Why does 6.Bg5 prevent 6...e5 in the Sicilian Najdorf? In Gufeld's book, after 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5!,

[FEN ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5!

he writes: "In this way White solves three problems: he prevents  ...e5, " but he shows nothing to support the statement.  Why is ...e5  so bad for black?
Gerard

The lines presented below are from the Chess Informant ECO 1984, but I doubt the assessments have changed since:

[fen ""]
[White "Sicilian defense"]
[Black "Najdorf variation"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e5?! 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 ( 7...gxf6 8.Nf5! Bxf5 9.exf5+/- ) 8.Nd5 Qd8 9.Nf5 Bxf5 ( 9...Be6 10.Bc4 Nd7 11.O-O Rc8 12.Bb3 Nc5 13.Qf3 Nxb3 14.Qxb3 Rc5 15.Rad1 Rb5 16.Qg3!+/- ) 10.exf5 Be7 11.c4+/-

Although my edition of the ECO is old, I doubt anything has changed here.

In the main line Black has no counter-play-his only plan of attack-b5 is useless as White will take with the bishop thus eliminating every Black's counter-play.

White has strong grip on the light squares, and presence of the bishops of the opposite color increases his advantage-remember this rule:

Presence of the opposite colored bishops favors the side with the initiative. Although they may end up as a draw in the endgame, in the middle-game side that has an attack usually wins.

In the first sideline, Black tried to generate some counter-play with f5 but White's Qh5 keeps advantage. If Black continues with passive play then White keeps advantage due to the initiative and presence of the opposite colored bishops.

Black's last sideline features Be6 trying to ignore Whites plan, but we see that White develops strong pressure again.

I am not an 1.e4 player, so I was unable to find more concrete lines but these illustrate well enough why e5 is dubious move for Black. If you need better coverage then try to find some repertoire books-at this point I can not recommend any.

Best regards.

EDIT IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENTS:

In comments, it was suggested that 7...gxf6 is playable, by applying the ideas from the Sveshnikov sicilian.

I am not an e4 player but let me try to explain why the above is not true.

First, let us see what the actual plans behind the Sveshnikov are. In order to preserve space and provide minimal yet sufficient info, I will quote Wikipedia article:

  8...b5! was Sveshnikov's innovation, controlling c4 and threatening
  ...b4 forking White's knights. Previously, Black played 8...Be6 (the
  Bird Variation), which allowed the a3-knight to return to life with
  9.Nc4.

These are the compensations Black gets, which are important to mention here, that eventually help him equalize:

  White's powerful knight on d5 and Black's shattered kingside pawn
  structure are compensated by Black's bishop pair and White's offside
  knight on a3. Also, Black has the plan of playing 10...f5, followed by
  ...fxe4 and ...f5 with the second f-pawn, which would give them good
  control of the centre. An alternative plan is to play 10...Bg7
  followed by ...Ne7 to immediately trade off White's powerful knight;

OK, this is enough for us to see why the line in the OP is bad for Black. Before we continue let us do a quick summary for the Sveshnikov:

White has horrible knight on a3 that Black harrasses with ...b5. This move prevents Nc4 and Bc4, indirectly fighting for the light squares and giving Black time to finish development/organize counterplay, since White is forced to reposition Na3 to a better square (not to mention Black threatens to win a piece by forking the knights with ...b4).
Black has bishop pair, which is good asset for the endgame
Black can destroy White center and establish himself there, with moves ...f5 + fxe4 + f5

[Title "Black to move"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "rn1qkb1r/1p3p1p/p2p1p2/4pP2/8/2N5/PPP2PPP/R2QKB1R b KQkq - 0 1"]

In the above position the only thing identical to the Sveshnikov is the Black pawn structure with everything else different, and that matters as we shall see!

White has no Na3 which means that thematic ...b5 simply wastes a tempo and has no real strength as in Sveshnikov.
Without Na3 and ...b5, White really has no coordination problems (no fork threats, all of white pieces are idealy placed) as in Sveshnikov, which makes his development and slight space advantage more dangerous.
Black has no way to establish central dominance as in Sveshnikov, because ...f5 + fxe4 + f5 plan is stopped by White pawn on f5
Black has no bishop pair, as in Sveshnikov
Black can not play d5, because he is late with ...Nc6 + Ne7, which leaves Bf8 passive since d6 + e5 chain is hindering him
Black will have problems finding safe place for the king
Black queenside play with ...b5 + Rc8 is weak, it lacks the effect it has in other lines of the Sicilian
White has no weaknesses, apart from f5 pawn, which can be sacrificed in some lines but also easily defended as well

White can find an effective plan here, simple computer analysis will do. I have no access to an engine here, but I believe that g3 + Bg2 plan is very strong here. White can attack everywhere. Any minor piece duel is advantageous for White ( Nc3 vs Bf8, Bf1 vs Bf8 if heavy pieces stay on the board which is very likely, Bf1 vs Nb8, even Nc3 vs Nb8). White also has advantage in heavy pieces only middlegames. White has better pawn structure and faster development.

Meanwhile, Black's only good piece could be Nb8, because it can swiftly go to d4. Still, White can consider exchange sacrifice and still end up better! Black really has nothing to attack, nor we can envision any plan that achieves any meaningful, long-term counterplay.

To conclude, after ...gxf6 Black gets worse version of the Sveshnikov, painful "fight-for-a-draw" position without any counterplay.


How does one analyse openings judged dubious by engines? I have recently picked up the Norwegian Defense (also known as Northsea Defense), 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6.
All modern engines claim it is not good. But I have great results (14W-1D-5L in 15+10 on 2000 Lichess rating) with it and I am seriously considering adding it to my repertoire, so I would like to do some preparation work, look for critical positions where I would have to know an exact move or a plan to justify my opening.
First I have looked at games in the Lichess database. I was very surprised by Black scores in some of the variations. For example
[fen ""]
1. e4 g6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 d5 4. e5 Ne4 5. Nxe4 dxe4

scores 55% for Black in 2000+ rapid and classical on Lichess.
I have also looked at the Master database.
I have noted that the character of the game is mainly set within 5 moves by White and gathered some common resulting positions. From there I wanted to work further, so I looked at master games more indepth.
Some are clearly surprised by the opening and choose a timid way to play and Black equalises before move 10. In the more critical tries White keeps the advantage for several more moves, but then lets it go or even slips into a disadvantage. Also, the games where both sides offer resistance are very rare. Very often on move 7 there are 2-4 games.
Following engine lines and picking up moves that were missed is rarely helpful, as the engine of course will mercilessly squeeze the position with inhuman precision and will disarm any initiative without effort, making any active attempts seem futile. Sometimes I do not see why White is better, so I follow the line into endgames that are slightly better, but probably considered equal at sub-master level.
Of course I analyse my own games, but the opponents crumble surprisingly fast once on their own, so the opening does not really get tested much in my own games.
So, how would one proceed to prepare in unorthodox openings apart from learning by his own games?

Forget the engines. We are humans (hopefully) and are only interested in how human's play.
The King's Indian Defence (KID), a favorite opening of Tal, Fischer and Kasparov (and now played by Nakamura), has a reputation of being unsound by the engines (some positions are +1 and even +1.5) however for white playing precisely is very difficult.
For instance, the Mar del Plata Variation
[fen ""]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7

Stockfish evaluates it to be +1 at a depth of 40.
Simple advice for practical play is to ignore the engine evaluation and focus on the fundamentals in the opening (in the order):

Exert pressure over the center (either classical or hyper-modern way)
Develop minor pieces
King safety
Connect the rooks while developing the queen

Needless to say always look out for short tactics as you follow the above and also try to have all your pieces coordinated.


How do I create multiple move output I have an old Chessbase Light with Fritz 4. Fritz displays the best 5 moves. Is there any way to make Arena 3.5 display the 5 best moves, instead of the single move output. Thanks.

I don't have Chessbase 2009 software, which is what I think you're showing, but your answer did inspire me to look deeper into the issue.

I did find that with Arena 3.5:

1) right click with the mouse in the engine analysis box area.
2) left click the first option, Configure Rybka (or whatever engine you are using).
3) set MultiPV to 5.


Are computers destroying chess? These days I have been watching the candidates tournament, and I couldn't avoid noticing that players are reeling/scared of computer home preparation "a little bit too much".

For example:

1) In the game Anand vs Kramnik (round 4), Kramnik at the move 22 just played the "incredible" move Nd4 (home computer preparation), giving the Knight for "free" without any apparent compensation, four moves later we end up understanding  that Nd4 just forces a draw:

[FEN ""]
[Event "FIDE Candidates 2014"]
[Site "Khanty-Mansiysk RUS"]
[Date "2014.03.17"]
[Round "4.2"]
[White "Anand, Viswanathan"]
[Black "Kramnik, Vladimir"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteTitle "GM"]
[BlackTitle "GM"]
[WhiteElo "2770"]
[BlackElo "2787"]
[ECO "D37"]
[Opening "QGD"]
[Variation "4.Nf3"]
[WhiteFideId "5000017"]
[BlackFideId "4101588"]
[EventDate "2014.03.13"]
[StartPly "43"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 dxc4 5. e4 Bb4 6. Bg5 c5 7. Bxc4 cxd4 8. Nxd4 Bxc3+ 9. bxc3 Qa5 10. Bb5+ Nbd7 11. Bxf6 Qxc3+ 12. Kf1 gxf6 13. h4 a6 14. Rh3 Qb4 15. Be2 Ne5 16. h5 Qd6 17. Qd2 Nc6 18. Rd3 Qh2 19. f4 Rg8 20. Bf3 Bd7 21. Ne2 Qh1+ 22. Ng1 Nd4 23. Rxd4 Bb5+ 24. Kf2 Qh4+ 25. Ke3 e5 26. fxe5 Qg5+ 27. Kf2 Qg3+ 28. Ke3 Qg5+ 29. Kf2 Qg3+ 30. Ke3 Qg5+ 1/2-1/2

2) Topalov vs Kramnik (round 6). Kramnik at the end of the game, in the press conference, was "whining" that he lost the game because Topalov had prepared all in home with a computer, almost like suggesting that he lost to a computer:

[FEN ""]
[Event "FIDE Candidates 2014"]
[Site "Khanty-Mansiysk RUS"]
[Date "2014.03.19"]
[Round "6.1"]
[White "Topalov, Veselin"]
[Black "Kramnik, Vladimir"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteTitle "GM"]
[BlackTitle "GM"]
[WhiteElo "2785"]
[BlackElo "2787"]
[ECO "D37"]
[Opening "QGD"]
[Variation "classical variation (5.Bf4)"]
[WhiteFideId "2900084"]
[BlackFideId "4101588"]
[EventDate "2014.03.13"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bf4 O-O 6. e3 Nbd7 7. c5 Nh5 8. Be5
c6 9. Bd3 g6 10. h4 f5 11. Bh2 b6 12. b4 f4 13. O-O a5 14. b5 bxc5 15. bxc6 Nb8
16. Bb5 Ba6 17. a4 Qc8 18. dxc5 Nxc6 19. Nxd5 exd5 20. Qxd5+ Kh8 21. Qxc6 Qxc6
22. Bxc6 Rac8 23. Bb5 Bxb5 24. axb5 Bxc5 25. Rxa5 fxe3 26. fxe3 Bxe3+ 27. Kh1
Rc2 28. Rb1 Rfc8 29. Raa1 Bb6 30. Be5+ Kg8 31. Ra6 Be3 32. b6 Rc1+ 33. Rxc1
Rxc1+ 34. Kh2 Rb1 35. g4 Bf4+ 36. Kg2 Bxe5 37. Nxe5 Nf4+ 38. Kf3 Ne6 39. b7 Rb3+
40. Kf2 Rb2+ 41. Ke3 1-0

So, looks like nowadays high-level chess players have to take in consideration when analyzing variations during the game, that some of that variations may be had been analyzed beforehand by his opponent with the help of the computer.

For a fan o chess as I, this computer home preparation takes all the fun of the game, because when for example Tal sacrificed a piece, was awesome because he had to think about it over the board, or at least it was human home preparation. Nowadays, if a player sacrifices a piece on the opening, people will most likely thing that this sacrifice was home computer preparation, so it is not awesome anymore. Looks like the game is becoming more about memorizing sequences of moves.

My question is:

It is true the engines have level up the game, but can we also conclude that engines at a certain level are destroying the human cognitive process or figuring out moves by them selfs over the board (mainly at opening phase)?

How can someone play the game in a way that he can avoid computer home preparation?

Thanks.

My short answer: no, computers are not destroying chess. And now here comes a really long version ...

Your first question:

  It is true the engines have level up the game, but can we also conclude that engines at a certain level are destroying the human cognitive process of figuring out moves by themselves over the board (mainly at opening phase)?

As indicated above, in a word, I'd say no. In more words, I don't think there's anything particular to engines about the phenomenon you describe, and the "problem" of preparation, to whatever degree it exists, is really just about the single, well-analyzed starting position of chess. Chess960 (as alluded to in Fischer's earlier answer) tries to address that latter concern, as did things like Capablanca Chess well before that. When Capablanca thought that chess theory was all played out already in the 1920s, it certainly wasn't because of the chess engines of his day (and he also happened to be quite premature in his assessment).

Yes, engines raise the quality of players' home preparation these days and can do a lot of heavy lifting, but still the engines are just tools which strong players use to aid their creative opening endeavors. Consider this: even if you were to have as fantastic a chess memory as, say, Kramnik, so that you could efficiently memorize a ton of engine-aided preparation, if you don't also have Kramnik's all-around understanding of the game and what to aim for out of the opening, the preparation he has memorized will far outshine yours, not necessarily in the quality of the individual moves, but certainly as regards the body of lines he has chosen to learn. (And of course, there will still basically always come a point in the game where the preparation is left, and Kramnik will certainly start crushing you then.) Some players are stronger than others, and that sort of strength still applies to engine-aided preparation.

Again, there is nothing special about engines here. The same was true of preparation in eras where it was aided only by books and periodicals; then too games were sometimes won simply from superior opening preparation. Here is a game from 1935 in which Botvinnik does just that, and which GM Kavalek references in a recent article on the sixth world champion:

[fen ""]
[White "Mikhail Botvinnik"]
[Black "Rudolf Spielmann"]
[Event "Moscow 1935"]

1.c4 c6 2.e4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 Qb6?! 7.cxd5! Qxb2? 8.Rc1! Nb4 9.Na4 Qxa2 10.Bc4 Bg4 11.Nf3 Bxf3 12.gxf3 1-0

As Kavalek notes, Spielmann had played the white side of this line up through move 6 the previous year, though in that game he played the weaker response 7.c5?!:

  [The aggressive move 6...Qb6?!] was recommended by the Czech master Karel Opocensky in his chess column in Narodni politika and it was used for the first time by Josef Rejfir against Spielmann in Maribor 1934. 'Surprising and good,' wrote Rejfir in Ceskoslovensky Sach 8-9/1934 about Opocensky's invention. The Wiener Schachzeitung called it the Prague variation.

So Spielmann was certainly familiar with this line when he chose to go into with the black pieces. But Botvinnik was also familiar with the earlier game, and he managed to analyze a bit deeper than had been done before, which netted him a win out of the opening. That sort of thing happened before engines, and sometimes happens with them today. Still, in the preparation itself, as well as playing the games once out of preparation of course, the skill and creativity that chess has always demanded is squarely on display.

Given what I've written above, my response to your other question is probably pretty predictable.

  How can someone play the game in a way that he can avoid computer home preparation?

Just try and end up in a line that your opponent hasn't analyzed. But again, I would stress that there is nothing particular to computer home preparation here; it's the same problem it has always been. If I'm Rudolf Spielmann, and I recently got burned by Botvinnik's home preparation (without engines of course), then if I want to avoid the same fate next time we play I need to try and steer the game to lines where Botvinnik won't have had the chance to out-analyze me ahead of time. Maybe I'll be successful, maybe I won't, but the challenge was the same in the era of books as it still is in the era of engines.


What is "Chronological Order" in chess? I have heard about "chronological order" in chess. But I don't know what it is exactly.

Can someone tell me what this is?

To be frank, chronological order is not really a chess thing as much as a general thing that is just defined by English.

In 40 years of playing, and reading (at my peak, I had 1800 chess books, and have read 300 cover to cover), that is the first time I have heard the term "chronological order" attempted to be used as a pure chess term.

So to be clear, what I am saying is that it is not a standard chess term, however, it is a common general English term (speaking as a native English speaker) that can be applied to chess or anything else. The person, who wrote that was just using common English lexicon, not common chess lexicon, and it does, indeed, mean "the order in time that you do things".

P.S. To back this up, I also just searched 615 digital chess books, and "chronological order" was found in 20 books, however, after looking at every one of them, and how it was used, it was just used to describe layouts of the material in the book....still not as a pure chess term.


Chess engines for analysing games Up untill now, I have used Rybka for analysis of my games.
What other chess engines have you used, and how helpful are they?

I am not interested in a list of chess engines with their respective websites, the name of an engine you have just heard of. I want a fact-based review from someone who has used the engine mentioned in their answer for a long time, and found and helpful.

What I am looking for in the mentioned engine is to find a way to calculate the accuracy of the game:

How often the player was making good moves.
How often the advantage in the game was changing

Previously I saw such options in Rybka, but in my current version Rybka v4, I cannot see this option as available.

Many thanks to @ETD for a helping hand in giving a direction on what exactly I want in an answer.

I use Stockfish, and have found it useful for analysis largely because of its multipv support (I switched from Crafty a couple of years ago), and it being free. I feel it lacks EGTB support, so it's not up to par with Rybka in that respect, but haven't felt willing to shell out the money for Rybka yet, just for that feature. It sounds like it also might do a better job of reporting forced draws, but I haven't confirmed that myself.

I agree with Ed, you should give guidance on what you want to hear in your answers. Rybka is a fine analysis engine.


Has Anand missed that he is better? Anand vs Andreikin round 12 Candidates tournament I am looking at the Anand vs Andreikin round 12 Candidates tournament and I see that it ended in a draw and that based on engine evaluation Anand is much better (+ 2.8 is kind of huge). I also see that it is really a hard position and to be able to get advantage it requires you to sacrifice a rook basically for nothing (you will not get anything back in next moves). Anand proceeded with repetition thus drawing the game.

I know that the question is highly speculative and no one knows the answer except of Anand. But has he not seen that he is better, may be he was low on time, or something else? (I definitely has not seen it, and even from my first 3 minutes of analysis it looks like he is worse, but this is why I am not a GM :-) ).

A more appropriate question will be about normal analysis of the position.

Here is the mentioned game:

[White "Anand"]
[Black "Andreikin"]
[Event "Candidates tournament 2014 ( round 12 )"]
[fen ""]

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 e6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 Nd7 11.f4 Bb4+ 12.c3 Be7 13.Bd2 Ngf6 14.O-O-O O-O 15.Qf3 Qc7 16.c4 a5 17.Kb1 Rad8 18.Bc1 a4 19.Rhe1 a3 20.b3 Bb4 21.Re3 c5 22.d5 exd5 23.cxd5 Nb6 24.Red3 Qc8 25.d6 Rfe8 26.Nh5 Re6 27.Nxf6 Rxf6 28.d7 Qc7 29.Qg4 c4 30.Rg3 g6 31.h5 cxb3 32.Rxb3 Na4 33.hxg6 fxg6 34.Rxb4 Nc3+ 35.Kc2 b5 36.Kb3 Na4 37.Qf3 Nc5+ 38.Kc2 Na4+ 39.Kb3 Nc5+ 40.Kc2 Na4+ 41.Kb3 1/2-1/2

I watched the press conference. It starts at the 4 hr 13 minute mark in this video.
Some quotes from Anand-

"I should play Kd2."
"I suspect White is better"
"but my head was spinning"
"I decided not to tempt fate."
"I was already very tired. The game had taken a lot of energy. I didn't see anything terribly clear. White still has to defend for another 4-5 moves..."

To summarize: Anand was quite tired and although he suspected his position to be better, he didn't see anything concrete for White. In the press conference he mentioned that he saw that Black's pieces would be well co-ordinated while White's would not be so harmoniously placed for the next few moves. Therefore, he decided not to take a risk and go for the draw.
So Anand didn't miss that he is better, but other factors influenced his decision to take the draw.


How is "fianchetto" really pronounced? I have heard "fianchetto" for four decades now, and I have always pronounced it "fēənˈCHetō", but I have heard many people also pronounce it "fēənˈketō".

It is of Italian origin, so I am wondering if there are any Italians out there, especially natives, or anyone really, who can tell me what is the true, and proper, pronunciation.

While I'm not sure exactly how "fēənˈketō" would be pronounced (I'm not a native English speaker), that's more correct as to the pronunciation of the "ch" (following the Italian pronunciation).

The pronunciation written in English would be something like fee-ahn-keh-toh, with the accent on the third syllable (keh).

I just found this website in which there are actual recordings of italian (I hope) people pronouncing it. It sounds pretty good to me.


Am I allowed to do a checkmate and win the game in this situation? I am playing with whites. Currently my queen is at c7 and it's my turn. If I move my queen to d8 and declare check on the king, is this also a check-mate?

sorry for the seemingly noobish question, but I am not sure and all resources that I looked up did not provide me with a definitive answer.

[Title "White to move"]
[fen "r1b1kb1r/ppQp1ppp/2n2n2/8/1q6/4P3/P1PP1PPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

No, it is not checkmate, because your opponent can capture your queen with either the knight on c6 or the king on e8.

Checkmate occurs when you give a check to your opponent and your opponent cannot either move the king out of check or capture the piece that is giving the check or block the check my interposing another piece between the checking piece and the king.

So, in this case -

[FEN "r1b1kb1r/ppQp1ppp/2n2n2/8/1q6/4P3/P1PP1PPP/RNB1KBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.Qd8+ Kxd8 (1...Nxd8)

There is no checkmate.

Consider this hypothetical position. In this case, it would be a checkmate -

[FEN "r1b1kb1r/1pQp1ppp/pB3n2n2/8/1q6/4P3/P1PP1PPP/RN2KBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. Qd8#

Here, the enemy king cannot move out of check. The piece that is giving the check (i.e. the queen) cannot be captured by the black king, because it is supported by the bishop on b6. There is also no way to interpose a piece between the queen and the king because they are right next to each other.


Is this a draw despite the Stockfish evaluation of −5? I reached this position as Black:
[Title "Black to move"]
[FEN "8/8/8/3q4/6kp/7R/6P1/6K1 b - - 3 46"]

And I felt that I cannot make any progress and so it feels like a draw. However, Stockfish evaluates it as −5.1, though it also seems to be unable to get anywhere. So is this actually a draw, or is there some obscure line of play that Stockfish has missed as well?

This is a fortress and a draw.
The black king can't advance as the rook, shuffling between h3 and f3, prevents it.  The only way to break the fortress is to trade the queen for the rook and pawn, but the resulting endgame is still a draw.


What is the best defense against Marshall Attack? I have usually found the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez to be very potent and very hard to counter.

[fen ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5

Are there any proven defensive lines or variations to use against this?
Just point me in the right direction, please.

A huge amount of theory has just been discovered in the Marshall Attack (I'm assuming you mean the line in the Ruy Lopez). However, this variation has recently fallen out of practice among top level GMs because white has been hard-pressed to find decent replies to the most critical lines. Basically, I would recommend playing one of the anti-Marshall games (8. h3 has been popular) unless you want to spend days studying opening theory to reach a suspect position with white.

Wikipedia has an article on the Marshall attack which is worth reading.


Who was A. Karu? (played Paul Keres) The first game in Paul Keres' book "The Complete Games of Paul Keres" is a correspondence game against "A. Karu" who is otherwise unidentified. I could find no entry for him in Chess Personalia by Jeremy Gaige.

Who was he?

According to 365chess.com, Aivi Karu was a female player from Estonia.

She has 12 games logged, including those with Keres, and scored 20.83%. In fairness, she played against highly rated players (elo's above 2000), so my guess is that she was an amateur player who played some correspondence, training games and open tournaments where she was inevitably mismatched.


Out of theory pgns collection Looking for pgn files that end in taking the most popular openings out of theory.

Something like
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. a3

Where I can practice them in chessable.com

Since the question is about Chessable, I thought I'd pitch in :) If you use Chessable's Explorer Tool you will be able to navigate to a position such as

d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6

and then see which options are available to you and their win rate.

For instance 3. a3 scores 36% W, 22% D, 42% B, so if you are White, you can see it would not be a good opening to pick.

By browsing like this, you can find good options and add them to your repertoire and try to avoid complex theory. You can also turn the engine on that page and check the lines with the Engine for possible continuations.

However, in my opinion, if you want to play out of theory the best thing is to pick some openings that are known for their relative lack of theory and see if a complete book exists on it (free or otherwise). For instance, Fianchetto systems or the London System come to mind as ways to play where you can play without much theory.

As Black, I've had a Master play things like the Pirc/Modern against me where they "wait" on the third rank for you. They did not seem to be playing theory but rather just a standard set of moves (fianchetto a bishop, play e6, etc.). I had a better position but since they took me out of theory into murky waters, eventually their time advantage paid off, and I lost. Presumably, this is what you are trying to do? :)

Having said all that, this week we are releasing a new book by a renowned French chess coach that has relatively little theory and guides you to sound openings where your opponent can quickly get in trouble. So stay tuned and look out for it!


Can anyone give good primary resources on Deep Blue? I'm researching deep blue, but I want more info. Can anyone give good primary resources on Deep Blue?

One place to look is the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Some of the hardware is there (but it's not very interesting). More important, though, is that you can do a site search that gives a fairly long list of articles.


Bishop sacrifices to prevent castling I have neen playing a higher amount of online chess as opposed to club chess  lately and something I have noticed is a significant increase in Bishop sacrifices to prevent kingside castling. Here is an example.
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. O-O Bc5 5. Bxf7+

The above is probably the most common instance I have come across of this "tactic" being used..Is sacrificing the minor piece really worth it? Is there name for this tactic, eg "Fianchetto"?

Not worth it.
Tactic used by low rated players which might work against other low rated players but would fail to a halfway decent player.
Run the position through an engine of your choice and see what it says.
No official name but patzer fish rookie beginner could work.
Can not comment.
@David Bateman:  If those ratings are online then they are barely getting out of the beginner rating class.


Help me choose hardware configuration I am preparing to buy a new desktop computer.

I would like to use it for chess analysis with both StockFish and Lc0.

My budget is slightly above 2K euros.

QUESTIONS:

This is my first time choosing configuration for Lc0, so I do not know where to focus my attention.

Regarding StockFish, it should be simple? Just buff CPU + RAM and you are good to go?

Can you advise me, so I do not make a mistake during purchase (what are the things I should strive for, what to pay attention the most...)?

MY EFFORT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM:

After Googling a little, I believe that below configuration could suit me:

CPU = AMD-AM4 Ryzen 9 3950X (16 cores, 3.5 GHz)
MOBO = AMD-AM4 Asus TUF B450M-PLUS
RAM = KINGSTON DDR4 32GB 2666MHz HX426C16FB3/32 HyperX Fury Black MEM01669
GPU = Asus nVidia GeForce RTX 2070 ROG-STRIX-RTX2070-O8G-Gaming 8GB GDDR6
Hard Drive = SSD 480GB Kingston A400 SA400S37/480G
Computer Case = MS WINSTON gaming ATX
Power Supply = LC Power 650W LC6650 V2.3 + Bronze
OS = Windows 10 Home x64

The biggest things that stand out here is the power supply and hard drive. For the first, getting a cheap power supply tends to be a bad idea since if it breaks, it can bring down a lot of other stuff with it. 650W is plenty, but I'd recommend going with a more established brand like corsair or silverstone. For the hard drive, given that you can get a 1TB SSD for about $150, I would do so since it will mean you have plenty of room for a 6 man tablebase (syzygy).

Other than that, this should be a really good system for both leela and SF. If you want any help with optimal settings for lc0 performance, feel free to drop by the lc0 discord!


Chess Clock App that does not pause when put in the background? Hi StackExchange#Chess!

I am looking to track how much time I spent "working" and "not working". I would like to use a chess clock for this. When I go away from my desk, I hit the player 1's timer, and when I get back to work, I hit the player 2's timer.

I think I found some Android apps that could work nicely, but if I need to switch apps or lock the screen, they all pause. Is there any such app that runs in the background? I use Android

Thank you

I use pomello.

This isn't a timetracker really. It's more for those who practice the pomodoro technique. It tracks the number of pomodoros you can achieve while allowing you to also tag disruptions and keep you focused until your break. I picked this particular one because it's integrated with trello. The integration allows it to tag your work items with the number of pomodoros you've done on that work item.


Bishop and queen endgame from a computer chess game [FEN "8/6pk/p4b1p/2B5/P3q2P/6P1/5P2/3Q2K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Ba7 (1. h5)

This position happened in TCEC Season 15 Superfinal Stockfish vs Leela. In the game Stockfish played Ba7 and the game steered toward a draw , though in the end Stockfish won because a late Leela blunder. Can Stockfish win by force this ending? Crystal (7 man tablebases Stockfish , albeit with a slightly lesser depth) suggested h5. I am unable to analyze it with the modest instrument I have. May someone telling me if it is winnable by White , and , in case , with what move, please?

Queen endings are among the most difficult.
We usually say "win by force" when there's a definite winning line. You're asking if White is certain to win, not at all certain.
A human player would look first to winning the  queenside pawn and then with an advantage on both wings, many chances to win. But while that pawn sits on a black square White can't coordinate force against it.
And I don't think White can try for a kingside initiative while the a-pawn has to be tended to. White doesn't want to move it to a5, where it's fixed and can be coordinated against, and it's always exposed to threats on a4.


What do these game durations mean? There are different game duration on chess.com. What do options 1|1, 2|1 etc. mean?

For example 3|2 means each player starts with 3 minutes and gets 2 seconds added to the clock for making a move (this is called an "increment").
When there is no "|", you do not get any time for making a move, and each player gets the displayed time in minutes at the start of the game.
Another notation you might see uses a "+", for example 3+2.


Has the Soviet movie "Grandmaster" ever been translated into English? I am looking for audio or subtitle English translation of this 1973 movie by director Sergey Mikaelyan. Does anyone know if that is available anywhere?

No, there are no translations that I have found.

IMDB only lists the Russian and Polish versions. Soviet Movies Online hasn't translated it.


Which are better of these two pairs Which give me more advantage two Knights or two Bishops ?. And what should I choose two Rooks or a Queen ?

Read the article "Evaluation of Material Imbalances" by GM Larry Kaufman:
The Evaluation of Material Imbalances.

He says about the bishop pair:

  The bishop pair has an average value of half a pawn (more when the
  opponent has no minor pieces to exchange for one of the bishops),
  enough to regard it as part of the material evaluation of the
  position, and enough to overwhelm most positional considerations.
  Moreover, this substantial bishop pair value holds up in all
  situations tested, regardless of what else is on the board. This large
  a bishop pair value is surprising because in the opening grandmasters
  will often give up the bishop pair to double the opponent's pawns or
  to gain a mild lead in development, factors which are generally not
  worth half a pawn [DH: Since at the very start of the game a tempo is
  worth roughly a third of a pawn - and more later! - it is worth losing
  a tempo to save the bishop pair, but if you can gain two tempo by
  giving up the bishop pair that may be worth it in the short run!]

Later, queen vs. two rooks:

  Although many authors talk about queen and pawn equaling two rooks,
  this is only close to true with no minor pieces on the board; with two
  or more minors each, the queen needs no pawns to equal the rooks. I
  recall a famous Portisch-Fischer game in which Portisch "won" two
  rooks for Fischer's queen right out of the opening, but Fischer soon
  won a weak pawn and went on to win rather easily, despite the nominal
  point equality. In fact Fischer's annotations severely criticized
  Portisch for making the trade; Fischer understood very well that with
  lots of material on the board, the queen is every bit as good as the
  rooks, so once he won a pawn he was effectively a full pawn ahead.

His basic tables of values is:

Pawn = 1
Bishop pair = +½
Rook =  5
Bishop = 3¼
Knight =  3¼
Queen =  9¾


Based on their separate and mutual records, what chance does Karjakin have against Carlsen? I was slightly disappointed with the recent result at the Candidates.

Karjakin won, but I just don't think he can match Carlsen for the WCh title.

What is the most accurate prediction of the probability of Karjakin being victorious over Carlsen this November? (I.e. the prediction that takes the most relevant data into consideration.)

One of the Russians (Filatov?, maybe even Karjakin himself?) brown-nosed to the media that every match is 50-50 odds on the face of it...

But more seriously, Carlsen's rating has consistently been 2850 plus/minus a small amount (20) for some time now, while Karjakin has been more volatile, currently 2775 (near his career best 2788 of July 2011). So I think a 75 Elo advantage in raw strength must be assumed from the outset. This is about 60% scoring per game, and if this were the only factor, then over 12 games then Carlsen should win 7.25 to 4.75 or so, or likely 3-1 with 8 draws. Mathematically, one can model it one way or another (Poisson process), and get that if Carlsen is 30% wins, 8% losses, 62% draws in any game (ignoring color as a first approximation), then he has a 86% chance of winning in regulation, 6% of losing in regulation, and 8% chance of reaching a tiebreak. So nominally a bit over 90% for Carlsen, by Elo.

OK, that's the pure stats version (like Chess by the Numbers might give). What sort of "corrections" to raw Elo might one give here? First there is the "hunger" factor, which I tend to discount. Second there is the preparation work of each (and their armies of helpers), where Karjakin might have a slight edge. But even if Karjakin wins one full game by prep (rather unlikely, at best he probably gets a superior position in two or three games, with a lot of work still to do), Carlsen still has about a 75% chance of winning by the above Elo estimation.

Finally there is the "grappling" aspect, whether the strength of one player matches up against the weakness of the other, or vice-versa. This is where the chess knowledge of their styles and past meetings would come into play. Karjakin seems assured that his Queen's Indian Defense against d4 can hold as Black, and I'd expect him to play the Berlin against e4. On the other hand, Carlsen has shown himself quite happy to play Nf3 systems (including early g3), just to divert from theory, so I can't think this means much.

As for later in the game, I would say that Karjakin's technical capacity (endings, maybe also material imbalances), both in conversion and defense, is probably slightly superior to Carlsen's, maybe simply because the latter is never pushed so hard in this direction. But Carlsen has the clear edge in semi-dynamic positions (think Fischer), and I don't think Karjakin can hope to avoid these for 12 games (including 6 Blacks).  Finally, both seem to play "messy" positions reasonably well, though perhaps not like a specialist might (Morozevich, just to name a name).

But this might be Karjakin's best meta-plan, to aim for chaos game-after-game, hoping that Carlsen cracks, and/or starts to doubt himself. Unfortunately, Karjakin's style is more typically "small-ball", where he nibbles away with a small edge, first ensuring two results (especially on the Russian team, they would give him White on Board 2 or 3 against a 2650-2700, and expect him to grind out a win this way), and then slowly applying pressure for a victory. I don't see this as particularly that effective against Carlsen (or some other 2800ish players for that matter). On the other hand, Karjakin has previously shown himself to be adaptable in style to suit occasions, and if he objectively looks at the Elo calculation of above, might very well decide to play a bit out of character.

This is all to say nothing of the media circus and other side events that can cause disturbance to the players. Carlsen didn't face the "Russian full-court psychology" when playing Anand, but in the end I don't think it will affect him much.


King or Queen-Which piece is which? I recently bought a set of wooden chess pieces, which I liked for its simplicity.

I'm not sure, however, which one is supposed to be the king and which one is supposed to be the queen.

I would say that the one with the spike is the queen, and the one more flat is the king. Am I right, or is it the opposite?

In general, a chess set has the king as the tallest piece, followed by queen, bishop, knight, rook and pawn in that order. Notice in the starting position how the piece height decreases smoothly from the centre to the edge. (Also, when buying a chess set, usually the height of the king is given as a guide to the size of the chessmen.)

Thus I would say the king is the taller of the two pieces, which from your picture looks to be the one with the spike on the left.

This ordering of height may not hold for particularly ornate decorative sets.

However, if you're not going to use the set to play against other people in tournaments (where usually Staunton pieces are mandated anyway), the correct answer would probably be: the king is whichever piece you think it is.


Is it bad etiquette to decline a draw offer when participating in a simul? On LiChess, FM knightprince gave a simul where I participated (our game).  I blundered a pawn played a pawn gambit, but managed to complicate things and won it back.  Afterwards, the game would have led to a drawn endgame.

The FM offered a draw; I wanted to refuse, but thought that would be perceived as ungrateful, so I accepted.  I wasn't expecting to win; I just wanted to play out the endgame for the experience.

Question: Is it bad etiquette to decline a draw offer when participating in a simul?

No it's not bad etiquette at all. A player being higher rated does not entitle them to automatically get the result they want, even if the position seems to indicate such a result.

And in the rare case your opponent gets offended by this, congratulations. You've just gained a psychological edge.


A question about the time to evacuate a queen in a master game I am studying a book about chess strategy, and in the chapter concerning the d4,e4 center I have this game:

(PACHMAN, VESELY, Pragues, 1953)

r1b2rk1/pp1nqppp/2pb1n2/4p3/2PP4/2N1PN2/P1Q1BPPP/R1B1R1K1 b - - 0 11

The last move of white is 11.Re1!, and the author said black can no more play exd4 because the queen has to retreat from the column e with a loss of time.

But there is still the bishop in the column e!
Is it a master subtlety? I mean that if the bishop moves, it has no threats and the black queen has time to escape from the column e...

Thank you.

Very good question and I'll try my best to answer properly. As you correctly pointed out, there would be no direct threat on the black queen after 11...exd4 12.exd4 because of the e2 bishop on the e-file (and no good discovery). But if we think further, what does the rook e1 really achieve for the white camp in the current position? Honestly, it's not doing much at all: protecting an already protected bishop and that's about it. Now considering the position after 11...exd4 12.exd4. In that case, the e1-rook is ideally placed on a open file and almost directly facing the black queen. Black would have to lose a tempo at some point by moving his queen and white could prepare an invasion on this e-file. Obviously it's a long-term plan but it's actually what strategy is all about!
To conclude, I would say that 11...exd4 is not a great move because it justify the previous white move 11.Re1.


What is the idea behind h2-h3? The pawn move from h2 to h3. I do not understand the reason behind this.

It's a common idea in the position. It's there to prevent Be3 Ng4. Allowing Ng4 with the bishop on e3 is not good; White's dark bishop should be exchanged with Black's strong g7-bishop, something like Be3-Qd2-Bh6 or Be3-Bd4-Bxg7.

Please note White played 10.Be3 immediately next. Without 9.h3, something like this would have happened:

9.Be3 Ng4! 10.Qe2 Nxe3!

Black's position is fine with the strong g7
bishop unchallenged. 9.h3 is a good move.


Where can I download a 6 man endgame tablebase I just cannot seem to find a link to a 6 man download endgame tablebase from syzygy.  If anyone could provide me with a link it would be greatly appreciated.

If you really want to download 80+GB of data there is a torrent link here - http://oics.olympuschess.com/tracker/index.php. Also includes linkls for Nalimov, Scorpio and Gaviota.

Alternatively (and more work) Ronald de Man (syzygy developer) has published software for generating these tablebases (up to 6 man) on Github - https://github.com/syzygy1/tb.


What are some common statistical analyses we can run on many games (~20k games)? I have a list of around 20k games played on a popular online website. I would like to run some statistical analyses on these games. I'm not talking about analysing specific games, but rather finding common patterns that arise.

I've looked at some popular sites on the internet that provide such statistics, but I'm wondering if there might be any more. So far I've got:

Popular openings grouped by ECO.
Most common endgames.
Average rating difference between opponents.
Frequent players.
Longest streak (rematch count).

What other kinds of statistics might reveal something about the community, players, tendencies and more?

Thanks.

EDIT:

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I apologize if I wasn't very clear with the question, so let me clarify some things: I would like to avoid analysing all the games (such as finding the point at which its +-2, or finding recurring tactical motifs, as these require going through each game and running it by an engine). I'm more interested in getting information and statistics about that particular collection of games, so having access to more games isn't necessarily a better thing. I hope this can steer the answers in the intended direction.

Thank you.

You can find posistional themes and other interesting info from SCIDvsPC software. Sample of output-

4.3 Positional Themes

Frequency of themes in the first 20 moves of each game:
Same-side castling:             73%    White Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%
Opposite castling:               8%    Black Isolated Queen Pawn:       8%
Kingside pawn storm:            15%    White Pawn on 5/6/7th rank:     52%
Queens exchanged:               40%    Black Pawn on 2/3/4th rank:     34%
Only one side has Bishop pair:   6%    Open c/d/e file:                50%

I had answered the same on this question: Chess Olympiad statistics


Caro-Kann, Smyslov variation : Can Black punish early 5.c4 in this position? Recently I have posted a question about declining the Marshall Gambit in the QGD, and asked if Black can transpose into another solid opening, as one way of defense.

After analyzing the first position in the below diagram, I have realized that it can crop in a up specific Caro-Kann move order. What raises my hopes even higher is that White does not play 5.c4 but 5.Bc4 there, which means that 5.c4 is weak and has its drawbacks.

Compare the following diagram:

[Title "QGD, Marshall gambit"]
[fen "r1bqkbnr/pp1n1ppp/2p1p3/8/2PPN3/8/PP3PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 6"]

and this one:

[Title "Smyslov variation ( B17 ) after 5.c4"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "r1bqkbnr/pp1npppp/2p5/8/2PPN3/8/PP3PPP/R1BQKBNR b KQkq - 0 5"]

Although in the second diagram Black has better moves than 5...c6, I believe that favorable transposition can still be achieved.

To determine if this is true, I need to know how Black refutes 5.c4.

Under refutation I consider Black achieving at least a fully equal position.

Hence these questions:

Can Black equalize or achieve advantage in the position from the second diagram?
If answer to the first question is positive, can you demonstrate it with concrete lines?

Thank you.

Best regards.

5.c4 is bad in the Smyslov variation because black can equalize instantly with 5...e5! 6. dxe5 Qa5+ and 7...Qxe5.  Black is not better though, it merely gives black an easy game with the queens off.

For the complete line:

[Fen ""]
[Title "Smyslov Variation"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. c4 e5 6. dxe5 Qa5+ 7. Bd2 Qxe5 8.
Qe2 Nc5 9. Nxc5 Qxe2+ 10. Nxe2 Bxc5 *

In the line you give with 5...e6, white retains a comfortable advantage.  White can play the standard plan of Nf3 and Bd3 and either try to keep the knights on the board with Nc3 after black plays Ngf6 or swap a pair of knights with a good position based on black's bad light square bishop.

Some example lines that give white an edge:

[Fen ""]
[Title "Marshall Gambit"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. c4 e6 6. Nf3 Ngf6 7. Bd3 (7. Nxf6+
Nxf6 8. Bd3) (7. Nc3 c5 8. Be2 cxd4 9. Nxd4 Bb4) 7... Nxe4 8. Bxe4 Nf6 9. Bd3
Bb4+ 10. Bd2 *


What plan should white play with? It's black's turn. What plan should white use so as to confirm it's win? Thanks!

 [fen "r1b5/ppkn3R/3p2p1/8/N2b1B2/8/P1P2PPP/5RK1 w - - 0 50"]

White is an exchange up with a much safer king and more active / developed pieces. There are many ways to win. The most straightforward here is to exchange pieces where and queen a pawn.


Parsing PGN files - when can a move be shortened? I'm writing a PGN file parser, and need to know in which situations you don't need to write the rank/file of a piece that makes the move. I can think of the following:

only one piece can conduct the move according to the rules of movement (i.e. attempting to move a bishop horizontally - that's obvious).
both pieces can move to the given square, but all but one are obstructed by other pieces
all but one of the pieces are pinned and moving them would expose the king to check

Anything else I'm missing?

I'd also like to add some seemingly ambiguous situations:

Black to move. Is Nc5+ valid PGN, or would it be Nbc5+? Is Nc5 valid, or would it be Nec5?

Black to move. Is Rg7# / Rg7+ valid PGN, or do I need to specify the rank here?

What if two pieces can move to the same square, but one of the moves would result in threefold repetition, and the game doesn't stop instantly?

What if two pieces can move to the same square, one of those moves forces a mate-in-one on the moving side, and the move is labeled "!!"? :)

From the PGN specification (http://www6.chessclub.com/help/PGN-spec):

  Neither the appearance nor the absence of either a check or
  checkmating indicator is used for disambiguation purposes.  This means
  that if two (or more) pieces of the same type can move to the same
  square the differences in checking status of the moves does not
  allieviate the need for the standard rank and file disabiguation
  described above.  (Note that a difference in checking status for the
  above may occur only in the case of a discovered check.)

This means you have to specify files respectively ranks in your two diagram examples.

My understanding is that you need to disambiguate in the last two situations you describe as well.


What does chess theory refer to? I hear some people say certain players only win because they know/memorized a lot of theory? I don't know the "official" term for these types of players but it makes me concerned because hopefully I'm not one of them. It makes it seem these types of players aren't good at chess or don't really use their head to play the game. Can someone clarify what this is all about?

Chess theory in this sense refers to opening variations / opening analysis. Every strong player has a repertoire of opening lines that he likes to play and in which he knows pretty well which moves are the best.

Some players analyse the opening exhaustively and try to find tricky lines before they sit down to play. This is helped by the fact that they can look up games of their next opponent in databases. These players occasionally win games just by following their home preparation.

But this is not something that should overly concern you. It's more of a grandmaster's problem. On the top level in chess opening preparation plays a big role. In amateur games it is usually easy to dodge any kind of special preparation by the opponent.

It is easy to look down on people who spend a lot of time learning opening variations by heart, but in reality spending time on the opening also improves your understanding of typical position, tactics and plans. If somebody wins a lot of games in the opening, this is never just due to reproducing learned lines with no understanding. Chess is too complex and diverse for that.


Why do some players play bizarre openings? I saw blitz games on the Internet (http://en.chessbase.com) between very high Elo rated players (above 2700) that played bizarre openings like: 1. a4 x 2. h4 xx 3. Ra3(or Rh3) xxx 4. Rae3 xxxx. The player who played like this still won. How to interpret these openings? Are these openings useful sometimes?

Here is one game: Player one 3084 - Player two 2983 0-1 3 minute game.

[Event "?"]
[Site "chessbase.com"]
[Result "0-1"]
[FEN ""]

1.a4 h5 2.Ra3 a5 3.h4 Ra6 4.Rhh3 Rhh6 5.Rhe3 Rhf6 6.Rad3 Rf4 7.Nc3 Rxh4 8.Nb5 Re6 9.Rg3 Rh1 10.Nf3 Re4 11.Ng5 Rxa4 12.e4 Ra1 13.e5 d6 14.e6 Bxe6 15.Nxe6 fxe6 16.Nd4 Qd7 17.Rb3 Qa4 18.Nxe6 Qc4 19.Nxg7+ Bxg7 20.d3 Qh4 21.Ke2 Bh6 22.Rxg8+ Kf7 23.g3 Qf6 24.Bxh6 Rxd1 25.Rf8+ Kg6 26.Rxf6+ exf6 0-1

The reason that top players generally avoid nonstandard openings is that they usually allow a sufficiently skilled opponent to equalize (with black) or gain an advantage (with white).

To do this against an opening which you haven't seen before, though, takes time. In a blitz game, the opponent will not be able to figure out the best way to exploit an inaccuracy. A player like Nakamura (who probably played every single legal first move on ICC at some point) has enough middlegame and endgame skill that a slight opening disadvantage really doesn't mean anything.

Also, it's online blitz. They aren't playing for prizes, they aren't jeopardizing tournament invitations. They can basically do whatever they want and if they lose, nobody really cares.

Edit now that you added the game:

Both players are clearly just messing around. Just because you CAN play chess well doesn't mean that you always want to. Don't try to draw conclusions based on this game.


Ideas for giving chess lessons at school for differing levels of playing strength? I have been running the chess club at the local high school, which I graduated from 40 years ago. As part of it, I have been giving free lessons.

I have had several problems, and I am looking for suggestions on how to overcome them.

There are very different levels of strength. We had a core group, but recently, an entire sports team started showing up. They decided to stay, and play, while they wait for their practice to start. They are much weaker than the rest, but they still enjoy it. Interest in the lessons within this group is mixed.
Some kids miss meetings, so when they come back, they have missed a lesson. If this were an actual academic class, I could have them make it up, but that does not work so well when you are trying to keep it fun. That said, they get behind, and I don't want to move on without them.
New kids show up, and have missed everything.
Lastly, the time is limited to about 1:45 each Friday.

I have some ideas, but I thought I would get some from you before I mention them. The core group really has some interest, and have been enjoying learning more about the game. We might like to eventually form a team.

You could record your lessons for class consumption. This would be useful for students who miss lessons. Please make sure if it's legal to record group lessons in your school though.


For Black, against the Caro-Kann Advance Shirov variation 4. Nc3 which move tends to lead to the most positional, slow, solid and strategic positions? I'm a 1800 Elo player that likes positional, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic openings.

As Black against 1. e4 I play the Caro-Kann. But there is one variation of the Caro-Kann that I slightly dislike: the Advance Shirov (4. Nc3).

  [StartPly "7"]

  [FEN ""]
  1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 (4... Qb6) (4... h5) (4... a6) 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2 (6... f6) (6...h6) (6... Ne7) (6... Bb4) (6... Nd7) (6... Be7) c5 7. h4 h5 (7... h6) (7...cxd4) 8. Nf4 Bh7 (8... Nc6) 9. Nxh5 cxd4 (9...Nc6)

It seems to be much more sharp, aggressive, chaotic, wild and tactical than every other variation of the Caro-Kann. And so I don't know what to play against it.

I could go for the main line with 4... e6 5. g4 Bg6 6. Nge2, but then I don't even know which variation to choose next among all the available options.

Or I could choose to stop 5. g4 with 4... Qb6, 4... h5 or 4... a6, but I don't even know if any of these three moves are objectively good.

I've included everything in the FEN diagram.

And so my question is: which variation tends to lead on average to the most positional, solid, safe, quiet, drawish, slow, boring and strategic positions? (i.e. the least sharp and tactical positions)

But note that the variation also needs to be objectively good and reliable. And if possible it needs to be played reasonably often by Grandmasters. I don't want to play something bad just for the sake of not entering into complications. (i.e. I would still prefer something that is both tactical and good over something that is both positional and bad.)

At this point, it's very hard to keep the game quiet. You have two choices: keep the center closed (then a flank attack will be justified and advantageous), or open things up. The good news is that if you open up the position according to modern theory, or at least play accurately, you will be objectively better, and White's flank attack will be turned into a weakness.


Does anybody knows about how the Polgar sisters were trained? I know they did a lot of hardwork and stuff like that but i just want to know what exactly process did they went through(books,how did they practice,etc),is there any biography on them?cause I just did 7months of tactics(~5000),4months of books(strategy),was able to beat the 1800,2000 elo bots on chess.com 6.5/10 times but lost to a 1500 bot(antonio) due to a blunder.

The Polgar sisters: Training or Genius? by Cathy Forbes states that the main studying was the flash card method.  (Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games by (the father)Laszlo Polgar [https://b-ok.cc/book/857033/54e4d4] provides the puzzles on the flashcards.)
The most important passage (IMO) is the Judith would continue using the flash cards on her free time. When told that she could leave the cards alone, she replied that that cards wouldn't leave her alone.  The desire to improve is the most important factor in improvement.


Find magic numbers for bitboards I am writing a C++ chess engine and I am looking for magic numbers for Little-Endian Rank-File Mapping bitboards to generate moves for sliding pieces.

The rival chess website gives magic numbers but not for the same board mapping.

The chess programming wiki gives some of the best magic numbers so far but is not exhaustive.

At the end I am looking for four things:

occupancy mask for each square
magic number for each square
magic shifts for each square
moves database array for each square

So I can use the following code to find the moves of the Rook on C3 (for instance):

bbBlockers = bbAllPieces & occupancyMaskRook[C3]

databaseIndex = (int)((bbBlockers * magicNumberRook[C3]) >> rookMagicShifts[C3])

bbMoveSquares = magicMovesRook[C3][databaseIndex] & ~bbFriendlyPieces

This is a very well known problem in chess programming. You should consider use the numbers generated by Pradyumna Kannan. Dr Kannan had kindly produced open-source the magic numbers. It is being used by Crafty and a few other chess engines including my own.

You can read more by google "Crafty magic number".

I've prepared a zipped file for you here. This is the same files being used in the SmallChess chess engine app. Please read the documentation. Basically, you'll need to call Rmagic(square, occupancy) for rooks and Bmagic(square, occupancy) for bishops. You can XOR those into a queen mask.


Does it make sense for White to play as "Black" when he's lost the initiative? In this game, White appears to have lost the initiative against the Nimzo Indian defense as early as the fourth move, and certainly by the eighth move.

If White's next four moves were 1) e3, 2) Nf3, 3) Bishop moves and 4) O-O, White would get a solid defensive position that is characteristic of Black's play. Under the circumstances, does it make sense for White to "play Black" in this way if he wants to minimize his chances of losing?

(In the actual game, White adopted a more aggressive policy and succumbed to Black's superior development.)

One other feature of note. White was rated about 50 points weaker than Black, even though they were both Masters (2400 vs. 2450). Would it make sense for White to "play Black" if he were 50 points weaker, and play more aggressively if he were 50 points stronger?

This is actually quite common behaviour in the Nimzo-Indian defense. Black trades the bishop pair for either an advantageous pawn structure (e.g. in the Hübner variation) or a lead in development (like this game).

In the latter case, a successful strategy for White might be to neutralize Black's lead in development (which corresponds to your "play Black"), exchange some pieces and take advantage of his bishop pair in the late middlegame or the endgame. However, this style of play might not suit everybody.


Eating and drinking before and during a game Food and liquid intake provides a human body with energy. Yet having a meal before a chess game can cause the body to focus more on digestion than chess. While lack of energy during a six hour game can cause loss of focus and thereby mistakes. Getting thirsty can have a similar adverse effect. When and what should one eat and drink before and during a chess game with classical time controls?

I have played tennis and chess both quite seriously for several years and my preparation towards a game when it comes to food, is basically the same. I try to eat around 4 hours before the game, some pasta with a light sauce or no sauce at all, avoid red meats 24 hours prior to the game and rink only water the day of the game. If I am to start in the morning then a light breakfast. In general I would rather play with a non-full stomach but here's the "secret", I do eat a chocolate bar at the beginning of my chess games and have a bottle of water at hand, this helps me greatly to keep my blood pressure normal, and able to focus on the game without feeling hungry even after 4 or 5 hours of play.

I guess my advice is to know what works for you, I have seen that avoiding heavy meals is generally good for performance but if you (like me) need an extra kick, pick up an energy bar of some sort (I would avoid coffee because of the possibility of needing to go to the toilet at a bad time).

All the best and hope it helps! :)


Why is 1. d4 2. c4 3. b3 so bad for white? I recently played a game that opened like this:
1. d4 c6 2. c4 d5 { D10 Slav Defense } 3. b3

 [FEN ""]

My third move, 3. b3 is apparently so uncommon that Lichess doesn't have it in its top 12 most common moves.
Stockfish rates the position after 2 moves at +0.2 and after 3. b3 at +0.0, so it's theoretically not terrible. However, the top 6 responses for black (topped by 3..Nf6 and 3..3Bf5) all have winning percentages favouring black (39%/54% for the knight), so there's clearly something wrong with it.
I often feel intuitively that I want to make this move (and in similar positions), reasoning that I prefer to bring my pawns towards the centre. Pawns on c4 and d4 look good, although I imagine b2 can become vulnerable.
OTOH, I can see that this move doesn't help develop any pieces, and maybe white is now going to be a move behind black after something like 3..Nf6?
I'd love some explanation about why this move is so dispreferred.

Stockfish evaluation is not the only criterion to determine whether a move is sound or not. The main issue with committing so early to 3.b3 (against this particular Black setup) is that there are no downsides to delaying that move.
In other words, even if you want to play some setup with b3, there's no reason do it right now. Instead, other moves that prioritize development like Nf3 should go first.
Anyway, just because a move isn't popular, it doesn't mean it's "bad". It just means people prefer something else. Think for instance of 1.Nc3, a move that is hardly ever played. Is it "bad"? Not really. There are worse moves that get played more often. The reason 1.Nc3 is so rarely played is that there are more "comfortable" move orders from which you can get the positions that arise from 1.Nc3


Scid: Play Against Computer After I set a board up in Scid, how can I get the computer to play as White? I cannot for the life of me figure it out!

Assuming you mean Scid vs Pc what I do is click on the "flip board" icon - second from right - and then choose the engine from the "Play" menu. It automatically starts playing for white.


Rating based off play level? Is there a program that can tell your rating based off how well you play in the game? (NOT based on result). Thanks.

This is called Intrinsic Performance Rating.

There has been a Kaggle Competition in which the winner predicted the Elo on the basis of a single game with an average error of 150 points.

As far as I know there is no single piece of software that gives you these predictions, but the Kaggle Competition provides links to the code used by the participants.


Why is pawn to d3 the best move here? Total beginner at chess. I am analyzing a game I played.

The computer says the blue line here is the best:

r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1

1... d3
(1... Kg7 2. Bxd6 Qxd6 3. Nf5 Bxf5)

Why? If I move my pawn there, the bishop takes it without worries, it seems?

I instead moved King to g7, hoping to lure the white knight in a trap. If he went for a fork on f5 attacking my queen and king, I would take the knight with my bishop.

By going King to g7, his bishop would take my bishop on d6, then I would take his bishop with my queen, and then he would make his knight move to f5 for the fork. Then I would take knight with my bishop.

Ignoring the potentially better play, is this a bad move in and of itself?

r1bqr1k1/pp5p/2nb1p2/2p5/Q1Pp2pN/1P4B1/P3BPPP/4RRK1 b - - 0 1

1... d3
2. Bxd3 (2. Bd1 Bxg3 3. hxg3 d2 4. Rxe8+ Qxe8 5. Qb5 Qe5) Rxe1
3. Rxe1 Bxg3
4. Bxh7+ Kxh7
5. hxg3

And Black wins the Bishop for two pawns.

Edit - I ran this position through Stockfish and was surprised to learn that Black is already about 2.5 pawns "up" while material is even.

The initial variation is inferior to the one that follows from Seth's suggestion below. My suggested move makes it much easier for Black. After Seth's "1. Bd1", there are no fireworks but it looks like Black improves his position with a dominating Queen in the center and a pawn on d2. Both players remained jammed up. If Black can activate his Rook and Bishop he's going to have a great game.


In Caro-Kann Defense, what are the differences between 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2? After 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5, what are the differences between 3. Nc3 and 3. Nd2?

It seems 3. Nc3 is more popular, though after 3. ... dxe4, I failed to see the difference.

3.Nc3 allows White to play the Two Knights Attack with 2.Nf3. It does block the c-pawn, though, so Black can play 3...g6, the Gurgenidze System, because White cannot protect the d-pawn with the c-pawn.

There is also the rarely played Gurgenidze Counter Attack 3...b5. A very dubious line that can be stopped easily with a3.

3.Nd2 tries to avoid these lines, but it makes the Two Knights Attack impossible, a line that is very popular nowadays. It also blocks the view of White's dark-squared bishop, so Black can develop their kingside knight to h6 if they want.


How is MultiPV enabled in general? I looked at the "Description of the universal chess interface (UCI)" dated April  2006, and did not find a command or option that seemed to address how a GUI might enable MultiPV (I assume that PV stands for Position Value).  How does a GUI display MultiPV?

Background:  I hope there is a simple UCI command that enables MultiPV, so that I can issue the command on my BabasChess GUI.

"MultiPV" is the UCI option you are looking for.

  setoption name MultiPV value 10


Who revitalized 5. Bf4 vs the Queen's Gambit Declined? It seems to me that after the popular move order

[fen ""]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Be7

the most popular option - at least at top GM level - is currently 5. Bf4. Yet, back in the 1980s and 1990s, 5. Bf4  was not considered a particularly challenging way to fight the Queen's Gambit Declined. Every strong GM was playing 5. Bg5 (or the Exchange Variation). Who revitalized  5. Bf4, and why is it considered a strong / challenging move nowadays?

One of the possible reasons why 5.Bf4 has gained popularity at the very top-level, is because white seems to have difficulties obtaining an advantage after 5.Bg5.

The critical variation is 5....h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.e3 Nbd7 8.Rc1 c5 9.dxc5 Nxc5 10.cxd5 g5!, which occured for the first time in Wojtaszek-Kramnik (2015).
Moreover, black can also play 9....dxc4, which happened in another famous Kramnik game: Matlakov-Kramnik (2015).
After 8....c5, white's main alternative is 9.cxd5. In this line too, there is an impressive Kramnik win: Salem-Kramnik (2014).

To answer the question "Who revitalized 5.Bf4?": Kramnik, by posing some questions as black in the 5.Bg5 line.

      [StartPly "8"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 d5 4.Nc3 Be7 5.Bg5 (5.Bf4) h6 6.Bh4 O-O 7.e3 Nbd7 8.Rc1 c5 9.dxc5 (9.cxd5) Nxc5 (9...dxc4) 10.cxd5 g5


Understanding Kh1 and Be3 in the King's Indian Defense Bayonet Attack In this position (diagram), there have been two games where White played 14.Kh1 followed by 15.Be3, then Qe1 and Bf2.

What is the idea behind 14.Kh1 and the other kingside moves when Black is not developing anything strong on the kingside?

The opening was the King's Indian Defense Bayonet Attack.  Black himself had played 13...Ne7-g8, with the Knight apparently headed for f6 and possibly h5.  Clearly Black is playing on the kingside, and White has ideas of a2-a4 and cxd6 on the queenside.

The position in FEN is

  r1bq1rnk/ppp3bp/3p2p1/2PPpp2/1PN1Pn2/2N2P2/P3B1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 14

for those who wish to paste it and make a search of the 6 games with this position. By the way, Stockfish 11 (at depth 49) also evaluates favorably towards Kh1 and Be3:

 [title "First line, with Stockfish 11 (depth 49) evaluation = 0.95"]
 [fen "r1bq1rnk/ppp3bp/3p2p1/2PPpp2/1PN1Pn2/2N2P2/P3B1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 14"]

 1. Kh1 fxe4 2. fxe4 Nf6 3. Be3 b6 4.c6 h5 5.a4 Ng4 6.Bg1 a6 7.Bf3 Kg8 8.Rb1 Bh6 9.Qc2 Qe7 10.b5 axb5 11.Nxb5 Ba6 12.Rb3 Nf6 13.Rfb1 Rab8 14.Ra1 h4 15.Ne3 N6h5 16.Bf2 Bc8 17.Nc4 Ba6 18.Be3 Ng3+ 19.Kg1 Ngh5 20.Bxh5 gxh5 21.Kh1 Qg7 22.h3 Ra8 23.Rbb1 Bxb5 24.axb5 Rxa1 25.Rxa1 Qg3 26.Bg1 Qd3 27.Qxd3

And Be3:

 [title "Second line, with Stockfish 11 (depth 49) evaluation = 0.68"]
 [fen "r1bq1rnk/ppp3bp/3p2p1/2PPpp2/1PN1Pn2/2N2P2/P3B1PP/R1BQ1RK1 w - - 0 14"]

 1.Be3 Qg5 2.g3 Nxe2+ 3.Qxe2 f4 4.Bd2 Qe7 5.cxd6 cxd6 6.a4 Nh6 7.Nd1 Nf7 8.Nf2 Ng5 9.Ra3 Bd7 10.Kg2 Rac8 11.b5 h5 12.Na5 Rc2 13.Rc1 Rxc1 14.Bxc1 Bg4 15.Bd2 Kg8 16.Nc4 Bd7 17.Rc3 Rc8 18.Qd1 h4 19.g4 Be8 20.Rc2 a6 21.Bb4 axb5 22.Nxd6 Rxc2 23.Qxc2 bxa4 24.Qc8 Bf8 25.Nc4 Qxb4 26.Qxe8 Qxc4 27.Qxg6+ Kh8 28.Qxg5

Update:

After depth 50/83, Stockfish 11 likes 14.Kh1 second best and calculates that White can stand up to any attack on the kingside and so chooses to proceed with 14.a4 followed by cxd6, though it still likes Be3:

+/- (0.97): 14.a4 Nf6 15.Be3 g5 16.cxd6 cxd6 17.Rc1 Qe7 18.Re1 fxe4 19.Nxe4 N6xd5 20.Bxf4 Nxf4 21.Qxd6 Qe8 22.Ne3 g4 23.fxg4 Be6 24.Rcd1 Rd8 25.Qxd8 Qxd8 26.Rxd8 Rxd8 27.g3 Nxe2+ 28.Rxe2 Rd4 29.Nc5 Bc8 30.Rc2 b6 31.Nb3 Rd8 32.Nd2 Bh6 33.Ndc4 Be6 34.Kf2 Rc8 35.Kf3 Bxe3 36.Nxe3 Rxc2 37.Nxc2 Bb3 38.Ne3 Bxa4 39.Ke4 Bc6+ 40.Kxe5 a5 41.bxa5 bxa5 42.Kd6 Be4 43.Nc4 Kg7 44.Kc5 Kf6
+/- (0.78): 14.Kh1 h5 15.Bd2 fxe4 16.fxe4 Nf6 17.a4 Ng4 18.h3 Nh6 19.Qe1 Bd7 20.Rg1 Nf7 21.Be3 g5 22.Bf1 h4 23.Be2 a6 24.Rf1 Rb8 25.Rb1 Qf6 26.b5 dxc5 27.Bxc5 Rfc8 28.Ne3 Bf8 29.Bxf8 Rxf8 30.Bg4 Bxg4 31.Nxg4 Qe7 32.bxa6 bxa6 33.Qf2 Nd6 34.Qa7 Ra8 35.Qc5 Qg7 36.Qc6 Nh5 37.Rxf8+ Rxf8 38.Qxa6 Ng3+ 39.Kh2 Ndxe4 40.Nxe4 Nxe4

I will test out the novelty 14.a4 (never played in this position before) and see if Stockfish 11 playing White wins against itself with depth 50+ for each move.  I am curious to see how strong Black's kingside attack really is, keeping in mind the answers given so far that suggest there can be a strong attack there for Black.

I found the games, and you have to take them with a grain of salt since one was between a 2150, and someone who was not even FIDE rated. The second was between two 2360's, which I find a bit suspicious. I am going to post that second game.

I can tell you the basic ideas behind each move, but I am not sure that they were strung together in an optimal manner. This whole line is pretty rare, and as of Ng8, there is only one GM game in Mega2020.

The idea behind:

Ng8 - The knight is not well positioned on e7, so it is going to g8-f6-h5 to join in the attack. In addition, it will over protect the Bg7 should it go to h6 in an attempt to trade off the bad bishop.
Kh1 - To make room for the Be3-g1 maneuver, which did not happen in these games, in an attempt to avoid the potential trade of the Be3 for the Bg7 (after Bh6).
In both cases, in the game below, the Qe1 and Bf2 were to overprotect the g3 square since a Nh5 often sacrifices itself there, and it can be incredibly dangerous. Based on this common idea, I do not think that Kh1 fit in with this position.

Here is one of the games with the maneuvers you mentioned.

 [Event "Paks Atom Cup GM 1st"]
 [Site "Paks"]
 [Date "1996.??.??"]
 [Round "?"]
 [White "Vukanovic, Sasa"]
 [Black "Molnar, Bela"]
 [Result "0-1"]
 [ECO "E97"]
 [WhiteElo "2360"]
 [BlackElo "2360"]
 [PlyCount "108"]
 [EventDate "1996.09.??"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "13"]
 [EventCountry "HUN"]
 [EventCategory "7"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. Nf3 g6 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 d6 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nc3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Nh5 10. c5 Nf4 11. Nd2 f5 12. f3 Kh8 13. Nc4 Ng8 14. Kh1 Nf6 15. Be3 N6h5 16. Qe1 Nxe2 17. Qxe2 f4 18. Bf2 Rg8 19. cxd6 cxd6 20. Nb5 Bf8 21. Rfc1 b6 22. a4 Ba6 23. Nc3 g5 24. b5 Bc8 25. a5 Rb8 26. axb6 axb6 27. Na4 g4 28. Ncxb6 g3 29. Rxc8 Rxc8 30. Nxc8 gxf2 31. Qxf2 Qxc8 32. b6 Be7 33. Qb2 Qd7 34. b7 Rb8 35. Nc5 Qc7 36. Ne6 Qc4 37. Kg1 Nf6 38. Rc1 Rxb7 39. Rxc4 Rxb2 40. Rc7 Ng8 41. g3 fxg3 42. hxg3 h6 43. Rd7 Kh7 44. f4 Kg6 45. fxe5 dxe5 46. d6 Bf6 47. Rc7 Rb6 48. Rd7 Kh5 49. Nc7 Rb7 50. Kf2 Kg6 51. Kf3 h5 52. Ke3 Nh6 53. Kd3 Nf7 54. Kc4 Nxd6+ 0-1

The only GM game from 13...Ng8, so you can see how they played it.

 [Event "Gashimov Memorial 3rd"]
 [Site "Shamkir"]
 [Date "2016.05.28"]
 [Round "3"]
 [White "Safarli, Eltaj"]
 [Black "Mamedov, Rauf"]
 [Result "1/2-1/2"]
 [ECO "E97"]
 [WhiteElo "2664"]
 [BlackElo "2655"]
 [PlyCount "55"]
 [EventDate "2016.05.26"]
 [EventType "tourn"]
 [EventRounds "9"]
 [EventCountry "AZE"]
 [EventCategory "20"]
 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 9. b4 Kh8 10. c5 Nh5 11. Nd2 Nf4 12. Nc4 f5 13. f3 Ng8 14. cxd6 cxd6 15. Be3 Bh6 16. a4 Bd7 17. Nb5 Bxb5 18. axb5 fxe4 19. fxe4 Nxe2+ 20. Qxe2 Rxf1+ 21. Rxf1 Bxe3+ 22. Qxe3 Nf6 23. Qh3 Nxe4 24. Qg4 Nf6 25. Qe6 Ne4 26. Qg4 Nf6 27. Qe6 Ne4 28. Qg4 1/2-1/2


Associating myself with my FIDE chess profile I have a USCF rating, but never had a FIDE rating.  Two of the recent tournaments I played in were USCF/FIDE events.  As a result, I now have a FIDE ID, and a "FIDE Chess Profile" page on the FIDE site.  (This happened without my knowledge, but I wanted to "eventually" get a FIDE rating anyway, so I'm very pleased.)

How do I create a login/password and associate myself (real life) with that chess profile?  (The bold part is the important part.)  Specifically, on the FIDE Chess Profile page in question, there are login/password fields on the right side - but since I never initiated getting the ID in the first place, I'm not sure how to let FIDE know that I'm me. I would think this information/process would be easy to find, but I'm having trouble locating it...

This is sort of similar to this question about obtaining a FIDE ID without having played a FIDE event - but I apparently already have the ID.

(For the record, the name/birthday/etc. are all correct, as are the specific tournaments and opponents I played in.  I am 100% certain that this really is me.)

Getting a login is easy, free and worthwhile if you want to see your or other players' histories (ratings, titles, performance, etc.) If you click on the link on your FIDE ratings page where it says "Get rating" next to "Online rating not rated" it will take you to the FIDE Online Arena page. Underneath the banner on that page is a menu item "Registration and fees" and in the drop down list when you hover over it is the item "Memberships"

That memberships page describes the different levels of membership available - "Guest Member", "FIDE Member", "Platinum Service". Guest membership is free and is what I have but it does not associate me with my FIDE profile. To do that I would have to join as a FIDE member and pay them 25 euros. On the form that comes up when I want to join as a FIDE member are entries for my name, date of birth, gender email address, FIDE number and the username and password I want to use. For the association to work the details I give would have to match those that FIDE have for me in their database.


Is my engine working properly? I noticed that when I put my Houdini 3 Pro x64 in the "Infinite Analysis" mode, he tends to use a lot of time to evaluate the bad moves... Sometimes he even uses like 30 seconds on the first 10 best moves on his list, but then he uses like 5 minutes on the other (bad) moves... He meditates for a lot of time on the last few moves in his list, even though they are just stupid moves that give up the Queen for nothing...

I made him analyze the following position:

And he needed 2 hours to find the forced mates...

And also, while he was analyzing the position, his list of moves was all messed up: the moves were not ordered according to their evaluations (the best moves should be first, while the worst moves should be last... but it was not the case). Although after he finally found the forced mates he then ordered the moves correctly. Oh and he found that ...Nc6 was a mate in 19 before finding that ...exf6 was a mate in 6.

So is my Houdini broken or something?

And I heard that to find forced mates there was a quicker way: there exist a special mode which puts the engine into a "mate search mode". But how can I put my Houdini in that mode?

What you're doing here is not correct and definitely not what a chess engine is designed for. You're running multi-pv analysis with many many lines. Multi-PV with many lines as in in your example is exponentially slower than a single-PV analysis. In an N multi-PV analysis, the engine would need to examine the first PV then ignore it for the next best PV. And this continues until all PVs are examined. This is very slow when you do it in iterative deepening where the search tries deeper by each iteration.

Also, the position is tricky for an engine because it has too many captures. When you're in a very tactical full-blown position, the engine would need to expand its qsearch so to get to the bottom of the search tree.

In summary, what you're doing here doesn't make any sense. You'll need to scale down your lines.

Your lines are not sorted is the fault of the user interface and not the engine.

Please read http://www.cruxis.com/chess/manual/index.html?game_play.htm for the Tactical Mode. You'll need to send that UCI command to Houdini.


Is there a winning strategy for Losing chess? Losing chess has been proven to be a win for white, with the opening move 1. e3

The proof consists of a number of huge game trees which show that each variation must end in a white win, but is there a winning strategy for white, which can be used to force a win in a game without needing to memorise the entire game tree?

One useful tactic is to try, as far as possible, to leave exactly one of your units en prise. That forces your opponent to capture that unit next. So to a large extent you're in control (and are losing units). By contrast, if you were not so careful as to which units of yours were en prise, then if ever two or more of them were, then your opponent can choose which of them to capture next, and thus keeps more control.


Bad symmetrical variations I know that symmetrical variations of some openings are good up to a certain point, after which White gets a significant advantage (like gaining a piece or even mating the opponent's king). One such example is the match below, following the Italian variation of the Four Knights Game (C50):

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?"]
[Eventdate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "NN"]
[Black "NN"]
[ECO "C50"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[Plycount "27"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.Bc4 Bc5 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 d6 7.Bg5 Bg4 8.Nd5 Nd4 9.Qd2 Qd7 10.Bxf6 Bxf3 11.Ne7+ Kh8 12.Bxg7+ Kxg7 13.Qg5+ Kh8 14.Qf6#
1-0

After the move 9. ..Qd7, White gains a significant advantage in which Black will have to sacrifice some pieces (even the queen in one line) or he is getting checkmated.

My question is: do you know any other example of situations like this, where White gets a significant advantage after a few moves performed in a symmetrical fashion?

From the OP and the discussion in comments I guess you're looking for more nuanced variations. Here's one that comes to mind from the Queen's pawn game (symmetric-pseudo-Catalan), where if black doesn't break the symmetry at some point, white will either be up a pawn or have tangible positional advantage.

 [title "Queen's pawn game example"]
 [fen ""]

 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. g3 g6 4. Bg2 Bg7 5. O-O O-O 6. b3 b6 7. Bb2 Bb7 8. Nbd2 Nbd7 9. c4 c5 10. e3 e6 11. Ne5 Ne4 12. Nxe4 {Here black can no longer keep playing symmetrically, as exemplified in the shown mainline. Instead black has to simply recapture on e4 and it's a normal game.} Nxe5 (12...dxe4 {optimal continuation for black here, breaking the symmetry.} 13. Nxd7 Qxd7 14. Qc2) 13. dxe5 dxe4 14. Qc2 Rb8 (14...Qc7 15. Bxe4 {and white is up a clear pawn}) 15. Rad1 Qc7 16. Bxe4 Bxe5 17. Bxe5 Qxe5 18. Bxb7 Rxb7 {despite the symmetric pawn structure and equal material, white has a clear positional advantage as they control the only open file and black's disconnected rooks are far from being in time to challenge the file.}


Now that FIDE has just announced BIDDING winners to be the official FIDE clock does that mean we have to buy those to play in their tournaments? It seems odd , except maybe not for FIDE, that they announced the winners who BID to be the official clock.

Now they they have selected them do we need to buy those to play in FIDE tournaments?

I would feel better if they had tested the clocks to ensure they were good quality and worth the money we pay for them instead of awarding the seal of approval to the high bidders.

None of the clocks they selected were on my list that I was considering to select my choice  to buy.

Details at:
https://www.fide.com/news/346
The right for certain models of chess clocks to be designated as a “Chess Clock Recommended by FIDE for National Federations” has been granted to:

DGT 2010 model and DGT 3000 model (both manufactured by Digital Game Technology);
Chess Evolution Classic model (manufactured by Chess Evolution Kft.);
Leap KK 9908 model (manufactured by Shenzhen Huibo Industrial and Trading Co., Ltd).

Now they they have selected them do we need to buy those to play in
  FIDE tournaments?

Certainly not! FIDE has never required players to buy any equipment to play in FIDE tournaments. We players have never been required to buy any clocks, sets, pieces, memorabilia, etc. The only two things we have to pay for are the appropriate level of membership of our national federations or associations and the entry fees charged by the organisers.

  I would feel better if they had tested the clocks to ensure they were
  good quality and worth the money we pay for them instead of awarding
  the seal of approval to the high bidders.

You appear to be ignorant of the FIDE Chess Clock Bidding Procedure. Not surprising given the lack of clarity of much of the FIDE site particularly after the latest munged redesign.

Here are some relevant sections of the bid document:

  11. Evaluation Methodology

  11.1 The evaluation methodology used by FIDE for this ITB is based on “the lowest-cost / highest-reward, substantially compliant offer”
  approach.

  11.2 FIDE will determine which offers are substantially compliant, and will reject noncompliant offers. Compliance refers to whether or not
  the offer substantially meets the quantitatively and qualitatively
  defined criteria as per the requirements and other qualification
  criteria as stated in the ITB documents.

  11.3 FIDE will choose the lowest-cost / highest-reward offer among the substantially compliant offers. Various factors such as the price of
  the goods, the full life-cycle costs and service costs will be taken
  into account.

  11.4 All evaluation criteria use by FIDE are non-discriminatory.

  11.5 FIDE will use three main categories of evaluation criteria: (1) formal, (2) technical and qualification, (3) financial.

  11.6 Formal criteria allow checking for compliance with specific mandatory requirements in the present ITB. Offers that do not meet the
  formal criteria will be rejected.

  11.7 Technical and qualification criteria are derived from the requirements as well as from qualification conditions. FIDE has
  developed technical and qualification criteria for evaluation
  according to a weighted scoring.

  11.8 Financial criteria include payments to FIDE, royalties to FIDE, and guaranteed prices for FIDE purchases.

Note that what is being bid for is primarily marketing rights:

  2. General Provisions    ...
  2.3 FIDE shall grant the winner(s) a non-exclusive right to use the FIDE logo in conjunction with the words “FIDE Championship Clock”,
  “Official FIDE Chess Clock” and/or “Chess Clock Recommended by FIDE
  for National Federations” for one or more models included in the bid.

  2.4 This right shall be granted for three (3) years starting October 01, 2019, and ending September 30, 2022.

  2.5 The rights to use the FIDE logo and the clock designations as per Clause 2.3 above shall be provided to the winner(s) in consideration
  for:
  a) lump-sum payments to be made to FIDE for each model of the chess clocks that
  are included in the bid;
  b) royalties to be paid to FIDE for each wholesale or retail sale of chess clocks that
  are included in the bid for the whole duration of the contract;
  c) an obligation to supply chess clocks to FIDE and/or national chess federations at
  a fixed price or/and with discount from the standard market price (royalties as per
  subcl (b) hereof do not apply for such supplies).
  ...
  2.7 FIDE retains the right to freely certify other chess clocks for competition use after testing. However, no other chess clocks could be
  designated as the “FIDE Championship Clock” or the “Official FIDE
  Chess Clock” prior to the expiry of the three-year period, i.e.,
  September 30, 2022.

  2.8 FIDE shall use the model(s) designated as the “FIDE Championship Clock” in its top-level competitions (Chess Olympiad, World
  Championship Match, Candidates Tournament, World Cup, Grand Prix)
  during this three-year period. No more than one bidder shall be
  declared a winner for this designation.  Bidding Procedure – August
  05, 2019.

  2.9 FIDE shall use the model(s) designated as the “Official FIDE Chess Clock” in its other official competitions included in the FIDE
  Calendar (e.g., World Seniors Ch., World Team Ch., World Youth Ch.)
  during this three-year period.

  2.10 FIDE will make available its development fund, subject to certain criteria established solely by FIDE, to subsidize, in whole or
  in part, the purchases by its member federations of the clock models
  designated as the “Chess Clock Recommended by FIDE for National
  Federations”.

In other words, clocks which win the bid must be available to member federations at subsidized prices. Other clocks which meet FIDE's technical specifications and which are consequently approved separately by FIDE may be used in ordinary level FIDE competitions.


Play online live game against a friend with time odds? Is there an online chess site or app that would allow me and a friend to play live games against each other with time odds? I am somewhere around a low Class D player, and my friend is somewhere around a high Class F player. He is consistently losing games against me and I know that what little game I have falls apart under time pressure - so, to even things out a bit, I'd like to be able to play him under time odds. Bonus for a free solution, but very willing to look at subscriber sites/apps. (Extra bonus if it's an app and it works on iOS and Android).

On Lichess there is a button that allows you to give 15 seconds to your opponent. You could use it to just give a bunch of extra minutes to your friend at the start of a game.


The Borg against d4? Until recently, I played the London System, which served be well and was very solid, but every game I played was very similar and dull.

However, I have now started playing "Grob's Attack" as white, which is 1. g4 as well as "The Borg" as black which goes 1. e4 g5. I have found that these openings are a lot more interesting and my chess games are more fun.

However, now I do not have a response against 1. d4. My question is, if 1. ... g5 is a valid response after 2. bxg5. Keeping in mind I play chess for fun at about the 1500 level, does this line hold any possibilities for black? And if not, do you have any recommendations for an unorthodox aggressive opening against d4?

The position after 1. d4 g5 is close to the worst Black can possibly have after the first move. If you really want to give up a pawn on the first move, the Englund Gambit (1. d4 e5) is better, relatively, without being popular.


Output whether the best move is "much better" or only "slightly better" than the other moves On Oct 31, 2014, Tord Romstad wrote:

The moves are not searched in descending order from best to worst. Stockfish has no idea which move is the second, third best, etc., and it doesn't have any centipawn scores for any moves other than the current best move. For the rest of the moves, the centipawn scores are unknown, all we have for those moves are upper bounds for the centipawn scores.
As an example, assume that we have a position with four legal moves A, B, C and D. What Stockfish knows about the centipawn values of the four moves after searching to a given depth would usually be something like this:
Move A (best move): 100 centipawns.
Move B: At most 50 centipawns
Move C: At most 80 centipawns
Move D: At most 0 centipawns
Because we only have upper bounds for moves B, C and D, we have no idea which of these three moves is the best.

Is there a way to make Stockfish output the data described by Tord?
I would argue that it is valuable to not only know the best move, but also to have an idea of whether the best move is "much better" than the other moves or only "slightly better".

I don't think Stockfish gives you the information as it's not useful to anybody other than programmers for debugging. The best way is just run MultiPV=2, and subtract the best two moves. Is there any reason why you can't do that?

If you insist you'll have to modify the source code yourself. It's not a very hard change. But why would you do that?


Chess Heroz (Android) As far as chess training applications go the Chess Heroz application is excellent.

My question though is can anyone explain the mathematics behind the ratings system?

I am new to chess ratings and believe that there are a number of systems used?

I am new to chess ratings and believe that there are a number of
  systems used?

Every chess federation (doesn't quite equal every country because some countries, like the UK, have several federations) has its own rating system. In addition FIDE, the international chess federation, has its rating system.

  Can anyone explain the mathematics behind the ratings system?

The basic mathematical principle behind rating systems is that every time you play a game, or group of games, against already graded opposition, your results and their respective ratings are used to adjust your rating or give you a rating for the first time.

Because players' ratings can change with different speed depending on their strength and age there is usually not a single constant factor which is used for all rating adjustments. Instead the factor will give bigger corrections / adjustments for young players, who are likely to be improving rapidly, and smaller corrections / adjustments for players who have been playing for a long time or who already have a high rating because these players are less likely to change in strength very much. Rather for these players the variability they show in playing strength likely just reflects the fact that they are human beings who have good days and bad days.

For details of how FIDE ratings are calculated you can read FIDE's Rating Regulations.

Section 8 - The working of the FIDE Rating System - gives the mathematical rules and tables used in calculating FIDE ratings.


How to play for a draw In this video: Levon Aronian vs Magnus Carlsen Round 1 - 2013 Candidates Chess Tournament

[FEN ""]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 Bb4+ 4.Bd2 Bxd2+ 5.Qxd2

And now, Kevin said: "You can tell that the game is going for a draw."

My question, how can you play a game knowing that you are going to draw? Do you have to defend? Exchange minor pieces? Mirror your opponent's move?

In theory, white always plays for a win, so how can black say: "I'm going to play this game and I'm going to draw". Carlsen seemed that he decided to go for a draw from the get-go, so what's the game plan for black in order to get a draw?

I imagine Kevin's comment was somewhat hyperbolic. My local database has 1464 games with the position after 5.Qxd2, of which only 47% were drawn (although I imagine that percentage goes up as the players' strength increases). That is still enough to give the variation a reputation as drawish, but not enough to reliably predict that the game will end in a draw.

There are certainly variations that are more drawish than others, for concrete reasons. The best current example is the Berlin variation of the Spanish, where Black gets the queens off the board early and White has had trouble making anything of his positional advantages in the ensuing endgame.

In general the way that a game becomes more likely to have a decisive result is due to imbalances between the virtues of the two sides. The obvious example is a gambit, where one player has better development and the other player has an active pawn. In a situation with few imbalances (for example, the Exchange French or Exchange Slav), it is more difficult to play for a win.


How can I scan a chessboard and obtain its FEN? I am planning to create a chess puzzle book for beginners. Diagrams need to be published in the book. Right now I have all the materials in PDF. But I need a software to create diagrams for a particular chess position. Is there any way to scan chess diagrams from a PDF?

I wrote a program that can recognize positions from books and magazines and give you the FEN. Here is the web interface for
Chessputzer

You can upload the image or paste directly from the clipboard.

Note: it is designed for the the most common fonts used in print. It won't work for images from Chessbase etc. For that, use Fenbot.

My aim was to make it good enough to read blurry images from old chess books so it should be pretty tolerant of artifacts and such.


Stockfish evaluation of a position from PGN I am trying to get Stockfish's evaluation of a board position(which is in PGN format) using command line.I know it accepts board position in FEN format, but is there any way i can provide PGN format?
If no, how can i convert PGN format to FEN?
Is there any tool in Python which can help me out?

Yes there are easy ways to do this. I'm going to briefly show you one quick way of doing it in python, using the python-chess module.
If the in-code comments are not enough, feel free to ask for clarifications or possible extensions of the code:

To showcase a working example, I've taken a game between Adams and Kasparov, you can download the PGN from the hyperlink. And our engine is the latest Stockfish available taken from the official website.

Lets call it PGNeval.py:

import chess
import chess.uci
import chess.pgn
import sys

arguments = sys.argv
pgnfilename = str(arguments[1])

#Read pgn file:
with open(pgnfilename) as f:
    game = chess.pgn.read_game(f)

#Go to the end of the game and create a chess.Board() from it:
game = game.end()
board = game.board()

#So if you want, here's also your PGN to FEN conversion:
print 'FEN of the last position of the game: ', board.fen()

#or if you want to loop over all game nodes:
#while not game.is_end():
    #node = game.variations[0]
    #board = game.board() #print the board if you want, to make sure
    #game = node

#Now we have our board ready, load your engine:
handler = chess.uci.InfoHandler()
engine = chess.uci.popen_engine('...\stockfish_8_x64') #give correct address of your engine here
engine.info_handlers.append(handler)

#give your position to the engine:
engine.position(board)

#Set your evaluation time, in ms:
evaltime = 5000 #so 5 seconds
evaluation = engine.go(movetime=evaltime)

#print best move, evaluation and mainline:
print 'best move: ', board.san(evaluation[0])
print 'evaluation value: ', handler.info["score"][1].cp/100.0
print 'Corresponding line: ', board.variation_san(handler.info["pv"][1])

Lets test it with the aformentioned game PGN, our command is:

python PGNeval.py adams_kasparov_2005.pgn

And here's the output I get:

FEN of the last position of the game:  br3r2/5ppk/p2pp3/4b1BP/N3P3/q4P2/1PnQB3/1K4RR w - - 4 27
best move:  Qxc2
evaluation value:  -10.87
Corresponding line:  27. Qxc2 Rfc8