Is starting from sides a bad style? I am just an average chess player around 1500+ ELO
and have started experimenting to come up with a complete new style of my own. (it may have been used or discredited in the community)

This involves starting from corner pawns on each sides rather than the middle.

Here is an example game:-

[FEN ""]

1. h4 e5 2. h5 d5 3. a4 Nc6 4. e3 d4
5. g4 dxe3 6. fxe3 h6 7. Nc3 Nf6 8. Bg2 Bxg4
9. Bf3 Bxf3 10. Qxf3 Qd6 11. Nb5 Qd7 12. c3 a6
13. Na3 Bxa3 14. bxa3 O-O 15. d4 exd4 16. cxd4 Rae8
17. Ne2

What do you have say about this? What kind of chess player am I?

I would say you are wasting your own time. Black could have built a d5-e5 center with two bishops on d6 and e6 in your setup. Even in you own line, Black has all the winning chances due to weaker White king.

You are giving Black the development for free. Your opening idea won’t work against any decent player.

Please study normal openings.


Why should I sacrifice Bishop? I had a game with a friend, I obviously lost, but now I don't understand why, while reviewing my game, the CPU suggest that at this point the best move is Bishop in b5.

If the Queen decides to take the Bishop, there is nothing taking the Queen back:

Even continuing the game from there against CPU, the CPU doesn't take Bishop in b5. I don't get why.

When ... Qxb5 is played, White can play Bxd6. This is a great spot for the bishop, because now your opponent can't castle and your bishop is controlling some nice squares. If Black doesn't capture on b5, then he pretty much needs to move his queen, since you're threatening it with that bishop. Once he retreats, you have another piece developed, while your opponent has wasted a move running away.


He has two queens. I have one. Is it proper chess etiquette to check him non stop just to avoid losing? I am losing a game. My only option is to check my opponent non stop. I have no chance to checkmate him. I am only hoping to force a draw. Is this proper chess etiquette?

What you are describing is Perpetual Check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_check

It is covered in the rules of chess and the result of such a game is a draw. It is up to your opponent to try and avoid this situation if he thinks he can win. Conversely, if you might lose you should try to get into some kind of draw situation to avoid a loss.

Anecdote: A queen vs. queen, knight, and bishop did the same thing at the club quick tournament last night.


What's the origin of chess? I have heard numerous times that stated that India was the inventors of the original chess. I have also heard that the origin was in the Middle East. Sometimes I heard that the origin was in Arabia. As I have heard many things I wanted to know the right answer. If there is no right answer, please give the closest guess.

agree..broad ?..info for fun. There are 13 different claims to the origin of chess. No proof. Earliest documentation--600 A.D. Chaturanga - 4 sided game in what is now India. In this authors opinion chess was originally a 2 player game changed to a 4 player game then back to a 2 sided game. Trivia-the one peice that has not changed apperance or move pattern-knight..last major rule changes....Q & O-O..France 1400s.   Source "A Short History of Chess" by Henry A. Davidson m.d.1949


What's a really good tactic trainer rating on chess.com for a Candidate Master? I'm currently a Class B with a TT rating of 2100. I would like to aim to become a 2100 with norm of Candidate Master. What tactic rating does a CM usually have? How strong are Expert class chess players in tactical calculation?

While you cannot get to Candidate Master on tactics alone, most Candidate Masters have much higher tactics trainers ratings than you do. For example, Candidate Master Mago has a TT rating of 2602. While you should continue on your TT journey, you should also study master games, endgames, and positional play.


Why does AlphaZero evaluate on the order of 1000 times less moves than Stockfish? According to Deep mind's article, Alpha Zero searches roughly 10,000 moves per decision, while Stockfish is around 10,000,000 moves. I'm aware that Alpha Zero uses Monte Carlo Tree Search while Stockfish uses minimax, but why would this cause 1000 times less moves to be considered?

Very simple. Running a large neural network with floating numbers can’t be quicker than running a simple C++ function on integers.

AI machine learning is not new to chess. There were serious attempts before Google established. Unfortunately, nobody had the determination, skills and resources to do a good job. Nobody wanted to invest money. Before Google's chess journey, the chess engine community believed:

  AI chess will not beat classical programming because neural networks
  (or other models) run much slower.


What is Fritz Powerbook 2015? Learning chess & I thought Fritz Powerbook 2015 was THE chess-playing engine with GUI only to learn that it requires Fritz12, 13, 14 or 15 to use it. I had read that it had a lot of useful info on chess openings. I'm considering purchasing the new Fritz15 both to have it as well as make use of Powerbook 2015, but I'm wondering if anyone can clarify how and why one uses a "powerbook" in Fritz.

The powerbook contains 1.5 million games of grandmasters (including the most recent ones).  For the power book, these games have been processed so you can see their openings, and for each opening position you can see all the moves that have been played as well as the associated winning/drawing/losing rates.  So basically, it is an up-to-date overview of opening theory at the top level so far.


What is the most defended structure? Let's say the opponent has no pieces on the board but you have all of your pieces. In what way should you place your pieces on the board so that you have the absolute maximum of support for each piece?
Supporting/defending the king doesn't count and it doesn't matter what color you're playing. There is a +1 point for every protection a piece gets. X-ray protection doesn't count. Doubled pawns are allowed (even tripled and so forth). Bishops have to be on opposite colors.

This puzzle needs more love, so I post my best position (46):
[FEN "8/8/2PN4/1PKB4/2PRNB2/2PRQ1P1/3PPP2/8 w - - 0 1"]

Since just a record attempt is hardly an answer, here some tips for those who want to beat it:
R (and less so Q) are no problem, just put them in the mid of the fray. B can easily have at least 3. K should also have a crowded place. Critical is to have many covers by N and especially by P. Do not bother to count how often a piece is protected when moving around stuff, rather count how many pieces it protects!


Is there chess software to play against that rates your skill through actual games? Is there chess software out there that will try and rate your play? I vaguely recall an old Chessmaster software that did something similar, though by having you play through puzzles. I was looking for an actual engine to face you and gauge an estimated Elo rating somehow.

I realize what I'm about to suggest isn't exactly what you have in mind, but still, it is technically software, and it rates your skill through actual games: play games online against other people, e.g. at FICS, Playchess, ICC or chess.com.

Instead of using some software that would have you play games against an engine (perhaps with various "levels" that are supposed to reflect various Elo levels), and then has some algorithm or other that tries to convert your results against it into your own estimated real-world rating, my suggestion cuts out the middleman and throws you right into a real-world pool. This way seems more efficient if nothing else (and probably more fun).

Now any rating you get at one of the sites I mentioned will be on a somewhat different scale than that for, say, actual FIDE ratings, and they will differ from site to site as well. But you will usually have some way to translate your rating there into a percentile (within that site's playing pool), and that would give you better information about your playing strength than any purely algorithmic guess about it will.


Is allowing takebacks in friendly games a bad practice? When I am playing friendly games with my brother, if one of us makes a big blunder that would make it pointless to continue playing, instead of quitting, we undo the move(s) to give a second chance (if we both agree, otherwise the one that did the blunder loses).

We do it frequently and the fun seems to increase since we can keep playing a balanced game.

But is this a good habit? Are there negative consequences of doing this?

Getting too used to playing with takebacks could be somewhat detrimental if you were to transition to tournament chess at some point, since it downplays the importance of keeping your guard up and being vigilant about tactical possibilities in positions. Nevertheless, I think that in the setting you indicate playing with occasional takebacks (especially for really major blunders) is an instructive way to go, and so can be a good short-term practice for your long-term understanding of the game.

When some terrible blunder happens in your friendly games, there are basically three choices:

Resign and start anew.
Play on in a very lopsided (and probably not so instructive) position.
Take the blunder back and pick a different way to proceed.

Only the third option forces you to return to the position where the mistake was made and figure out something better to do, which in turn requires you to determine the nature of the mistake that was made in the first place. This is a good thing to do, at least if you want to emphasize learning over the competitive results of your friendly games.


Looking for a good chess program with a couple of features I'm looking for a good chess program with the following features. The game should

Randomly select whether I take white/black
Allow me to have a handicap against the computer
Have different difficulty levels

Any suggestions?

Ubisoft's Chessmaster:  Grandmaster Edition fits the bill:

1) Randomisation

This is available as an option in ranked play:

2) Handicaps

Are dealt with in the setup position mode (but unfortunately there isn't a randomised colour option in this part of the software. I would suggest rolling a dice)

3) Difficulty levels

Elo ranges from 0 to 2928 with a range of personalities (attackers, defenders etc.)


Is castling legal regarding rooks passing over attacked squares? I was playing a game of chess and I was playing black. I had a rook on b2. I had control of the b1 square. My opponent white did not have any pawns in the second  rank. My opponent; white castled queenside. Is it illegal for his rook to pass the b1 square considering his rook passed the b1 square I had control of. Wouldn't it make this castle move illegal on white's part?

It is still possible to castle if the rook passes through squares that are attacked(under control by opponent's rook e.g. as you say), it's only in the case of the king that such scenario prohibits you from castling.

Have a look at the post Cleveland has suggested in the comments.

Here's an example anyway:

[Title "O-O-O"]
[StartFlipped "0"]
[fen "2bk2nr/p1p2ppp/2p5/2p5/2P1P3/2N5/Pr3PPP/R3KB1R w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.O-O-O+


What's the best time control to play online in order to improve? I am an amateur, 33 years old, never took chess lessons, never played in a tournament. Last year I rediscovered chess and I am trying to improve as much as possible by reading books, watching videos and playing correspondence chess online. There is a small possibility for me to play over the board or join a club at this moment.

So my question is: what's the best time control to play online in order to improve better? I feel that 15-30min is too fast and there are very few players who want to play bigger times online. I like correspondence but sometimes I forget (over night) a bit the feeling of the game, lose the ideas or other stuff..

I am reading a lot of books but I want to practice more...
Thanks a lot!

This question will receive more opinionated answers regarding the time control, I will answer in perspective of an advanced beginner Chess player. Since you have said you are a beginner and never played in a tournament before, I would suggest you to have 1 hour or 45mins + 45sec increment time control. This is because of my previous answer here: Do longer games better your chances of honing chess skills?. Additionally:

When you engage yourself in a 1 hour time control chess game, you
are not under any pressure to make moves without calculation and
thus avoiding big blunders, this happens almost for everyone who
has not played against opponents much.
You are also open to various variations for a move, thus allowing to
think at least 3-4 moves ahead of the next move(visualizing).

  I like correspondence but sometimes I forget (over night) a bit the
  feeling of the game, lose the ideas or other stuff.

Yes, Correspondence games will tend you to lose track of your positions, tempo, tactics etc since it may take 1 or more than 1 day to make a move. Almost 20-30% of the time either me or my opponent will lose because of this, even though having an advantageous position. But my guess is Correspondence game is relative to your memory power.

But remember that you also need to concentrate on the skills by reading books, solving puzzles etc. Playing with opponents alone will not improve your game because online games are just application of your skills not development.


How to look up my games based on specific opening in lichess? This question is not related to chess as such and is more related to the chess website lichess. I tried asking in their forum but haven't yet got an answer.
I would like to look at my games based on a specific opening, say B20. The search doesn't allow me to search my games based on a specific opening.
Is there a way to do it?

I'm afraid you cannot filter your own games based on a specific opening on lichess.
You can, however, aggregately analyze the results you achieved on a certain opening by exploiting the Chess Insights feature, which is available in your profile page (on the right-hand side of your rating graph).
After clicking on it and feeding your own games, you can go on the Filters tab, choose the specific opening you want under the Game window and then select the metrics you want to analyze. At the bottom there is also a set of games used to generate the insight.


What is the longest tablebase win that includes draw rules? It has been asked the longest mate that includes draw rules is, and it is known what the longest tablebase mate is. However, what is the longest tablebase mate, i.e. 7 pieces or less, that accounts for the 50-move rule?

So far, I have looked at Kirill Kryukov's page for longest mates for up to 6 pieces. I looked for positions where White has at least two pawns and tested to see if they are a "cursed" win or not in Sygyzy, along with checking Shredder for the DTM. Lichess is great for playing out the moves so they can be copy and pasted.

The 5-piece endgame KPPKQ has the longest sequence I know of so far, with a DTM of 248 ply. Here is the full sequence to show how White must be able to make a pawn move every so often to reset the 50-move counter in order to win. I added on an extra move for each side, so the current record is 250 ply.

[FEN "8/4q3/5P1Q/8/8/8/k1K1P3/7q w - - 0 1"]

1. fxe7 Qxh6 2. e8=Q Qh7+ 3. Kc3 Qc7+ 4. Kd4 Qb6+ 5. Kd5 Qb3+ 6. Ke4 Qd1 7. e3 Qe2 8. Kf4 Qf2+ 9. Kg5 Qg1+ 10. Kf6 Qf2+ 11. Kg7 Qb2+ 12. Kh7 Qb7+ 13. Kh6 Qb6+ 14. Kg5 Kb3 15. Kf5 Qc5+ 16. Kf6 Kc2 17. Qe4+ Kc1 18. Kf7 Qh5+ 19. Ke7 Qc5+ 20. Kd7 Qa7+ 21. Ke8 Qb8+ 22. Kf7 Qc7+ 23. Qe7 Qc4+ 24. Qe6 Qc7+ 25. Kf6 Qc3+ 26. Qe5 Qc6+ 27. Ke7 Qb7+ 28. Kd8 Qa8+ 29. Kd7 Qa4+ 30. Ke7 Qb4+ 31. Ke6 Qc4+ 32. Qd5 Qc8+ 33. Ke7 Qc7+ 34. Kf6 Qc3+ 35. Qd4 Qc8 36. Kf7 Qb7+ 37. Kg6 Qc6+ 38. Kf5 Qb5+ 39. Kf4 Qf1+ 40. Ke4 Qg2+ 41. Ke5 Qg5+ 42. Ke6 Qg8+ 43. Kd7 Qf7+ 44. Kc6 Qe8+ 45. Kc7 Qf7+ 46. Kb6 Qb3+ 47. Kc6 Qe6+ 48. Kc5 Qc8+ 49. Kb4 Qb7+ 50. Kc3 Qc6+ 51. Qc4 Qf3 52. Kd4+ Kd2 53. Qd3+ Ke1 54. e4 Qf6+ 55. Kc5 Qe7+ 56. Kb6 Qe6+ 57. Ka5 Qa2+ 58. Kb5 Qb2+ 59. Kc6 Qe5 60. Qd5 Qh8 61. Qf5 Qe8+ 62. Kc5 Qe7+ 63. Kc4 Qc7+ 64. Qc5 Qf4 65. Qd4 Qf7+ 66. Kc3 Qf3+ 67. Kb2 Qg2+ 68. Ka1 Qf3 69. e5 Ke2 70. Ka2 Qc6 71. Ka3 Qf3+ 72. Kb4 Qb7+ 73. Kc4 Qc6+ 74. Qc5 Qa4+ 75. Kd5 Qd7+ 76. Qd6 Qb5+ 77. Ke6 Qb3+ 78. Qd5 Qb6+ 79. Kf5 Qf2+ 80. Kg5 Qg1+ 81. Kh6 Qe3+ 82. Kh5 Qh3+ 83. Kg6 Qg4+ 84. Kf6 Qh4+ 85. Kf7 Qh5+ 86. Ke7 Qg5+ 87. Kd7 Qf5+ 88. Kd6 Qf8+ 89. Kc7 Qf4 90. Kb6 Ke3 91. e6 Qb8+ 92. Kc5 Qc7+ 93. Qc6 Qe5+ 94. Kb6 Qb8+ 95. Ka6 Qe5 96. Qd7 Qa1+ 97. Kb6 Qb2+ 98. Qb5 Qf6 99. Qd5 Ke2 100. Kc6 Qg6 101. Kd7 Qg4 102. Qe5+ Kf2 103. Ke7 Qg8 104. Qf5+ Ke1 105. Kd7 Qa8 106. e7 Qa4+ 107. Kd6 Qa6+ 108. Ke5 Qb5+ 109. Kf6 Qe8 110. Qe6+ Kd1 111. Kg7 Kc1 112. Qf7 Qa4 113. e8=Q Qd4+ 114. Qf6 Qg4+ 115. Kh7 Qh3+ 116. Qh6+ Qxh6+ 117. Kxh6 Kd1 118. Qe3 Kc2 119. Kg5 Kb1 120. Qd2 Ka1 121. Kf4 Kb1 122. Ke3 Ka1 123. Kd3 Kb1 124. Kc3 Ka1 125. Qb2#

Who knows of/can find a longer such sequence? Additionally, if you are able to, give the moves for the position along with your answer please.


In engines vs engine game, both think "optimistically": that they are in better shape than what their opponent thinks the evaluation score is I observed in many Tcec games of season 10 (and possibly repeats trough seasons) that white evaluation score of a position is always greater (not in terms of absolute value, but in terms of the ">" math relation) than what their oponent thinks.

Now, the engines don't both evaluate the same position, they evaluate only their own moves, so to compare, I'm comparing with the previous and following move, in average.

You can see for yourself that in the Tcec link at the beginning, down there is the "Evaluation" graph. And the white "curve" is over the black in most game most of the time.

What causes this phenomena?

Is that after making a move the position is improved for our side and the evaluation changes accordingly?

I don't think, evaluation shouldn't depend so much on side to move. Is that a engine always do the things he likes, which the opponent maybe likes but maybe not and thus differing in the evaluation?

It doesn't really matter what the absolute scores are, they really only serve to compare moves internally so only their relative values matter.

With one exception: positions that are evaluated at a draw get 0.0 by all these engines.

So this "optimism" factor is tuned to create a difference between a position that is merely equal and one that is a draw; if it's set to +0.1 for an equal position, then a position must be worse than -0.1 before taking a draw becomes preferable.

The usual name for this is the "contempt" setting. The current TCEC Rules say that the engine's default setting is used, so it can be set by the programmers before the tournament, and updated versions of the program can be entered for later stages of the tournament.

I think that in stage 1, an engine that has too many draws won't qualify for stage 2, so I'd expect some slightly higher than normal contempt, and this effect should be clearly lower in later rounds. But I'm a complete layman and this may be wrong.


Stockfish: different nodes numbers with identical calls I ran Stockfish 2 times with the command go depth 1.

First time

info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 114 nodes 20 nps 10000 tbhits 0 time 2 pv e2e3

Second time:

info depth 1 seldepth 1 multipv 1 score cp 105 nodes 22 nps 22000 tbhits 0 time 1 pv e2e4

Why does the number of nodes increase from 20 to 22?

It's likely due to Stockfish's transposition table (essentially a fast lookup table that Stockfish can use to refer back to positions it evaluated before). During your first run, information about visited positions was stored in the table. Then on the second run, Stockfish may have looked at some of Black's moves after depth 1 (since it's already evaluated all states at depth 1).

SmallChess' answer to this question may be useful if it's still confusing:

How to read score from stockfish - inconsistent response every call?

Edit: to test if it is the transposition table behind this, try to reset it after the first run (close the whole program if you can't figure out how). Then on the second run, the number of nodes should be the same (as well as the centipawn evaluation).


To earn a direct title for coming first in an official FIDE tournament, do we include players who already have that title? I'm intending to play in the Oceania Zonal tournament (brochure) and direct titles will be awarded in this tournament.  I'm interested in the WIM title.  The FIDE handbook says in regards to the WIM title:

Sub-Continental Individual
1st equal – title;
Silver & Bronze – norm
1st equal = best 3 players after tiebreak;

The current list of entries are here and it includes WGM Julia Ryjanova (2308) and IM Irina Berezina (2109) who are much stronger than me.  Both players, however, already have titles higher than the WIM title, and I would like to know if they "count" for awarding direct titles.  Do I need to score at least as much as them?
Question: To earn a direct title for coming first in an official FIDE tournament, do we include players who already have that title?
Layla Timergazi (FIDE) received the WIM title at the last Oceania Zonal, but she was outright first (crosstable).

Yes, we include all the players who participated in the event. If you finish second after WGM Ryjanova, you will receive a norm but not the title. If you finish fourth, you receive neither, regardless of who is on the podium. If the level of the field is high with a lot of tilted players participating, it often occurs that no 'special' title is awarded at the end of the tournament.

For instance, the World Junior champion is awarded with a grandmaster title. This year, the tournament was won by Iran's Parham Maghsoodloo, who was already a GM. The first non-GM in the tournament, IM Sergei Lobanov, did not receive that title instead (he 'only' got a GM-norm for his third place).


What length of time should one spend looking for a combination, and what factors should one consider? Taking time control into account, how long should one take when looking for a combination?  Also, what factors should one consider when looking for a combination?

That's a very general question that I don't think you will get a solid answer for. The chance of a powerful combination being available depends largely on the pieces each side has available and developed. So the answer varies based on what stage the game is in and the positions of each side.

Instead I would focus on identifying the types of combinations you are comfortable with, and start to learn to identify boards where those combinations MAY be present, and others where the combinations is not present. If you can speed up your identification you can determine on the fly how much time to spend on evaluating each potential move.


Positional principles in chess openings I am a d4 player as white and I really don't like to memorize tatical lines in the opening altought I know most commons lines very well in the first 8 - 15 moves depend on the opening based on my practice.

I am looking for positional principles that can guide my play.

Do you have any line that you memorize few principles and you can guess some theory based on this considerations, or guide your play after your theory knowledge ends?

Please point out what positional rules you follow.

(For example someone teached me that queen's indian is a fight for the control of e4 square.

When I am playing with white and my theory knowledge ends or black play an unknown variation, I always check if I can break on e3-e4 and if I could usually is a good move.

When I am playing with black the same line and I reach a point where my theory knowledge ends and I don't know what to play, I always check if it is possible to overcontrol e4.

So the positional principle: control of e4, helps me a lot in queens indian when my theory knowledge ends or my opponent make an unusual move

Another example that come in my mind is when you reach common positions of benoni, black will try to play c5-c4 and put a knight on d3, but if black play this allow white to play knight f3-d4-c6, and this fight guide my play in both sides of this variation, and after I understand that I became stronger in both sides of this variation

A last example that I can give is the almost sure f5 by black in KID and petrosian variation of KID is a line that is not usually good for black force f5... Even fischer lose a beautiful game for tal insisting in playing f5 in this line... So this change in black's way to think the KID can be very annoying even for stronger players... I usually do so well with this variation based that black side of KID usually will force f5 and petrosian variation make it so difficult)

As TMM said, you won't get any edge with White without any memorization or tactical, not only positional understanding of the opening.

I would recommand you though to look at the Reti opening 1. Nf3. As a d4 player, you won't be out of your territory and would be able to dodge normal Grünfeld type of positions, which is a sharp opening of course, and the Nimzo-Indian as well, which requires also a lot of work. These subtleties are based on move orders though and transpositional "tricks". You have to know them !
The Reti should spare you some precious time but you won't get away from studying opening.

Against the KID, you should look at the Smyslov variation. You won't be crushed within 15 moves (or even less) as in the main lines.


Are there any chess engines which try to emulate human thinking? As I understand it chess engines mostly share the basic pattern of having a simple score for the board position and then searching forward with some sort of alpha-beta pruning or similar.

Presumably in the early days people tried to program in the thinking algorithms of a human, before finding that was very weak in a computer.

Now that we have vast computer power, are their any engines that try to do this?  They will no doubt still be weak, but could be interesting nonetheless - not least in what it can teach us about how to improve our heuristics.

By "human thinking" I'm meaning things like

Deliberately making and breaking pawn structures
Having a plan
Using heuristics ("knights on the rim...", "castle quickly")

To be clear, the question is about writing an engine to emulate human thinking not human play.  It may (or may not) be possible to tweak alpha-beta engines to produce game play that looks human, but you could never interrogate the algorithm and ask it "why did you play that?".

In a sense, an attempt to "emulate human thinking" has been done since Atkin and Slate's Chess 4.0 in the 1970's, by tuning the evaluation function based on feeding masses of Grandmaster games through and tuning the parameters to closely mirror the players' choices.

I think you're contemplating approaches fundamentally different from the standard Alpha-Beta search paradigm though.  That has proven remarkably difficult, and probably some of the best work was done with very early chess engines.  Unfortunately, such approaches tend to be "brittle", because there are so many exceptions to every rule, and tactics (which searching essentially everything excels at) tends to fall down hard without it.

I think, though, you are fundamentally on the right track, in that the distinction between very strong players and weak ones is fundamentally pattern-recognition of positions based on long experience, and being able to "prune the tree" of plausible moves to look at from the start.  It would seem there should be a way to store in a database knows "clusters of pieces" for which the game tree has already been partially calculated, such that if you could define the exceptions--i.e. "those pieces were there rather than here in the position I previously calculated and stored", and write a "possible move differences tree" algorithm, you could vastly increase efficiency in a manner very parallel to the way humans do it.  I've given some broad design thought to this, but alas, other practical income-earning coding has always taken precedence...


Books for beginners who have hard time understanding positions of pieces? I'm new here and I found a book called Logical Chess by Chernev. Is this a great book to start if you are a beginner and you only know how to move pieces but not how to develop them? I'm having a hard time looking at my games and I do not understand where I'm wrong and why I placed the bishop or knight in the D file,E file,etc.
I can understand way better in books than in games with the computer analysis or another method.
If this is not a good book what else would you recommend me?

Frankly, what you are asking is not a short-term goal. It really is about leaning chess, and it takes many years. When you ask why you are putting pieces on certain squares, that is called positional chess, and most people only start to absorb that after they are considerably stronger than beginner. There is no one, or even a few, books that will get you there.

What you really need to do is start with tactics books. Those are books that have problems that are forced series of moves leading to advantage. When you do enough of these, you will start to absorb some "pattern recognition". Much of chess is learning many positions, and then applying them so similar positions that arise in your actual games. In addition, these tactics books will help you to start thinking ahead, and in particular, to lose less pieces. At the begging level, most often, it is who loses the least pieces, rather than who wins the most pieces.

There are many, many, books on tactics, but if you are beginning, you want very basic tactics books. Do not shy away from books that are aimed at kids. That is more marketing since it really does not matter if you are a kid or adult, and what matters more is your level of understanding, which is limited to how the pieces move.

Here are some books that I use for teaching kids, actually high school kids, so they are like young adults:

Chess Tactics for Students

Chess Tactics for Kids

How to Beat Your Dad at Chess

Power Chess for Kids: Learn How to Think Ahead and Become One of the Best Players in Your School

Let me add one recommendation that I use often to novices: In the beginning of the game, always ask yourself: "What piece haven't I moved yet?" You want to get all your pieces out since it is hard to win if you are playing with one or two pieces, and he is playing with 4-5.


Online tools for scheduling teams round-robin events A solution would allow the creation of pairings, the entering of team results, the viewing of a team ranking table, and ideally allow the listing of an individual ranking table as well.

The best I've found so far is https://tournamentscheduler.net/

However, it seems to have the following limitations:

It has no respect for colors (so that e.g. it will make Team 1 White in every round)
It refuses to accept non-integer round results (so you can't say that one team defeated the other 3.5-0.5. You would need to either use match wins as your criterion or else multiply the actual score by 2.

It's also limited in the sense that you can't enter individual results.

What you are really looking for is a pairing program which will perform team round-robin pairing, allow you to enter results and display the results online.

There are two obvious candidates, one expensive and deluxe, and one cheap (free on Linux) which requires a bit more work on your part.

The expensive option is Swiss Manager. This does everything you could want and more but it costs 150 euros for the full version and 75 euros for the light version (limit 60 players / 11 rounds). This includes a website (chess-results.com) where your tournaments can be viewed.

The cheap / free option is Vega. It is free on Linux. On Windows and MacOS it is free for up to 30 players (individual tournament) and 8 teams (team tournament). I paid 50 euros for the full Windows version a few years ago.

Something which is new, which I see for the first time (new since the end of 2019), is that now it also has its own website like Swiss Manager. This is https://www.vegaresult.com/vr/. If you have up to 8 teams or you would run it on Linux then this looks like a very good free solution. Previous versions would generate the HTML for you to copy and paste into your own website. This could still be very useful for more tech-orientated clubs / administrators.


Candidates 2013: could Ivanchuk have drawn? In the last round of the Candidates of the 2013 World Championship, there were two players left in contention. Kramnik (black vs. Ivanchuk) needed to outperform Carlsen (white vs. Svidler). In the event, Carlsen lost, so Kramnik only needed to draw, but he also had a lost position and resigned shortly afterwards. Carlsen went on to win the tournament and the title.

Now suppose that Ivanchuk hates Carlsen and really doesn't want Carlsen to win. Could he have offered a draw to Kramnik? That would be match manipulation of a sort - he's effectively making Kramnik champion. However I don't see how an outsider can stop him from offering a draw in a winning position, unless they offer him advice during the game ("you're in a winning position! Don't offer a draw!") which should be illegal. Afterwards he can always claim that he didn't think he was winning.

Is there some kind of rule that prevents this kind of scenario? Strictly speaking, a Carlsen-hating Ivanchuk could also have thrown the game ("I just happened not to see that my queen was en prise"), which would've forced Carlsen to win.

Other than the catchall rule mentioned by D M, Article 11.1: The players shall take no action that will bring the game of chess into disrepute., I don't think there is a rule that prevents such scenario directly.

Also I believe that it is pretty much impossible to set up such rule, because there are too many possibilities. Also it would be very difficult to enforce it. Think of the following:

You would have to prove intent, which seems rather difficult.
Games at this level are rarely played out to a completely won position. It would have been easy to either make a small blunder to equalize the position, or just to claim that you evaluated the position incorrectly as draw.
The outcome of one game can affect many things. Apart from the direct points, it might also affect tie-break scores or the Elo rating (which could be relevant for instance for participation in the candidate tournament). Whatever the outcome of the game somebody will always be unhappy and could claim that the result is match manipulation.
If there was such a rule every time you make a blunder you would be under suspicion of match manipulation.
Last round quick draws in tournaments are pretty common as are not-fought-to-the-end games in team competitions (if it secures a win for the team for instance). Seems like match manipulation to me as well, and not much is being done to prevent it.


Early line in english opening not in the chessbase powerbook 2019 but seen by stockfish 10 64bits under latest fritz I am looking at 1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 dxc4 4.Nf3 and Chessbase's Powerbook 2019 only proposes 4...c6, 4...g6, 4...a6, 4...Nbd7, 4...Qd6 or 4...Be6 whereas Fritz 17 64bits latest update using Stockfish 10 64bits finds this line :

[fen ""]

1.c4 Nf6 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2 dxc4 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.Qa4 Nd7 6.Qxc4 e5 7.O-O Be7 8.b3 Nb6 9.Qc2 O-O 10.Bb2 Nb4 11.Qc3 f6 12.a3 Nc6 13.d3 Be6 14.Nbd2 Qd7 15.Rac1 Rfd8 16.Qc2 a5 17.Rfd1 Bd5 18.Re1 Bf7 19.Ne4 h6 20.Nfd2 Be6 21.Red1 Bd5 22.Nc5 Bxc5 23.Qxc5 Bxg2 24.Kxg2 Kh8

Either the quality of the Powerbook 2019 is not that high, either Stockfish 10 64bits is cracking, which I doubt. Am I right or do I miss a parameter ?

I also have PowerBook 2019, and Stockfish 10, and I can confirm what you found, but there is an explanation.

The moves suggested in the PowerBook are from actual human games. They are intended, specifically, to give the computer a human opening book, rather than it just playing on its own. You will find these games in the database Powergames2019 that came with the product.

This goes back to the old days, when computers were not as strong as they are today. It was then beneficial to have a human opening book. Today, one could make the argument that it is not so necessary.

P.S. For the record, Masters have a natural proclivity not to block the c-pawn, either as white or black in closed openings since you need to play c5 so often to try and free your game. That is the reason the Chigorin is not so popular.


What are good sources to learn the Torre Attack? I am particularly interested in the Torre Attack against the King's Indian formation.  What dvd or books, etc. are good, or is it best to dig up old games and Chess Informants?

One of the books of the "Move By Move" series is about the Torre Attack. It's written by IM Palliser and published in 2012, so it's still relatively recent.

Digging up old games is definitely a good idea when studying an opening, but you can also find interesting material from recent games. This year, Kramnik played the Torre Attack against the King's Indian a couple of times: in blitz (Kramnik - Vachier-Lagrave) and rapid (Kramnik - Nepomniachtchi), but also in classical time control (Kramnik - Radjabov).


Evaluation of this alternative to French exchange lines I am a French Defense opening player from both sides. I don't like exchange line of the French Defense. They are drawish positions and my brain gets bored resulting in a positional or small mistake.

I have never played it at a 90+30 FIDE rated games, and I know the engine says this is not good at all. Anyhow I have played c5 with black several times on blitz, and I still do it.

The level of the players I play against rounds the range 1650-1900. There are some tricks if white don't plays well. Sometimes, especially for the players with lower rating. d4 or d5 pawns get pinned and become a trouble.

Should I stop playing it?

rnbqkbnr/pp3ppp/4p3/2pP4/3P4/8/PPP2PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq c6 0 4

I think I should have played this following line some dozens of times, having good results with black at blitz at a level 1650-1800.

[FEN ""]
[Date "2018.07.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. dxe6 Bxe6 5. Bb5+ Nc6 6. Nf3 Qa5+ 7. Nc3 O-O-O *

Less frequent, but sometimes they fall, I recover the pawn, and there is misdevelopment. eg:

[FEN ""]
[Date "2018.07.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. dxc5 Bxc5 5. dxe6 Bxf2+ 6. Ke2 Qxd1+ 7. Kxd1
Bxe6 *

At some of the games I played -note it is blitz- they have clear they wanted an exchange and they just do not try to profit white's advantages. Then I like to have my pawn at c5 and accept the exchange and avoid the gambit variation.

[FEN ""]
[Date "2018.07.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 c5 4. Nf3 exd5 *

This gambit looks extremely dubious since you give a central pawn, White has played only developing moves and she has no weakness.

Besides the unassuming 4.Nf3, insisting on an exchange French, you could be worried about:

4.Nc3, transposing into the rare Marshall French (3.Nc3 c5?! 4.ed5). It is considered to favour White. The very slight plus side for you is that since White has played 3.ed5, he might not be too familiar with this line.
4.c4, when after 4...ed5 the very open position means that the extra tempo will probably be valuable.
4.de6, grabing the pawn in exchange for a single developing tempo. After 4...Be6 5.Nf3 there is no doubt that Black's compensation is unsufficient.
4.Bb5+, probably the most critical, accepting the challenge. After 4...Bd7, any of 5.Nc3, 5.a4 a6?! 6.Bc4 and 5.Qe2 make sense.

All in all, you can use this line in online blitz in you like to (but I wouldn't). However I consider it totally unsuitable for 'serious' chess with rapid or classical time controls.


Are there statistics on the results of armageddon games at the GM level? I've tried finding statistics on the results of competitive armageddon games played at a high level (say, GM level), but to no avail. Evidently, these statistics must exist, as for example FIDE changed the time controls in the official rules from 6 minutes-5 minutes to 5 minutes-4 minutes in preparation for the Carlsen-Karjakin WC match (thus indicating that they felt that 6-5 gave black too much of an advantage compared to 5-4).

Basically, does white really have a ~50% win rate in GM-level armageddon chess games?

The earliest Armageddon games I can find go back to the Women's World Chess Championship 2001, and the FIDE World Championship in 2002, which GM Ruslan Ponomariov won. This is probably a fairly complete list since Armageddon really only lends itself to knock-out tournaments or matches, and the question did ask primarily about GMs and Armageddon. There might be the occasional country championship that goes to tiebreaker, which I did not find, similar to when GM Irina Krush lost to IM Anna Zatonskih in 2008 for the U.S. Women’s Championship in a controversial finish.

So, while these stats may not be 100% complete, they can give a good idea about the overall statistics.

I am amazed by the results of this: Out of the 48 games I found, 24 were 1-0, 15 were 0-1, and 9 were ½-½. If you look at that both the 0-1 and ½-½ count as wins for black, then the result was exactly 24-24. Seemingly quiet a fair tiebreaker system.

Here is the data I used to compile this estimate.

FIDE World Chess Championship 2002

This was the only FIDE World Championship to use Armageddon during the period of when Kasparov broke off with the title until it was unified in 2006. Prior to this, in 1998 and 2000, they continued playing additional blitz games, and in 2005, FIDE reverted to a double-round-robin tournament.

GM Zoltan Gyimesi defeated GM Stuart Conquest 4-3 in round one. Gyimesi had white 1-0.
GM Emil Sutovsky defeated GM Alonso Zapata 4-3 in round one. Sutovsky had white 1-0.
GM Lazaro Bruzon defeated GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu 4-3 in round one. Bruzon had white 1-0.
GM Jaan Ehlvest defeated GM Ilia Smirin 4-3 in round three. Ehlvest had white 1-0.
GM Alexey Shirov defeated GM Veselin Topalov 4-3 in round four. Shirov had black 0-1.

Chess World Cup 2005

GM Yuri Shulman defeated GM Vadim Zvjaginsev 3.5-3.5 in round one. Shulman had black ½-½.
GM Predrag Nikolić defeated GM David Navara 3.5-3.5 in round one. Nikolić had black ½-½.
GM Sergey Erenburg defeated GM Zviad Izoria 4-3 in round one. Erenburg had black 0-1.
GM Evgeniy Najer defeated GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 4-3 in round two. Najer had white 1-0.
GM Yuri Shulman defeated GM Vadim Zvjaginsev 3.5-3.5 in round two. Shulman had black ½-½.
GM Sergei Tiviakov defeated GM Oleg Korneev 4-3 in round two. Tiviakov had white 1-0.
GM Loek van Wely defeated GM Alexander Moiseenko 4-3 in round two. van Wely had white 1-0.

Chess World Cup 2007

GM Michael Roiz defeated GM Varuzhan Akobian 4-3 in round one. Roiz had white 1-0.
GM Konstantin Sakaev defeated GM Nikita Vitiugov 4-3 in round one. Sakaev had black 0-1.
GM Zhou Jianchao defeated GM Andrei Volokitin 4-3 in round two. Zhou had white 1-0.
GM Kiril Georgiev defeated GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov 4-3 in round two. Georgiev had white 1-0.

Chess World Cup 2009

This year, by some accounts a mistake, the tiebreaker was changed to four rapid games, then up to five pairs of blitz games, and only then, Armageddon. Not surprising, but there were no Armageddon games, however, GM Varuzhan Akobian did defeat GM Pavel Tregubov 9-7, just one game short of Armageddon.

Chess World Cup 2011

Starting this year, they went back to the previous tiebreak format, but with two shorter 10+10 rapid games added after the 25+10 rapids.
GM Yuri Drozdovskij defeated GM Alexander Motylev 5-4 in round one. Drozdovskij had white 1-0.
GM Leinier Domínguez Perez defeated GM Igor Lysyj 5-4 in round three. Domínguez Perez had white 1-0.

Chess World Cup 2013

GM Evgeny Tomashevsky defeated GM Alejandro Ramírez 5-4 in round one. Tomashevsky had white 1-0.
GM Julio Granda defeated GM Hrant Melkumyan 5-4 in round one. Granda had black 0-1.
GM Daniil Dubov defeated GM Ruslan Ponomariov 5-4 in round two. Dubov had white 1-0.

Chess World Cup 2015

GM Gabriel Sargissian defeated GM Mateusz Bartel 4.5-4.5 in round one. Sargissian had black ½-½.
GM Michael Adams defeated GM Viktor Láznička 5-4 in round two. Adams had white 1-0.
GM Hikaru Nakamura defeated GM Ian Nepomniachtchi 5-4 in round three. Nakamura had black 0-1.

Chess World Cup 2017

GM Levon Aronian defeated GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 5-4 in the semi-finals. Aronian had white 1-0.

Chess World Cup 2019

GM Anish Giri defeated GM Evgeniy Najer 5-4 in round two. Giri had black 0-1.
GM Yu Yangyi defeated GM Nikita Vitiugov 5-4 in the quarter-finals. Yu had white 1-0.

Women's World Chess Championship 2001

Note: I could not confirm the format with 100% accuracy. I am reasonably guessing that this used the same format as the men, and the women in 2008, which I could confirm. In addition, the brackets had the 4-3 results as in the men’s tournaments.

GM Zhu Chen defeated GM Maia Chiburdanidze 4-3 in the semi-finals. (no data)

Women's World Chess Championship 2004

GM Peng Zhaoqin defeated IM Joanna Dworakowska 4-3 in round one. Pend had black 0-1.
WGM Ketino Kachiani defeated WGM Nguyễn Thị Thanh An 3.5-3.5 in round one, Ketino Kachiani had black ½-½.
IM Tatjana Vasilevich defeated WGM Xu Yuanyuan 4-3 in round one. Vasilevich had black 0-1.
IM Lilit Mkrtchian defeated then WGM Monika Soćko 4-3 in round one. Mkrtchian had white 1-0.
Then WGM Kateryna Lagno defeated then untitled Ekaterina Atalik 4-3 in round two. Lagno had black 0-1.

Women's World Chess Championship 2006

None.

Women's World Chess Championship 2008

IM Elisabeth Pähtz defeated WGM Ilaha Kadimova 4-3 in round one. Pähtz had white 1-0.
GM Monika Soćko defeated WGM Sabina-Francesca Foisor 4-3 in round one. Soćko had white 1-0.

Women's World Chess Championship 2010

Then IM Harika Dronavalli defeated then IM Mariya Muzychuk 4-3 in round three. Harika had black 0-1 (on time in a lost position!).

Women's World Chess Championship 2012

This was the first year of the extended tiebreaker with the rapid 10+10 games added.
Then IM Mariya Muzychuk defeated WGM Cristina Adela Foișor 4.5-4.5. Muzychuk had black ½-½.

Women's World Chess Championship 2015

GM Tatiana Kosintseva defeated WGM Mary Ann Gomes 5-4 in round one. Kosintseva had black 0-1.
Then WGM Aleksandra Goryachkina defeated IM Lilit Mkrtchian 5-4 in round one. Goryachkina had white 1-0.

Women's World Chess Championship 2017

IM Anastasia Bodnaruk defeated WGM Mitra Hejazipour 5-4 in round one. Bodnaruk had white 1-0.
GM Tan Zhongyi defeated GM Anna Ushenina 4.5-4.5 in round two. Zhongyi had black ½-½.
IM Nino Khurtsidze defeated then IM Nino Batsiashvili 5-4 in round two. Khurtsidze had black 0-1.
GM Tan Zhongyi defeated GM Harika Dronavalli 5-4 in the semi-finals. Tan had black 0-1.

Women's World Chess Championship 2018

GM Kateryna Lagno defeated WGM Natalia Pogonina 5-4 in round three. Lagno had white 1-0.

US Women’s Championship 2008

Then IM Anna Zatonskih defeated IM Irina Krush 3-2. Zatonskih was black, and white flagged, 0-1.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/us-women-s-armageddon-reactions-from-our-readers

World Chess Armageddon Series 2019

Nepomniachtchi -Karjakin 0-1
Radjabov-Karjakin ½-½
Radjabov-Dubov 1-0
Radjabov-Kramnik ½-½

https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2019-world-chess-armageddon-series


What is the Elo of a player who is half as good as another player? You often hear players refer to others as half as good as me, while they have the same Elo. Is there a formula to measure this? It must take in account that being half as good as Carlsen, for example, is somewhere near a 2600 GM level, while half as good as a club player, is at 1000 level.

What I think that being n times weaker than a player is.

If an n times weaker player plays the player he is n times weaker, it means that if they played an infinite match, the weaker player should get n points, while the stronger player n*x.

Any other ideas? Are there any papers written on this? If my idea were to be true, is there a formula to calculate the Elo difference?

This answer addresses one concrete portion of the OP; namely, for an arbitrary N > 0, what rating difference between Player A and Player B corresponds to Player A's expected score against Player B being N times the expected score for Player B? I'll speak in terms of the USCF's Elo rating system, since I'm most familiar with it.

If Player A's expected score is N times that of Player B when they face each other, then Player A's expected score is N / (N + 1) while Player B's expected score is 1 / (N + 1) (since the two expected scores must sum to 1). Let A be Player A's rating and let B be Player B's rating. According to the USCF rating system, these ratings are intended to indicate that Player A's expected score is then

1 / (1 + 10^((B - A) / 400))

Thus if we solve the equation

1 / (1 + 10^((B - A) / 400)) = N / (N + 1)

for A - B, we will have an answer as to what rating difference corresponds to Player A's expected score being N times greater than Player B's when they match up. What we get is that

A - B = -400 * ln(1 / N) / ln(10)

So we have the following approximate rating differences corresponding to certain values of N:

N     A - B
-     -----
1     0
1.5   70
2     120
3     191
4     241
5     280


What are good ways to check blunders after the match? Currently I am using Tarrasch for GUI and Rybka 2.3.2a as the engine. With that, I am able to kibitzing every position in the game and check for any blunder. So basically this is what I always did:

Record all of the moves with Tarrasch and then save it in PGN format.
Kibitzing with Rybka from the 1st move, check the evaluation.
Continue to the next move, kibitzing again, etc.

Is there any faster way than checking every position one by one like this?

Lichess.org has a free browser-based game analysis tool that allows you to copy and paste your PGN file for online analysis.

It's powered by Stockfish, and the analysis automatically:

Annotates the game with inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders.
Graphs the game with an interactive move-by-move advantage chart (see below).
Suggests improved lines.
Names the opening.

It doesn't beat going through your games with your opponent and a good instructor, but it's a very useful free tool, and you don't need to install any software to run it.

The developer of lichess.org also has a blog post about Stockfish and the analysis tool.


Why do points matter in trading pieces? I am a beginner in chess and I am following the tutorials on Chess.com and reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess. In the tutorials about capturing pieces, it is common to count the points in trading pieces.

For example, say I can capture a rook with my knight and the knight will also be captured by my opponent. In that case, because the rook is worth 5 points and my knight is worth 3 points, I will gain 2 points. In most of the tutorials I use, this kind of play is advised.

I am wondering why points matter in trading pieces. Does the fact that the knight is worth 2 less points than the rook make it less valuable?

The point system in chess gives a rough indication of how strong each piece is. So the short answer to your question is, yes, a rook is more valuable than a knight, and so in the vast majority of cases, if you can trade a rook for a knight, you should do it.

This does beg the question, however, about why a rook is considered more valuable. At its best, a rook can control long files (columns) and ranks (rows). While the knight's tricky movement can sometimes be an advantage, in general we consider it to be inferior. One way to demonstrate the value of a rook is to try the rook and king vs king endgame. (I would definitely recommend looking it up first.) Note that there is no way of checkmating just with a knight and king. In fact, the game would  be drawn by insufficient material. This is just a fancy way of saying that neither player has enough firepower to achieve checkmate. As you progress, it will become clearer to you why rooks are more valuable than knights. At some point, you might even be able to notice when a knight is better than a rook! But for now, concentrate on the points system—it's a great way of knowing who is ahead in the game.

Edit: it's worth noting that the points system is not part of the rules of chess. The bottom line is that you are trying to checkmate your opponent's king. But having more material (i.e. points) is a key way of getting closer to this goal.


Why would a correspondence chess player be accused of using a computer? I play a good deal of online correspondence chess. On the website I use I sometimes see users being accused of using computers in correspondence chess, but without any evidence being presented.

What is the basis for such accusations? How can one find out whether a correspondence chess player uses a computer?

The basis for such accusations is usually hurt pride.

That being said, if a player consistently plays moves proposed by a particular engine, you can be pretty sure that the engine is the source of these moves. But for such an assessment one game usually isn't enough and it is definitely possible to use an engine without leaving these tell-tale signs.


How to make a computer play like a player? Since computers have surpassed by now all humans, it should be very easy for it to emulate a strength of an weaker player. So the idea is:

Supply a number of games

The computer ajusts its options (Rating, Cowardice, Pawn Structure play, etc) to the player
EDIT:

For people who think the behavior of an engine cannot be changed to fit nearly a human:
http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/UCIProtocol.html
You can set the options to be correct, but I was looking for an program to fit those options more or less.
Also ChessMaster has multiple characters you can play against, and I think they have some well defined traits : Passive, values bishops, etc. I think it is possible to find those preferences if you put enough games.

Firstly, you must understand how an engine plays chess, because if you don't you'll never understand why it's hard. Without going into too much technical details, an engine doesn't think. Even the most powerful chess engine in the world don't know how to play chess, they examine hundreds and thousands of positions. For each position, the engine uses some heuristic to derive a static evaluation for each position. The engine uses a technique known as alpha-beta to derive the overall optimal evaluation.

The key point to note that chess engine doesn't know how to play chess, it's simply a calculator. It doesn't know how to adjust itself from games, simply because it doesn't understand anything about chess.

It's very easy to tune down an engine's strength, but making it to play truly like a human is awfully hard. A chess engine never blunders, never forgets anything, never panic because you launch a king-side attack, never biased towards particular opponents etc. The way computer makes a move is simply very different to how you make a move.

I'll give you an example. Have you tried those weak playing levels in a chess app? Yes, you beat them easily, but that might be because they gave you a pawn for absolutely no reason and not under any pressure. Those engines were programmed to simulate blunders, but they couldn't simulate pressure, they just randomly blunder pawns and pieces. This is not a human play.

Programmers have tried to optimize an engine based on machine learning but with little success.


Why was move 26 in Carlsen-Anand 2014 WC Game 6 a blunder by both players? In the Anand vs Carlsen Match 6, why was move 26 a blunder for both players?

[White "Carlsen"]
[Black "Anand"]
[FEN "6rr/1k3p2/1pb1p1np/p1p1P2R/2P3R1/2P1B3/P1B2PP1/2K5 w - - 0 1"]

1.Kd2? a4?

Carlsen's 26.Kd2 is a a blunder because it exposes the White King to a tactic that wins two pawns and gives Black terrific pressure. The tactic is effectively a guarantee of victory for Black:

[FEN "6rr/1k3p2/1pb1p1np/p1p1P2R/2P3R1/2P1B3/P1BK1PP1/8 b - - 0 1"]

1...Nxe5! 2.Rxg8 (2.Rxe5? Rxg4) Nxc4+! {The Knight gets out of danger, with check and an extra pawn--you couldn't ask for anything better!} 3.Kd3 (3.Ke2 Rxg8) Nb2+ 4.Ke2 Rxg8 {Black is now two full pawns ahead, with lots of pressure on the weak g2 pawn and vastly better pawns for the endgame. }

The point is that 2...Nxc4+ wins Black a second free pawn, by virtue of the check against the White King. Without the ability to get the Knight out of danger with check, ...Nxe5 is not possible (because White could then simply trade Rooks and then recapture the Knight with a winning position).

Anand's mistake on his twenty-sixth move was that he missed this tactic, playing 26...a4 very quickly and allowing Carlsen to correct his mistake by moving his King away from d2.


Knight & Bishop vs. Queen All the articles I've read on the internet explain how a King, Knight, and Bishop should work together to defend against a King and Queen. This is called the Karstedt fortress.

This article depicts the fortress in the corner. My question is, assume the King, Knight, and Bishop are maintaining this defensive position in the middle of the board, or anywhere on the board except around the perimeter. Is there a way for the King and Queen to prevent or break down this fortress if it is not in the corner and force a win, or is this fortress strong enough to defend against a mate anywhere on the board?

If the King and Queen can force a win, how is that done?

The Karstedt fortress must be set up in a corner.
Even one square away it won't keep out the opposing King:

[Title "No fortress"]
[fen "6k1/5b2/7K/3nQ3/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 0"]

There is, however, a reverse fortress that keeps the stronger King
imprisoned:

[Title "Draw"]
[fen "8/8/8/8/8/5nkb/2Q5/7K w - - 0 0"]

and even a mutual Zugwzang involving this configuration:

[Title "Mutual Zugzwang!"]
[fen "8/8/8/8/4k3/5n1b/8/2Q4K w - - 0 0"]

1.Qh6 Bf1!
2.Qc1 Bh3!


Why is Russia no longer dominating the world chess championships? USSR (Russia) used to dominate world chess but that dominance seems to have faded away; with the Russians losing both the World Chess Championships and the Olympiad.
What is it that the Russians are not doing right that the USSR used to do, and/or what is it that the other countries did to catch up and surpass?

The Soviet Union used to dominate chess because it had state-sponsored schools that provided high-quality trainers. After the Soviet Union broke up, funding dried up, and many of these trainers emigrated. Naturally the competitors caught up.
Vladimir Kramnik discusses some of this in an interview he gave with chess.com.

Chess.com: Much has been written about the legendary Soviet chess schools. You attended the Botvinnik school in the 1980s. What was it like?
Vladimir Kramnik: People always have a bit of an exaggerated picture of the Soviet chess schools, this idea that there were these concentration camps for kids, working 25 hours a day on chess. No, it was just a two-week session, held twice a year, and even during these two weeks, it was not so terribly intense.
The main asset of the Soviet chess school was actually the high standard of trainers throughout the country. In a world without internet and little exchange of information, this knowledge was hidden away behind the iron curtain. The reason the balance of power started to change after the iron curtain came down was because many of these Russian trainers emigrated, allowing western players and Chinese players to learn from them and get closer to the Russians.
You were 14 when the cold war ended and the Soviet Union began to collapse. How did that affect you?
Of course there were some issues, but I was just a kid at the time, so it didn’t make that big an impact on me. I think it was a much more difficult time for the older generations. For me, there were plusses and minuses. The plusses were that I could finally start going abroad to play tournaments, of my own will. The minuses were that all the state support for chess started to disappear.
The years 1990-1992 were a very difficult time financially in Russia, and many talented players of my generation didn’t manage to improve quickly enough. They ran out of money for trainers, and they ended up stuck at the same level. I was quite lucky in that I benefited from the state support of young talents when I was small, and then I reached the top of the game very quickly. But initially, money was not always easy.


How is this checkmate ... or does chess.com have a bug? Playing as black against the chess.com computer, the following position was reached and chess.com declared checkmate in its favor. However, I don't see that the black king is in check. So is this a bug?

[FEN "2r2r2/p6k/2b1p1R1/2pp2Qp/P2P4/1PN5/1K6/8 b - - 0 1"]

There was no time limit in effect and this is the final position. There was a message that said "Checkmate" and I couldn't make any more moves. (White's last move was Qg5; it had been on h4.)

Obviously, this is not a checkmate. Something else must have happened.
Here is what I could imagine:

Maybe you have lost on time, and not by checkmate
Maybe this is the position before White's last move (Qh6# or Qxh5#), which was played a mili-second before the computer claimed victory - so that the mating position wouldn't have been visible on your screen for long enough for you to notice.
Maybe (but unlikely) there is some bug in the software. Possibly the software 'played' Qh4xh5# but somehow sent Qh4-g5 to the virtual board for unknown reason.


Chess Puzzles vs Laziness Does solving chess puzzles help in overcoming laziness? I lost many games in a tournament because I am too lazy to calculate variations, e.g.: calculating 4-5 moves deep when defending to be sure that I will not be down in material.

From personal experience doing puzzles has no effect on my level of laziness. What it does, which is more important for me, is widen my thinking. I become less narrow in the possibilities I will consider simply because I have seen unlikely moves work in the puzzles I've tried.

Overcoming laziness is more a problem of motivation, will and energy.

Tony Miles used to tell the story of when his doctor prescribed beta blockers for him for a medical problem. In his next tournament he lost the first three games. Although this was bad enough it was not what really worried Miles when he tried to work out what was going on. The problem for him was that he was losing and he just didn't care. He blamed the beta blockers for this and stopped taking them with the result that he started caring more during the game about his position and so started winning again.


What are some beginner to advanced openings or variations I could use? I’ve played chess for some time now, but I’ve really started to get into it these past few months. The thing I need help on is openings. I know about the different ones, and even attempted one or two of them, but I either end up forgetting the opening, or having the opening completely backfire on me. So what I’m wondering is, is there any opening that’s simple to learn but effective?

It is hard to answer a repertoire question with little supporting information. On that basis, I would recommend 3 things:

Complete the quiz on chesspersonality.com. At the end you will receive recommendations on openings, for White and Black, based on your answers
To stick to one opening as White, and have 1 response as Black for 1. e4 and 1. d4. The other common opening moves, 1. c4 and 1. Nf3 are quite rare at a  beginner level, and are chosen because they usually transpose into 1. e4 or 1. d4 openings anyway
Look at some opening videos on YouTube, such as those by Dereque Kelley. If you like the look of an opening, try taking the main themes into your next game


Does SCID have a command for removing preceding moves in a game? I am looking for something similar to sc_game truncate, but to remove preceding moves (from a current position), rather than remaining ones.
Does such a function exist in the API exposed to scripts called via tcscid.exe?

The SCID tool's focus is on collections of positions more than single games.

Accordingly, the best way to do what you're trying to do is to deal with the PGN directly.  PGN is flat text and available in SCID.

If you want part of a game, the typical action is to copy the PGN into a text document from SCID, and edit the part that you wish.  Load your edited game back into SCID if you want ..


World chess championship final calendar Is there a way to import World chess championship final match into google calendar?

Can I do that for other major chess events?

You can get an .ics file for every major tournament on the broadcast page for that tournament on chess24.com. When you are on that page, click the Information tab, then download the file.

Now open Google Calendar, click the cogwheel icon, and then click Settings. On the settings page click Import & Export. There is a form where you can select the .ics file. Click Import to add it to your calendar. And that's all.


Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess? I know that the great Judit Polgar defeated Kasparov, but he was no longer World Champion at that point. She defeated Anand, but he was not yet World Champion at that point. She defeated Kasimdzhanov, but his championship wasn't undisputed because of the FIDE-PCA split. And so on.

Has a woman ever defeated a reigning undisputed World Chess Champion in classical chess?

Sorry, but the answer is "no".

I used ChessBase and the Mega 2020 database to search various combinations of players, focusing primarily on Women's World Champions, Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Vera Menchik from the 1920's and 1930's, Lyudmila Rudenko, Elisaveta Bykova, Olga Rubtsova, Nona Gaprindashvili, and Maia Chiburdanidze. I stopped after Maia Chiburdanidze with the exception of Polgar and Yifan since I would have remembered a victory by the more recent Women's World Champions starting with Xie Jun next. With the exception of Vera Menchik, who played Capablanca a number of games, none of the old Soviet women ever played any of the world champions.

Given that you were looking for a defeat of a sitting world champion in classical, no woman has ever done that yet.

The only ones to ever beat men, who already had been world champions, were Judit Polgar's victories over Karpov in classical at Hoogeveen in 2003, and Chorus in 2003, and the Champions League in 2007 (still the only victories by any woman in classical over even a former World Champion), and 8 wins in rapid, and a few blitz. Also, she beat Kasparov in rapid at the World Rapid Championship in 2002. She also had one rapid victory over Magnus Carlsen in 2012 in Mexico City, but that was a year before he won the title.

Hou Yifan had two wins over Kramnik at the Media Kings Rapid in 2016. She also has had some victories in blitz.

  After a bunch of back-and-forth comments below, I was asked to add my
  methodology to the answer, which I agreed to do. I do not claim my
  answer to be worthy of a scientific study and the scrutiny that would
  be associated with it. I was just trying to give a reasonably educated
  answer to the question. Whether I missed a rapid game against a former
  World Champion in my list, that is possible, but that was also just
  supplemental information I provided, and was not really part of the
  answer to the OP’s question since the question was officially only
  about classical chess. I would also take classical chess to mean
  over-the-board in a tournament since for it to mean anything, it had
  to be serious chess (this is not to be confused with relays of OTB
  tournaments, where the games are not really being played on the
  Internet).

  First, it is important to understand that if no woman has ever beaten
  a sitting World Champion in classical chess, it would be asking to
  prove a negative, so you can always some up with a “what if” situation
  that I did not search for. I had to draw the line somewhere, and I
  drew the line based on my searches of the best women players of their
  times (and all the world champions of their eras they may have faced),
  my fairly extensive knowledge of chess history, and 40 years of
  reading MANY sources on a once monthly (before the Internet, when all
  I was “Chess Life” and “New in Chess” magazine), and since the
  Internet, I read an average of three sites per day, every day
  (currently chessbase.com, chess.com, and chess24.com, and twic and
  chessninja in the past).

  It is also important to know, and this is where the history comes in,
  that the best women of the generations prior to the Polgar sisters,
  were MUCH weaker, often only in the 2300-2400 range, but it was also
  before the ELO system existed, so that is an estimate. I also know
  that back then, men simply did not play women virtually at all…Vera
  Menchik was the exception.

  All of the major advances in women’s chess strength to the Grandmaster
  level have come during my lifetime, when I was active playing, and
  actively reading the sources I referenced above, so I also ask for a
  little common sense: This would have been HUGE news, as was Polgar
  beat Kasparov in RAPID. I cannot find anything on Google about a woman
  beating a sitting World Champion in classical chess. I would not have
  missed it.

  Lastly, World Champions since Fischer have been 2700+, and there are
  only two women, who reasonably have had a shot at beating a World
  Champion in classical, and a lot of that is due to opportunity and
  invitations to elite events: Judit Polgar, and Hou Yifan, so you
  really do not have to look much further than their games, which limits
  the searching a lot.


Opposite colored bishops endgame: Is this a draw? [FEN ""]
[Event "Rated Correspondence game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/GILERcIS"]
[Date "2020.02.26"]
[Round "-"]
[White "mathwhiz16"]
[Black "theMortician"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[UTCDate "2020.02.26"]
[UTCTime "23:31:55"]
[WhiteElo "1795"]
[BlackElo "2017"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+3"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-6"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "-"]
[ECO "D02"]
[Opening "Queen's Pawn Game: London System"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. Nf3 { D02 Queen's Pawn Game: London System } Bf5 4. e3 e6 5. Nbd2 Bd6 6. Bg3 Nbd7 7. Nh4 Ne4?! { (-0.44 → 0.11) Inaccuracy. Bg4 was best. } (7... Bg4 8. f3) 8. Nxf5 exf5 9. Bd3 Ndf6 10. O-O O-O 11. Nf3 Nxg3 12. hxg3 Ne4?! { (-0.37 → 0.42) Inaccuracy. g6 was best. } (12... g6 13. Rc1 c6 14. c4 dxc4 15. Bxc4 Kg7 16. Bd3 Qd7 17. a3 h6 18. Qa4 Rfe8 19. Qc2) 13. c4 dxc4 14. Bxc4 Kh8?! { (-0.14 → 0.47) Inaccuracy. Qe7 was best. } (14... Qe7 15. Re1 c6 16. Bd3 Rfe8 17. Rc1 Rad8 18. Qb3 g6 19. Re2 Bb8 20. Qd1 Rc8 21. Qb3) 15. Qb3 Qe7 16. Qxb7 Rab8 17. Qxa7 Rxb2? { (0.77 → 1.95) Mistake. Nxg3 was best. } (17... Nxg3) 18. Qa5?! { (1.95 → 0.99) Inaccuracy. Rab1 was best. } (18. Rab1 Rc2 19. Qa4 Rc3 20. Rb3 Rxb3 21. Qxb3 c5 22. dxc5 Nxc5 23. Qc2 Qe4 24. Qxe4 fxe4) 18... Bb4? { (0.99 → 2.68) Mistake. g6 was best. } (18... g6) 19. Qxf5 Nd2 20. Nxd2 Bxd2 21. Rab1 Qb4?! { (2.84 → 4.30) Inaccuracy. Rb6 was best. } (21... Rb6 22. Rxb6 cxb6 23. Bd5 Qc7 24. Be4 g6 25. Qf6+ Kg8 26. Rb1 Ba5 27. Bc6 Rd8 28. d5) 22. Rxb2 Qxb2 23. Rb1 Qa3 24. Qe5 Ba5 25. Rb3 Qxa2? { (3.89 → 8.20) Mistake. Qc1+ was best. } (25... Qc1+ 26. Kh2) 26. Bxf7?? { (8.20 → 2.23) Blunder. Qe7 was best. } (26. Qe7 Rc8 27. Qd7 Rf8 28. Qxf7 Rd8 29. Kh2 Qc2 30. Rb5 Qg6 31. Qxg6 hxg6 32. Rxa5 Rf8) 26... Bb6?! { (2.23 → 3.23) Inaccuracy. Be1 was best. } (26... Be1 27. f3) 27. Qe7 Qa8 28. Rb5 Qd8 29. Qxd8 Rxd8 30. Re5 g6 31. Re8+?! { (2.67 → 1.77) Inaccuracy. Bc4 was best. } (31. Bc4) 31... Rxe8 32. Bxe8 Kg7 33. Bc6 Kf6 34. Kf1 h5 35. Ke2 g5 36. Kf3 Ba5 37. Be4 Be1 38. Ke2 Bb4 39. f3 Bd6 40. g4 hxg4 41. fxg4 Bg3 42. Kf3 Bd6 43. Bf5 Ba3 44. e4 Bb2 45. e5+ Ke7 46. Ke4 Bc1 47. Bc8 Bd2 48. Kf5 Be3 49. d5 Bd2 50. Bb7 Be3 51. Bc6 Bd2 52. Ke4 Bc3 53. Bb5 Bb2 54. Kf5 Bc1 55. Ba6 Bd2 56. Bc8 Bc1 57. Be6 Bd2 58. Ke4 Bc3 59. Bg8 Bb2 60. Bh7 Bc3 61. Bg6 Bb2 { The game is a draw. } 1/2-1/2

The annotations/variations are from Stockfish on lichess. I am White(mathwhiz16). After playing a confusing middlegame where I missed several tactical shots, I played 31. Re8+ because I was sure being up two pawns and having a passed pawn was enough to ensure victory, regardless of bishops of opposite colors. Needless to say, I botched the ending.

Is the position after 31. Re8+ a draw?
If not, where did I mess up? I think my final mistake was 49. d5, ensuring my king was tied to my pawn, but was it winning before that? After that? What is the correct strategy to win?
Is the final position a draw or did I miss something obvious?

Note that Stockfish(depth=21) gives White at a permanent +1 advantage so it's possible I missed something.

I disagree that it is a draw. In practice, it might not be a good practical decision to trade the rooks there if you are not sure it is a win, but it was almost certainly a win.

Despite the opposite-colored bishops, you are up two pawns, but more importantly, and the reason it is still a win, is that the black pawn is on the h-file, and the unbalanced pawns make this untenable for black. If it had been on the f-file, I would agree that it was a draw. It also helps that you can play the K to d3, then f4, e4, and e5.

In opposite-colored bishop endings, the stronger side wants to keep the pawns on the opposite color of the bishop to control both colors, making it easier to bring the king up and help the passed pawns advance; while the weaker side, black here, wants to keep the pawns on the same color of his bishop trying to use the dark squares to blockade. That is just not possible for black to accomplish here.

This is not every possible line, but I used a lot of endgame experience on the master level to try plans that would make some sense, and after the first few moves bringing the kings up, all the Stockfish evals are at least +5, and shortly after, they go to +9, which indicates a guaranteed win. I stopped all the analysis below when it got to +9 or greater.

 [FEN "3r3k/2p2B1p/1b4p1/4R3/3P4/4P1P1/5PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

 1. Re8+ Rxe8 2. Bxe8 Kg7 3. Kf1 Kf6 (3... g5 {Trying the plan to put the pawns on the dark squares.} 4. f4 h6 5. Ke2 Kf6 6. Bc6 gxf4 (6... Ke6 $2 {The evals here are already +9.} 7. Kd3 Kd6 8. Ba4 Ba5 9. e4 Be1 10. f5 $18) 7. gxf4 Kf5 8. d5 Ba5 9. Kf3 $18) 4. Ke2 Ke7 (4... c5 5. d5 Ke5 (5... c4 6. f4 Kf5 7. Kf3 c3 8. e4+ Kf6 9. e5+ Ke7 10. Ba4 $18) 6. Bc6 g5 7. f4+ Kf5 8. d6 gxf4 9. gxf4 c4 10. Bd5 c3 11. Kf3 Kf6 12. Bb3 Bc5 13. e4 $18) 5. Ba4 Kd6 (5... g5 6. f4 h6 7. Kd3 Ba5 8. e4 Be1 9. f5 Bxg3 10. e5 $18) 6. Bb3 {To prepare d5 should black play c5 trying to trade the pawn off. This only works because white has a pawn on f4.} h6 7. f4 Ba5 8. e4 $18

Supplemental analysis of the game based on Quintec's request below.

 [FEN "3r3k/2p2B1p/1b4p1/4R3/3P4/4P1P1/5PP1/6K1 w - - 0 1"]

 1. Re8+ Rxe8 2. Bxe8 Kg7 3. Bc6 {There is no harm here, but you should really get in the habit of centralizing your king early in the endgame.} Kf6 4. Kf1 h5 $4 {In opposite-colored-bishop endings, these belong on the other color trying to setup a blockade. Here g6+h5 are just targets.} 5. Ke2 {Not bad, but f4 again with the possible line.} (5. f4 g5 6. Ke2 Ba5 {Or any move really.} (6... g4 $4 7. Be8 $18) (6... Ke7 7. Kd3 Ba5 8. e4 Be1 9. e5 Bxg3 10. f5 $18) 7. Be8 h4 8. gxh4 gxh4 (8... gxf4 9. exf4 $18) 9. e4 $18) 5... g5 6. Kf3 {Still f4.} Ba5 7. Be4 {There is nothing wrong with this in terms of spoiling the position, but it is clear that you are already headed down the wrong path.} Be1 8. Ke2 Bb4 9. f3 $2 {The wrong idea.} Bd6 $2 (9... c5 {The best try, and already close to drawing, but not quite. Even in the closest line, black will need to play perfectly, and know endgame theory.} 10. d5 (10. dxc5 $2 Bxc5 11. f4 Be7 {The only move per the computer, and the hidden point is that the Be7 will need to be able to take on h4 soon.} 12. Bc6 Ke6 13. Kf3 h4 14. gxh4 gxf4 15. exf4 Bxh4 16. g4 {With a tablebase draw.}) 10... Ke5 11. Bg6 {And there, that bad move h5 comes into play.} h4 (11... Kxd5 12. Bf7+ Ke5 13. Bxh5 c4 14. Bg6 Bc5 15. f4+ $18) 12. gxh4 gxh4 13. f4+ $1 Kxd5 14. Bf7+ {And the two passers decide.} Ke4 (14... Kd6 15. Bc4 $18) 15. Bc4 Ba3 16. Bb5 Bc1 17. Bc6+ Kf5 18. Bd5 Kg4 19. Kf2 Kf5 (19... h3 20. Be6+) 20. Kf3 Kf6 21. e4 $18 {You can already see how much more difficult this ending became.}) 10. g4 $4 {This gives away the win. Note that had they been same-colored bishops and both had dark-squared bishops, both sides WOULD want them on light squares.} hxg4 11. fxg4 Bg3 $2 (11... c5 {Immediately draws.} 12. d5 Ke5 {And the blockade is complete.}) 12. Kf3 Bd6 13. Bf5 Ba3 $2 (13... c5 14. Ke4 cxd4 15. exd4 Ke7 {Again with a blockade and draw.}) 14. e4 Bb2 (14... c5 {Now, it is too late.} 15. e5+ Ke7 16. d5 $18) 15. e5+ Ke7 16. Ke4 {It is still a draw here, but white has made progress compared to the easy draws earlier. Now, c5 is ruled out for the foreseeable future.} Bc1 17. Bc8 Bd2 18. Kf5 Be3 19. d5 Bd2 20. Bb7 Be3 21. Bc6 Bd2 22. Ke4 Bc3 23. Bb5 Bb2 24. Kf5 Bc1 25. Ba6 Bd2 26. Bc8 Bc1 27. Be6 Bd2 28. Ke4 Bc3 29. Bg8 Bb2 30. Bh7 Bc3 31. Bg6 Bb2 1/2-1/2


Is it valid according the FIDE chess rule? From FIDE Law of Chess, article 3.8, it is stated as:

Now, coming to My game vs killin_pieces on lichess.org :

After move 9, situation was something like this: b1 was threatened by my opponent's light square bishop:

Still I was able to give him a discovered check on move no. 10.

which clearly contradicts FIDE Law of chess article 3.8.2.a, stated as :

  Castling is prevented temporarily:
  if the square on which the king stands, or the square which it must cross, or the square which it is to occupy, is attacked by one or more of the opponent's pieces

Can anyone please explain me how can this be possible ?

The king does not cross b1 (only the rook does). It also does not end up standing on b1 following the castling. Hence, the quoted rule is not violated.


How can the moves from this pawn endgame study be found without a computer? [FEN "8/1p5k/1P1p4/3p4/3Pp2p/2K1P2p/7P/8 w - - 0 0"]
[PlyCount "21"]

1. Kb2 Kg8 2. Ka1 Kf8 3. Ka2 Ke7 4. Kb3 Kd7 5. Kb4 Kc6 6. Ka5
Kd7 7. Kb4 Ke6 8. Kc3 Kf6 9. Kc2 Kg5 10. Kd1 Kg4 11. Ke2

In this great study from Ebersz, white can reach a draw, but only with
extreme accurate play. The given variation is one possible. All white
moves are forced, any other king move would lose. Suppose, white is
in such a position in a practical game, of course without access to
electronic topics. Can the correct squares be found out manually ?
I know the theory of countersquares, but it seems to be extremely
difficult.

How can white save this game without too much efforts ?

Some of the corresponding squares are quite easy to work out, especially if you write things down (not allowed in a real game).

First of all, it is clear that

a5 corresponds to c6.

Black can move from c6 to g4 in 4 moves. The only square that stops black's invasion and is 4 moves away from a5 is e2, so

e2 corresponds to g4.

The squares on the paths in between need to correspond, so

b4 corresponds to d7,

c3 corresponds to e6,

d2 corresponds to f5.

It then follows that

b3 corresponds to e7,

c2 corresponds to f6,

d1 corresponds to g5.

Hence,

b2 corresponds to f7,

c1 corresponds to g6,

b1 corresponds to g7.

The trickiest part is to show that a3 corresponds to e8. When the black king is on e8, it threatens to go to d7, e7 or f7, corresponding to b4, b3 and b2 for white. Therefore the white king needs to be on a3 or c3, but c3 is the wrong square. Why? Because after a subsequent Kd8 move form black, white would be in zugzwang. Black can still go to d7or e7, so white needs to go to a square adjacent to b4 and b3. Such a square is not available from c3.

So,

a3 corresponds to e8,

and therefore

a4 corresponds to d8,

a2 corresponds to f8

a1 corresponds to g8.

Now the solution can be explained. In the diagram position Black can go to g6, g7 or g8, so white needs to have c1, b1 and a1 available. Therefore 1. Kb2!


How to learn basics of composition? There are a few resources in the web for problem composers. Problem is the usually assume you are already part of the community. As a result one has to wander around to find out what is a grasshopper, a model mate, etc. I already have access to much of this information, but it would be nice to know of a single source (or few in any case) where one can learn the lingo, history, and the kind of questions that modern composers are interested in.

CHESS PROBLEMS MADE EASY - How to solve, how to compose
How to compose chess problems and why (You have to register for free to read it)
Chess Wizardry: The New ABC of Chess Problems
Compose Like Mozart
What are chess problems

Additional links

Chess Problems
The Chess Portal: Chess theory/Chess Problems (that list has many recourses on Chess composition)


Rook and minor piece endgames, with pawns Where can I find resources on how to play these types of endgames?

I've done a google search, but all I came up with was repeated results for a Fritz Trainer dvd, and a similar, unanswered, question on chess.com. Silman and Dvoretsky's endgame books do not cover them.

I'm currently playing a correspondence game, and trying to come up with a plan before I blunder or drift into a worse position.

These kind of endgames often occur in practice, so even if it is difficult to give hard and fast rules about them, it is well worth spending some time studying them.

The book Practical Endgame Play - beyond the basic by Flear is quite decent and spends 4 chapters (111 pages) on the endgame Rook and minor piece vs Rook and minor piece. It is a relatively easy read.

Fundamental Chess Endings by Müller and Lamprecht (as mentioned in the comments) is an endgame book of high quality, but only has 9 pages on this particular type of endgame.

Another book I like is Endgame Secrets by Lutz. About half the examples in this book feature the material balance you ask about. This book is probably aimed towards stronger players as the analysis is very detailed.


Can these chess terms be used interchangeably? I am confused by the usage of the following chess terms: 'positional advantage', 'initiative', 'attack', 'pressure', 'aggressive/active moves' and 'play/counterplay'. Do they mean the same thing? Can they be used interchangeably?

"positional advantage"  -- This could refer to a better pawn structure or deployment of forces; a knight outpost or the opponent has doubled pawns etc.
In battle it could be having the high-ground.

"initiative" and "attack" are used similarly, but "initiative" is who can make the next threat.  For example, in Tennis: you have the serve = initiative.  You make a good serve and are able to rush the net (keeping the initiative -- threat after threat) = attack.

"pressure" is making threats against weaknesses.  So, you might have a positional advantage, say your opponent has weak pawns, but if you don't attack them where is the pressure?

"play" and "counter play" refer to the ability to make threats.  If you are completely on the defensive then you have no play.

"active moves" are moves that seek to attack/counter-attack as opposed to passivity.

So now I hope you can understand this:
"I had a positional advantage, which I turned into an attack, but he sacrificed the exchange and got counter-play.  I defended and was able to consolidate my material advantage."


Which international tournament chess game has the record of longest sequence of forced moves until checkmate? I want to know which international game has the longest sequence of forced moves until checkmate, even if the opponent resigned the game.

Thanks in advance.

Note : Result should not be drawn [1/2 - 1/2] (i.e we should consider 50 move rule).

Alekhine - Yates
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012179

19 moves.  Alekhine resigned a couple of moves before mate.


I would like to know if this game is winnable for black? Black to move but unsure of the pieces that would give black a better advantage. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

r5k1/pp1qpr1p/3p2p1/2pP4/1n2P3/1P2N1Pb/2PQ1P1P/3RR1K1 b - - 0 1

Black has an overwhelming advantage and should win easily. Being up by a whole piece is a huge advantage that basically can't be overcome by purely positional considerations.

The most straightforward way for Black to win is to try to trade pieces and end up in an endgame where he has one piece to White's zero; a win at that point would be trivial.

He could also try for a kingside attack, since White's light squares are very weak.


How to use ending evaluation in UCI interaction with Stockfish Playing around with the Stockfish 8 UCI from the terminal, I've managed to make it compute moves, and set the position and load Syzygy tables.

But how I can know if an endgame, one that corresponds to the kind of endgame I've loaded, is winnable or drawable?

I've looked at the Stockfish UCI protocol, but I have not found the relevant information.

If the root position you set up on the board is covered by the syzygy tablebases you loaded, you can just directly query the tablebases using the Stockfish-specific (non-UCI) command d, see the example below.

Since syzygy tablebases are depth-to-zero (DTZ) and not depth-to-mate (DTM) (see https://www.chessprogramming.org/Endgame_Tablebases#Metrics for the definitions), what you get is the result with perfect play for the side to move as well as the number of half moves until the 50 move rule counter will be reset due to a capture or pawn move.

input:

setoption name SyzygyPath value {path to your tablebases}
position fen 8/8/8/5k2/8/1R6/R7/4K3 w - - 0 1
d

output:

info string Found 35 tablebases

 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   |   | k |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   | R |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 | R |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
 |   |   |   |   | K |   |   |   |
 +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

Fen: 8/8/8/5k2/8/1R6/R7/4K3 w - - 0 1
Key: 48F90DF481A6F1D6
Checkers:
Tablebases WDL:  Win (Success)
Tablebases DTZ:    7 (Success)


Matrix representation of piece position for a chess engine Looking into a source code of a chess engine, I noticed matrices that represent position of some pieces.

knightPos = [
   -200, -100, -50, -50, -50, -50, -100, -200,
   -100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, -100,
   -50, 0, 60, 60, 60, 60, 0, -50,
   -50, 0, 30, 60, 60, 30, 0, -50,
   -50, 0, 30, 60, 60, 30, 0, -50,
   -50, 0, 30, 30, 30, 30, 0, -50,
   -100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, -100,
   -200, -50, -25, -25, -25, -25, -50, -200
]

There are more matrices like this there (also I found the same matrices in other chess engine). It looks like they decode the quality of the piece based on it's position.

Is there any place, where I can read about it, how it is used and how people came up with these numbers?

This is a very common data-structure in chess engine - Piece-Square-Tables.

Refer to
https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Piece-Square+Tables for more details.

Basically, it gives a score for a piece on a particular score and it's almost always symmetry (white and black have the same score but flipped).

For example, if I modified the score for knight in the table on d4 to positive infinity. The engine will believe placing a knight is very important, it'll sacrifice it's queen, rooks, bishops just to permanently position a knight on the d4 square.

The values are usually determined by trials-and-errors. Stronger engines such as Stockfish learn the values by playing hundreds or thousands of games, this is known as parameter calibration or automatic tuning.

Refer to https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Automated+Tuning for more details.

CLOP and Texel are two common tuning methods.


Games with three en passants Games with two en passants in them are are uncommon, and games with three are exceeding rare, and four has never been achieved as far as I know.
I only know of four games with three en passant captures in them, with game #2 arguably being the most famous one because of Tim Krabbe.

A S Segal-K H Podzielny, 1980

Kudrin-R Douven, 1989

G N Gopal-S Zhigalko, 2005

Naiditsch-B Predojevic, 2006

Can more games with three en passants that exist be found?

I made a program that reads PGN files that contain thousands of games.
It read 1 317 676 games and found six that fit the criteria.

A Bitalzadeh vs E L'Ami, 2013
I Shahaliyev vs E Ghaem Maghami, 2014
M Petrov vs M Ozdover, 2016
Vi Balint vs G Kjartansson, 2017
J Bonin vs M Paragua, 2019
N Berry vs A Roy, 2019

More could be found. I downloaded all the 1.3 million games from The Week in Chess.


Does the Yugoslav Attack refute the Sicilian Dragon? I saw, some weeks ago, a video of the great GM Roman Dzindzichashvili, claiming that Sicilian Dragon is somewhat refuted, or at least it is a dubious system. I normally play the Grand Prix against the Sicilian, but if what I saw on the video is true, I may switch to the Yugoslav attack.

Basically my question is the dragon really a bad opening and is the Yugoslav attack the its "refutation" (strong word I know) ?

No, it is not refuted, and it is not any more dubious than dozens of other mainstream openings. It's dangerous for both sides, of course. I would not worry about its theoretical status until your rating gets to 2600 or so.

Note also that if you stop playing the Grand Prix, you're going to have to decide what to do against all the other Black Open Sicilian defense besides the Dragon.


Can one feasibly calculate the Glicko (preferably Glicko 2) rating of a player by just using a pen, a paper and a calculator? I calculate the informal Elo ratings of a small pool of players (~10-15 in number) of whom I'm a member, using a scientific calculator.
Can I do the same with the Glicko rating system, feasibly? (I'd prefer the Glicko-2 system, but even Glicko-1 would do.)
Note
If it isn't possible, could someone name some online or offline program by which I could do that?

Edit
I've edited the question to make my implication clear: is it feasible to calculate the Glicko rating with the assistance of a scientific calculator?

Of course it is possible! All the functions needed for the calculations are available on a scientific calculator, e.g. square root, log, value for pi, etc.

The Wikipedia page should get you started.
Mark Glickman's page on the system should take you further.

This pdf has detailed descriptions and equations for Glicko-2 - http://www.glicko.net/glicko/glicko2.pdf.

Javascript code for implemeting Glicko-2 is available here - https://www.npmjs.com/package/glicko2.


Facing its own weapons It's not a technically oriented question but rather a "psychological" one.
Personally, I don't especially like to play against my own lines especially sidelines.

If I decided to play a precise line (ex : Malaniuk variation in the Scotch, but it does not matter here), it's because I consider it to be good, sound, enjoyable or whatever. But I have to play against it, I feel uneasy, like I'm playing myself. Am I the only one in this case ? Facing its own "weapons" could be an excellent way to improve though.
What would be your take on this ?

I actually like playing against opponents who attempt to play the same way that I play with their color.

The important part however is to not follow your favorite lines to the very end. As you said, there is a reason you consider them worthwhile. Instead, use your knowledge about which moves you consider unpleasant when playing that variation. Chances are that your opponent, who apparently likes the style of a line you like, will dislike this deviation as well and will be just as uncomfortable as you. Keep calm, and you might be the one with the psychological high ground.

Playing against your own weapons also is a good way of sharpening them. Best case, one of your chess buddies plays the same variation. Then both of you can play a lot of practice games against each other starting with this variation with alternating colors and test possible ways your opponent might attempt to counter your strategy. I think you learn more by literally putting yourself in the opponent's skin and really trying to find winning moves against your variation rather than by just assuming their moves while exclusively playing your own side in training, which might lead to some bias ("hopefully he'll continue with this move in this line..").


Freely available PGN databases I am looking for a relatively large PGN-formatted database (with at least 500k+ games), that is downloadable, with possibly the following properties:

Simple formatted (no time indication after moves, etc), i.e. game info headers on top, followed by the moves, an example: (it doesn't have to contain all the headers of this example)
Few such, but very small (2-3 thousand games) databases can be found here.
It would be preferential if the database was diverse, for example not being only composed of man vs. machine games or somesuch. No real constraint on the ratings, whether the levels (amateur to super grandmaster) are fairly balanced or whether it's a 2000+ rating database.
Although a single-file database would be easiest to work with, say for parsing purposes, one that is divided onto multiple PGN files would also be perfectly fine, as long as they were formatted similarly and did not contain too many duplicates.

In other posts, one mentioned database with similar properties to the above is the ICOFY database, but unfortunately it does not seem to be maintained any longer, nor can a trustworthy download link for it be found.

Do not know if it really suits you but on http://www.theweekinchess.com/twic you can download a lot of PGN files. I once saw an explanation how somebody used this to create an opening book out of it. I could not find one big file with all games but there are quite a lot of files that date back to 25/06/2012. You can always make 1 big file out of it.


Is there an Android viewer that understands international language comments in PGN? I have a PGN file, in which I can view non-English (Cyrillic) comments on my PC in Chessbase or in Notepad++, but all Android apps (playchess, masterchess, scid on the go, droidfish) I tried instead show garbage for the comments. Is there an app that is worth trying that might support this? Example below:

[Event "chessclub.com"]
[Site "-"]
[Date "2016.8.5"]
[Round "?"]
[White "PlayerA"]
[Black "PlayerB"]
[Result "0-1"]
[PlyCount "6"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5 {Белые сдались.} 0-1

PGN files need to be converted to UTF-8 as pointed out by @Artem Mostyaev, then most apps would support this.


Why are the golden rules in chess openings true? I was reading this Dutch article on chess openings, which basically states the following about openings:

Don't play the edge pawns
Don't move your knight to an edge
Don't use one piece too often
Don't use your queen too soon

And the 3 golden rules:

Move pawns to the center
Develop your knights and bishops early-on
Castle to keep your king safe

I understand most of these, but not all of them, these are my questions:

Shouldn't you move your knight to an edge because of the opponents bishops?
Edge pawns shouldn't be played because they don't remove any obstructions?
Why shouldn't you use your queen early-on?

Indeed, these rules seem to me being golden rules!

  Shouldn't you move your knight to an edge because of the opponnents bishops?
  Edge pawns shouldn't be played because they don't remove any obstructions?

In chess opening, the main idea is to develop your pieces and control the center of the chessboard. In order to control the center, moving your knight to edges is not accurate move. Same reason for edge pawns. For example, moving your knight on f3 permits to control d4 et e5 squares.

  Why shouldn't you use your queen early-on?

Moreover, moving a queen early-on can be dangerous because this piece must support other pieces at the beginning of the game. And queen is kind of protected if it is behind the other pieces and not attacked by your opponent pieces development.
However, several openings play queen early and work well (Scandinavian Defense for instance).


What does an equal odds game look like for a GM vs an engine? This question began an interesting discussion on handicaps for engines that play against GMs:
Engine-invented variations/hypotheticals
This led me to wonder, are there differences in handicaps in terms of how we measure advantage?
For instance would a material advantage be preferable to space or tempo advantages?
Not sure what the success metric would look like, but i'd like to see the mean permutation on what degree of material advantage places the odds 50/50 for engine vs GM. Then compare that board layout to what tempo advantage would be needed to place the odds at 50/50.
Perhaps if we don't have engines that emulate GMs, we can just use lichess records?

As of right now, the "equal odds" between a GM and an engine is about two pawns. I believe Hikaru Nakamura made that comment at some point in this match (I did not watch the entire video). For another perspective, this is what happened when GM David Smerdon played against Komodo with knight odds (GM Smerdon won 4-1).
Note that two pawn odds (White starts without b- and c- pawns) gives a starting eval of about -3.0, while knight odds (White begins without the b1-knight) gives a starting eval of about -5.0. Comparatively 4-tempi odds (White plays e4, d4, Nf3 and Nc3 at start of the game, before Black gets to move) is only about +2.
Do note that giving White five "free" tempi leads to a forced win. For five non-free tempi, you'd have to analyze the specific position.