probably why the 60% winning percentage, but it requires patience, and there is no "do this and get an advantage" rule. I would try to read through a bunch of white wins in the line, and see how the games played out, and try to emulate the ones you liked the most.

 [FEN ""]

 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3 Nc6 8. Qd2 Be6 9. O-O-O Qd7 (9... O-O 10. h4 Ne5 11. Ng5 Qd7 12. Kb1 {With an all-out opposite sides attack.}) 10. Kb1 Bf6 11. h4 O-O-O 12. Ng5 Bf5 13. Bc4 Ne5 14. Bd5 {And the game has become semi-positional.}


Can a king be checked with another king when checking square is protected by the side which gives the check? Can a white King move next to a black King to check it, if there is a white pawn protecting the white King, preventing the black King from taking the white King?

Hi David and welcome to chess.stackexchange.com. This is a common question.

It's illegal to move a king into check, or to leave it in check. This includes moving a king adjacent to the opposing king. If you have no legal moves then the game is over: if your king is in check then you are checkmated and you have lost, otherwise you are stalemated and the game is drawn. This is basic to chess, and doesn't require any particular Laws.

If you want chapter and verse, you can find it in the FIDE Laws (which operate in all parts of the world apart from USA) Articles 1.4.1 & 3.9.2. While reading Article 1.4.1, you might also notice that it's illegal to capture the opponent's king. You might reflect that this is a curious rule in two respects (a) it can never apply in a legal position - because it would have been illegal for the opponent to have left his king in check! (b) it would never be a good move to capture the opponent's king - because then you could never checkmate it! You would be right in this reflection, but the rule is there to stop things get too crazy if an illegal move isn't spotted immediately.

To summarize: you can never move so that your king is in check, even if the king is "protected".


Finding New York City tournaments as a visitor from Moscow I am visiting New York City from Moscow. How can I find tournaments there?

Most tournaments in the U.S. are not FIDE-rated, but there are some. Your best best are the more-common USCF-rated tournaments. You would have to join the USCF as part of that.

They have a list of tournaments here. Just pick the state you want, in this case, New York.


What is the smallest possible size of Nalimov endtables? I have recently found the following place, where I can find the outcome for any 6-piece endgame with Nalimov endtables.

I was surprised to see this, because I have recently read that set of tables requires 1153 GB of hard disk space. This is significant amount of space and also it is not so easy to search through it. But nonetheless this website can give you the result together with a mating series in < 1 second.

My first guess is that they are not using all endtables. There is little point of searching the mate of lonely king VS 4 pieces. But at the very best it takes away 1/4 of all the size.

My vague question is: how can it be done? My normal question is: what is the smallest size of reasonable 6-pieces Nalimov endgametables (by reasonable I mean where the result is not obvious)? Also it would be nice if someone can tell where can I get this smallest size endtables.

You can get a smaller 6-piece tablebase here, fully compressed.

https://github.com/syzygy1/tb

While I have personally not tried that, I know because of a friend that they are really good. If you were hoping for smaller stuff, this is as small as you can get. After all, there are lost of positions with 6 pieces.


How do I take part in an open FIDE tournament? I currently live in Sudan and I would like to play in the Loyal Open Championship. Details of this tournament can be found here.

Apparently, there is no link to guide me through the registration process. Does the tournament accept random entries? And if so, how do I register, or ask for assistance on registration? I play in the FIDE Online Arena, but I am not rated, nor I ever played a FIDE tournament.

Head to the Youth and children Palace:

Loyal open
Organizer(s)    Kartoum Chess Federation
Federation  Sudan ( SUD )
Tournament director Khalid Osman
Chief Arbiter   Elatag,Khalid 12200409
Arbiter mohamed awad , Nazar Eltayeb
Time control    90 minutes, 30 sec
Location    Youth and children Palace
Rating calculation  Rating international
Date    2017/11/11 to 2017/11/17


What are the best openings in Antichess? I am experiencing Antichess and it's more forcing than normal chess.
What are the best openings for white ?
Is there any winning opening whatever the black does respond?
Antichess, according to Wikipedia:

Losing chess (also known as Antichess, the
Losing Game, Giveaway chess, Suicide chess, Killer chess, or Take-all
chess) is a chess variant in which the objective of each player is to
lose all of his pieces or be stalemated.
"The rules are the same as those for standard chess, except for the following special rules:

Capturing is compulsory.
When more than one capture is available, the player may choose.
The king has no royal power and accordingly: it may be captured like any other piece there is no check or checkmate there is no castling
In addition to its normal promotion options, a pawn may promote to a king.
Stalemate is a win for the stalemated player.

A player wins by losing all his pieces, or being stalemated. Apart
from move repetition, draw by agreement, and the fifty-move rule, the
game is also drawn when a win is impossible (such as if a dark-squared
bishop and a light-squared bishop are the only pieces remaining).

It can be played online through lichess

It was discovered that e3 is a win for White:

http://magma.maths.usyd.edu.au/~watkins/LOSING_CHESS/ICGA2016.pdf


How do you 'calculate' compensation in chess Here is another very difficult subject for me that I can't even begin to understand [ incidentally, although I've been playing chess for over 50 years, my current ELO rating is only 1300, hence these questions.]

The idea of 'compensation' comes up all the time in master games.

How do you calculate it?
It seems to be a comparison between material and position. But what positional element is the material equivalent of a pawn; the exchange; a piece; even the queen?
Can the idea of compensation even be adequately quantified at all?
Given a position where, for example, one player sacrify a pawn to improve the position of a knight, would two GM's, say, Carlson and Giri, even agree as to whether the player has adequate compensation for the pawn, given their vastly different playing styles?

Introduction:

Your goal in the chess game, is to win.
Having more points is good, only when it helps you win the game (e.g. check-mate your opponent)
If sacrificing material improve your chances to win the game, then it is the right thing to do.

Compensation in Wikipedia

Compensation includes:

Better pawn structure.
The "two bishops", which refers to having bishops of both colors while your opponent does not. Almost all modern players consider having both bishops as an advantage, although historically there has been great debate as to how much of an advantage they constitute. The two bishops are most likely to show their power in the endgame.
Better piece activity and/or better development (common in gambits).
Having the enemy king open to future attack, either due to a loss of pawn cover or being trapped in the center of the board is often excellent compensation.
Passed pawns are often decisive in the endgame.
Connected and/or protected passed pawns are even more deadly.
Control over key squares, diagonals, files, or ranks.

Summary:

There are several types of compensation.
The answer to Is the sacrifice worth the compensation? might depend on two factors:

Is the compensation very straight forwards? (if so - it is clear to be good)
The specific player profile  (e.g. some players prefer open positions, and some closed positions) - if the new position after the sacrifice will be more suitable for the player - he'll have clear plan how to continue/win


SCID not recognising transpositions I like going through open variations and taking notes and saving them in my database.

However I have a problem. When I get to two of the exact same board positions and same color to play, if I got there via two different variations, any future variations I make and comment will be considered separate.

For example, suppose I start a game with 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 and add some variations with, e.g., 3.Nf3 and 3.Bc4 and make some comments.  Then, in the same database, I add a game with 1.Nc3 e5 2.e4 Nf6. This leads to exactly the same position but the variations and comments from the 1.e4 variation are not shown.

How do I merge these variations or get SCID to understand that it's the same so it shows the variations after both move orders?  I don't want to write a whole new tree and branches just because I switched up one move.

Or if anyone knows a different program I can use for this to save uncompleted games such as opening variations and I can write my notes that would be great.

When you add comments, they exist on the current game only. If you want to comment on the position (independent of any individual game), you can do that by adding a mask.

The tree window shows you statistics on the current position (moves played, etc). Masks allow you to add additional information on top of that. Here is a resource to help get you started:

https://sourceforge.net/p/scid/wiki/HowToUseMasks/


Team championship pairings Is there some fixed rule how teams for leagues are paired? Is it deterministic once team gets its starting number?
If for example two teams must play in early rounds (e.g. A, B from same club), is it always done by giving them appropriate starting numbers or are some leagues where rounds are done manually? Are there more pairing standards?
Do some leagues have an odd number of teams and would it change something?

A lot of questions with many different answers depending on the type of competition. Leagues can be either Swiss or round robin. I suspect most leagues are round robins but by no means all are.

Perhaps the most interesting league from the viewpoint of pairings is the the UK's 4NCL (originally 4 Nations Chess League). There 4 main divisions with subdivisions and both Swiss and round robin pairings are used according to numbers. If you are genuinely interested then the examples from this league are worth investigating. The rules are here - http://www.4ncl.co.uk/1718_rules.htm

  Is there some fixed rule how teams for leagues are paired?

No. There is no one fixed rule. If there are roughly the same number of rounds as teams then a round robin (all-play-all) pairing system would be used which does have fixed rules. If there are many more teams than rounds then some form of Swiss is used. Sometimes the league might be split into two time-wise with several subdivisions paired with one system (rr or Swiss) for the first half and then rejoined depending on results into separate sections which may again be paired in different ways. Again there are rules but some are fixed and some mutable.

More information on Swiss rules are available on the FIDE website here

For round robin tournaments Berger tables are used. The only reference I have for these is the FIDE Arbiters Manual These start on page 66.

  Is it deterministic once team gets its starting number?

For round robin, yes. For Swiss, no.

  If for example two teams must play in early rounds (e.g. A, B from
  same club), is it always done by giving them appropriate starting
  numbers or are some leagues where rounds are done manually?

It depends entirely on the circumstances. For a round robin it is easier to do this by assigning start numbers appropriately but it is not essential.

  Do some leagues have an odd number of teams and would it change
  something?

Of course some leagues have an odd number of teams. For round robins, where the Berger tables are used, one team has a zero-point bye each round. For Swiss systems triangular matches are used.

As I said at the beginning the UK 4NCL is interesting and complex with a full range of pairing and worthy of study if you are really interested in this sort of thing.

You might find Division 3 North of particular interest because it has a relatively large number of teams. The discussion on this (2017-18) season on the English Chess Forum is here . The arbiter's job was complex. This post shows one of the interested parties posting the ingenious pairing rules that were decided on by the arbiter to solve the problems posed.


Skills required for blitz/bullet vs. correspondence chess? I've started playing blitz/bullet (fast) games and felt like I was getting moderately good at it (1 - 10mn games), but then I switched to correspondence chess (1 - 5 days/move) and it seems to me that it was affecting my fast games skills.

Does correspondence chess really require a different set of skills than fast chess? Do you have any advice that may help getting the best of both type of games?

While the two are vastly different, if you improve at one, you will most likely also improve at the other.

Tactics are far more important to get right in correspondence chess.  The slightest misstep will be punished by your opponent simply because they have all the time they need to analyze all of the variations, and they can also use at least a board to assist them, and in some cases, even a chess engine.

In blitz chess, while attacks frequently win the game, unsound moves are not always refuted.  This means that if you are able to launch an attack, even at the cost of a piece, your opponent will most likely be forced to burn time in order to avoid mate, and this will give you an advantage on the clock.

In terms of long term planning, in correspondence chess, assuming a high level game where tactical blunders will not determine the result, plans become incredibly important.  A correspondence game is frequently a battle between two plans while in blitz chess, tactics and the clock rule the day.

So overall, correspondence chess is a much higher quality game.  Blitz chess is fun and quick (so you can play a lot more games), but in terms of getting better at chess, blitz won't really help you.  If you want to improve at blitz, practice tactics and play more blitz!


Ranking of Baadur Jobava I wanted to know the ranking of Baadur Jobava after his disastrous tournament in
 Tata Steel. But the only updated ranking list I found got to 2700 Elo and Jobava
 seems to be below this mark now.

Does anyone know the actual ranking and the ELO ?

Today the newest Elo list was published:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/february-2015-ratings-the-fulfillment-of-promise

48.   Jobava, Baadur 2696


What was the first chess engine that could beat the world champion on a standard desktop? What was the first chess engine that could beat the world chess champion when running on a standard desktop playing at standard speeds (i.e. not blitz chess)? For concreteness, say a $1000 PC.

Deep Blue was a super computer. In the 2006 match, Kramnik was defeated by Deep Fritz that everybody could buy.

  In a November 2006 match between Deep Fritz and world chess champion
  Vladimir Kramnik, the program ran on a computer system containing a
  dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 CPU, capable of evaluating only 8 million
  positions per second, but searching to an average depth of 17 to 18
  plies in the middlegame thanks to heuristics; it won 4–2.[31][32]

(source)


Software for online lessons I'm interested in teaching online chess lessons to my students.
But I haven't found any software plaftorm for this purpose. Are there any one? I don't mind if it's commercial or open-source.

There are several ways to teach online chess for free.

1. Skype + Chessbase. An old version of Chessbase Reader can be downloaded for free (just google "free download Chessbase"). This program will have everything you need to play, analyze, and save games, along with many other options. With this program, you can use the "share screens" option on skype, where you have the chessbase program open, and your student can see the board on his screen. You can then proceed with the lesson via voice call. This is all 100% free.

2. Skype + Online Analysis Board. Some websites, particularly chess.com and ICC, have ways for two users to share a board, meaning that both can use the board. For example, on ICC (requires membership), you two can share a board, and make a call, and have the lesson.

These are just two ways, and the first should suffice completely.


Comparison between best defense moves I am a novice player. I have just come across the Sicilian defense on the Internet which is also stated as "aggressive defense". The French defense (1.e4 e6) also is good. Does the French defense cramp Black's position in the midgame as a result of which it is considered next to Sicilian ? Because I find the French defense to be structurally more organised than the Sicilian.

I'm not certain what you exactly mean with it is considered next to the Sicilian. However, first of all, I would like to state that the Sicilian Defense is not always aggressive. It depends on the line you play. Often, if White castles Queenside, the game becomes very sharp. However, if White castles Kingside, the game often becomes less sharp.

The biggest problem with the French Defence is the development of Black's White Squared Bishop. The French has either very sharp lines and less sharp lines, such as 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5, known as the Exchange Variation.

But in general, both openings can be really aggressive. You could take a look at:

For the Sicilian Defense:

Sicilian Defense, Dragon Variation, Yugoslav Attack

Sicilian Defense, Dragadorf Variation

Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation, English Attack

And for the French Defense:

French Defense, Winawer, Poisoned Pawn Variation.
French Defense, King's Indian Attack.

Again, I'm not sure what answer you're looking for, but I believe that these (aggressive) lines may be very helpful comparing them. Seeing games (especially of higher-rated players, such as GMs, makes the opening-ideas a lot more clear, so I suggest doing that.


What happened to Alexander Alekhine's family? Alexander Alekhine, the former World Chess Champion, came from a notable family in Russia. His father, Alexander Ivanovich, was apparently Privy Councilor to the Duma and a Marshal of the Nobility. Alekhine himself was imprisoned during the Revolution and narrowly avoided being executed. His brother Alexei, apparently survived as well, going on to be chess player and editor under the Soviets. What about the rest of his family? Did they survive the Revolution?

According to the Italian Wikipedia his father, Aleksandr Ivanovič Alechin, died in 1917, (so probably because of the revolution) and his mother, Anes'ja Ivanovna Alechina, died in 1915 in a clinic for mental illness. Alehkine's life during the revolution is not well known. Kotov's Alekhine biography should be a valuable source.


Average number of moves per game What are the average number of moves per game with regards to what opening has been played?

I wrote a simple PHP script which parses ELO codes and the corresponding number of moves from chess games in PGN files. This script will output the ELO code and number of moves into a CSV file. The averages can then easily be evaluated in Excel for example.

I ran my script on a PGN file with about 6000 games which I downloaded from The Week in Chess. You can view the result here:

Full size

If you want to evaluate millions of games, to get better averages, I suggest you use Pig script or some other scripting languages which can easily handle big chunks of data.


Why do high level players memorize specific games? Inspite of  having such a large number of possible positions and games why do  high level players bother about some specific game from some million years ago ? It may be helpful in understanding techniques and tactics but memorizing them seems very unusual. In fact memorizing games puts the person with more calculating ability at a disadvantage in time constrained games. Shouldn't the goal be to develop the chess aptitude rather than memorizing.

Memorization is mostly a side effect, not the end goal. Top players can spend hours or days analyzing a single game to try to understand all of the instructive ideas. Memorization naturally flows from that.


Karpov's Queen's Gambit beats Kasparov. What is Karpov thinking? A lifelong 1.e4 player switching to 1.d4, naïvely, I see little White can do to stop Black from achieving what seems to be an excellent position.  For example, from Karpov v. Kasparov, World Championship, 1984:

[fen ""]
[title "Tarrasch Defense, Carlsbad Variation, Black to move"]
[startply "17"]
[startflipped "0"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.cxd5 exd5 5.g3 Nf6 6.Bg2 Be7 7.O-O O-O 8.Nc3 Nc6 9.Bg5 cxd4 10.Nxd4 h6 11.Be3 Re8 12.Qb3 Na5 13.Qc2 Bg4 14.Nf5 Rc8 15.Bd4 Bc5 16.Bxc5 Rxc5 17.Ne3 Be6 18.Rad1 Qc8 19.Qa4 Rd8 20.Rd3 a6 21.Rfd1 Nc4 22.Nxc4 Rxc4 23.Qa5 Rc5 24.Qb6 Rd7 25.Rd4 Qc7 26.Qxc7 Rdxc7 27.h3 h5 28.a3 g6 29.e3 Kg7 30.Kh2 Rc4 31.Bf3 b5 32.Kg2 R7c5 33.Rxc4 Rxc4 34.Rd4 Kf8 35.Be2 Rxd4 36.exd4 Ke7 37.Na2 Bc8 38.Nb4 Kd6 39.f3 Ng8 40.h4 Nh6 41.Kf2 Nf5 42.Nc2 f6 43.Bd3 g5 44.Bxf5 Bxf5 45.Ne3 Bb1 46.b4 gxh4 47.Ng2 hxg3 48.Kxg3 Ke6 49.Nf4+ Kf5 50.Nxh5 Ke6 51.Nf4+ Kd6 52.Kg4 Bc2 53.Kh5 Bd1 54.Kg6 Ke7 55.Nxd5+ Ke6 56.Nc7+ Kd7 57.Nxa6 Bxf3 58.Kxf6 Kd6 59.Kf5 Kd5 60.Kf4 Bh1 61.Ke3 Kc4 62.Nc5 Bc6 63.Nd3 Bg2 64.Ne5+ Kc3 65.Ng6 Kc4 66.Ne7 Bb7 67.Nf5 Bg2 68.Nd6+ Kb3 69.Nxb5 Ka4 70.Nd6 1-0

And yet, in this game, White wins—against Kasparov, no less.

THAT KASPAROV LOOKS BETTER

Karpov, playing the white men, evidently grasps the virtue of 1.d4. I do not. Kasparov's defense looks sound to me. After only eight moves, Kasparov seems to have equalized. Indeed, insofar as Kasparov has the move, to me, if anything, Kasparov looks better.

Kasparov seems to have gained the initiative, at any rate. Karpov has let him gain it.

WHAT KARPOV IS THINKING

My question is not, "How does Karpov win?" A world champion like Karpov can surely win many games I could not.

My question is, "What is Karpov thinking?"

I ask because the diagrammed position (after 9. Bg5) does not look to me especially good for White; and because, to the extent to which the position is indeed not very good, I can fault no white move more than 1.d4.

Can you?

BAD PAWNS

I do notice that, soon after the diagrammed position, Kasparov, Black, suffers an isolated d-pawn; but I also notice that Karpov, White, is then left to blockade his own e-pawn. Again, is not 1.d4 to blame?

Apparently, a concept regarding 1.d4 is missing to me.  To me, after only eight moves, White should be doing better than this.  And yet, playing White, Karpov nevertheless wins the game. Can you illuminate my naïve point of confusion?

If I am a lifelong 1.e4 player switching to 1.d4, then I would like to understand why one should wish to begin with such a potentially problematical move. At least, I would like to understand why one should, in the context of games like this one.

The position after move 9 is the main tabya of the Tarrasch defense. Your feeling that Black is better, or even that he has egalized, is imprecise : White has no weakness, active pieces, and Black's isolani is a long term target. The position is playable for both sides, its evaluation somewhere in between = and +=.

Actually, Kasparov himself stopped playing the Tarrasch after this world championship match ! But of course, this says more about his taste and style than about the quality of the opening itself: others, like Illescas, have made great use of this variation since.

If you want to dig further into the theory of this opening, there are lots of books and DVD on the theme. But I think you will do better to first get familiar with typical 1.d4 games. This Karpov-Kasparov game is an excellent one, and you can easily find it with comments by each of the players (in My Sister Caissa by Karpov or in Dua Matcha and My Great Predecessors : Karpov by Kasparov, also in Kasparov by Nikitin). Analysing commented games is the best way to develop your understanding of an opening and to get a feeling for your new repertoire.


Software to create FEN notation? I am new to FEN notation. I understand its importance for describing position of pieces on board. I also understand FEN notations after reading about it in Wikipedia. However, it is a time taking procedure to write it down manually. I am looking for a software or web site, which allows me to place the pieces on the board, and then create FEN notation automatically.

I am looking for a software or web site, which allows me to place the pieces on the board, and then create FEN notation automatically.

I personally use this site for that.

It is free, and it is an online tool.

REMARKS:

If you wish to put that FEN in our diagram you paste that code like this:

Press space bar 4 times;
Type square brackets ( [] );
Type fen "" inside the brackets ( [fen ""] );
Paste your code inside the "" ( [fen "Your FEN goes here"] );

If you decide to input variations you need to do this:

Press enter twice;
Press space bar 4 times;
Input moves;

Here is an example:

If you have further question leave a comment and I will help you. Also read this thread.

END OF REMARKS

Hopefully this answer helps you.

Best regards.


Tournament Management and Conducting Web App Does anyone know about a web based app to conduct and manage chess tournament all online? I have a web server to host but we need to conduct it for our locality with around 300 people participating to enhance our lock-down period.
If it is opensource it is very nice, but if it is free it is more than enough i guess? Any suggestions please?

Did you already see lichess.org? This website has great tournament functionality. E.g. you can start a swiss tournament and add the participants by making them part of a team. Hence there will be no outsiders present.
Hope this helps :)


Minimum sets of pieces required for checkmate? What are the minimum sets of pieces required for checkmate when the opponent has no other piece that the king?

King + Bishop + Knight
King + Bishop + Bishop
King + Rook
King + Queen
and don't forget the unlikely King + Knight + Knight + Knight

Assuming the lone King is attempting to avoid checkmate.


Is my low blitz game drawing rate at www.chess.com an indicator that I am weak in chess? I have played 630 blitz game at chess.com and only 10.3% of my games are draw; see the diagram.

When I play black, my drawing rate is slightly higher than my drawing rate playing white. This is likely because that psychologically I am more content with a draw when I am playing black.

I understand that usually blitz games have relatively lower drawing rates. But in World Blitz Chess Championship 2009, 26.41% of the games are draws and my blitz drawing rate at chess.com is not even half of this rate.

Here is my question: Is my low blitz drawing rate an indicator that I am a relatively weaker player, or is it due to my playing style, or both? What can I do to naturally improve my blitz game drawing rate (so it looks more like top or professional players)? Here I am not interested in purposefully requesting a draw in a winning position; instead, I would seek advice on how to keep playing naturally while end up with a much higher drawing rate.

Edit Statistically I have observed that relatively stronger players usually have higher drawing rates than relatively weaker players. When I play online blitz games, I fe

At chess.com my blitz rating is around 1500.
I usually like to offer draw or accept draw offer or force draw with perpetual check when the position seems even or unclear to me and when I do not observe any tactical opportunities (even when there still several pieces on the board), especially when my opponent has higher rating than me, or I am playing black, or both. Sometimes I offer draw when I play with a much stronger player and I have some advantage at the opening stage. (Since my opponent is stronger, it is not easy for me to win the game with the advantage and thus I am happy with a draw.)

Edit:

After eight months, I have successfully increased my drawing rate from 10.3% to 14.5%. As my blitz drawing rate is increasing, my rating has also increased from around 1500 to around 1600. For my recent six games (five opponents have higher rating than mine), I managed to draw five of them and only lost one.

10% is a high drawing rate for online blitz - I am drawish in classical games and an FM and have 6.6% draw rate on chess.com 3 minutes.
I would suggest you use your rating as the indicator for playing strength - that is it's only purpose and it is fairly objective.

I also wouldn't worry about adjectives like "weak" - it's all very relative.
Chess is fun. Improving is also fun - by all means work hard on your chess just not so that you won't be "weak". I am "weak" to lots of players and I am an FM.


Searching Deep Fritz 14 Database So I just got Deep Fritz 14. This is my first "real chess program." I know Deep Fritz probably wasn't the best choice for a first program, but it's what I got. I've been trying to learn how to use it by just poking around and testing things out. By doing this, I found the game database. I thought it might be a great way to study games of famous (or not so famous) players to improve my own skills. However, there seems to be no way to search through the database for a particular player or opening. Can someone tell me how to do this?

Also, probably best for another question, but can someone link some tutorials to Deep Fritz 14?

You can see help menu for user manual. Or you can see this link for a more detailed manual, written for Fritz 13, but there is no difference at all. Engines are changing but GUIs are almost the same.


Do any openings result in a lost game for black? Based on this comment I'd like to know which openings, if any, are considered unplayable (i.e. lost) for black? My own understanding is that in some opening lines it's harder for black to equalise, but are there any that are completely lost, assuming that white plays perfectly?

Your question is somewhat hard to answer, because it depends on what you consider "an opening" to be.

Obviously, there are openings where black loses -- consider the typical Scholar's Mate, 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qxf7#.

But, you will probably think, nobody with any knowledge of the game will play like that! And that's reasonable. But it is an opening, isn't it?

And if you mean "are there any commonly played, theoretical openings where Black loses?" then there are very few indeed -- after all, why would black play such an opening? Once some line is refuted, almost everybody stops playing it.

Katerina said:

  Ultimately, a lot of openings in chess will result in black losing, if both players play perfectly. It might not be your fault, just that black starts off one tempo behind.

I don't agree with that at all. Chess is considered by most people to be a draw at best play, and commonly played openings aren't losing. They may be slightly worse, but that's not the same as losing, not even with perfect play -- it just means that black will have to defend most of the game without much chance of winning himself.


Looking for a Horrible-by-design chess engine friends...

I am looking for a really-bad-by-design chess engine, compatible with Arena chess GUI... Not just lowering engine power...
I have tried lowering Stockfish's power, and it didn't suit my needs, so, I am looking for a weak one!

Thanks in advance!

You have a whole list at http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

If you're looking for a weak engine, I'd suggest:

Predateur 2.2 64-bit
MicroMax
CupCake
BikJump

I know those four engines work and run smoothly, although they're quite weak (which is exactly what you want!). Any Elo 2000 rated human player can trash them easily.

__ My Recommendation __

If your engine can't even beat the lowest Stockfish level, maybe it'd be a better idea to focus on your engine, such as adding easy technqiues like null-move pruning. As an average human player, I can consistently beat the lowest Stockfish level, it plays around 1500-1600 level. Even the engines I mentioned might be too strong for you.


Tournament strategy to gain maximum points My question may seem a little odd. But, nevertheless:

Planning to play in the tournament. 15 + 0 Swiss system. There will be players from beginner to CM.
What do you consider best openings to confuse players, set up traps against beginners and chess masters?

And can you suggest best strategy to play in this kind of tournament?

My rating is something like 1600-1700.

I find dfan's answer the best posted, but I want to add a few things that I think should be considered:

Against players signifigantly weaker than you - PLAY SOLID CHESS! These players will unwittingly outplay themselves if you let them. You have to be patient, and not give them any chances to actually get anything sharp going. Just hoist them up gently after they've tied the noose around their neck.
Against players roughly at the same level as you (1600-1700), offbeat openings may actually give you an edge, if you're familiar with them. But don't try to play something unsound just to confuse your opponent. Remember that you cannot expect the game to be over just because you got out of the opening with an advantage. And focus on playing well - the game will most likely be decided by who was more tactically alert.
Against strong players, you should only be happy after you've won the game, and not because you won a pawn/piece in the opening. These players are greedy (and strong) enough to rip off your arm if you lend them a finger, so do not relax, even if you have a great position. Also, try to decide the game before the endgame if possible. A CM will most likely outplay you in an equal endgame, so go for "high-risk-high-reward" openings, since anybody can make fatal mistakes in sharp positions. Avoid slow, positional setups. Be prepared that these players will do to you what you should do against the weaker players. They will not be as easy to fool with uncommon setups as the others, and even if they are fooled, it may not be enough.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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