After analyzing games with a coach should we play them again on the board? I analyze my tournament games with my chess coach on the computer and in the end I have a PGN file which contains all the variations, mistakes, and tactics i missed. The question is am i suppose to play the game all over again on the board trying all the variations etc, or just studying them on the computer screen enough?

It is always a good habit of moving pieces over the board. The best players in the world practice it, and they also recommend it. Sometimes, I can understand that in a busy world you may not have the time and space to occupy yourself and arrange the pieces OTB.

As far as games are concerned, it depends whether you are learning a specific opening or a variation, then it always useful that you practice your winning games or the games where you have learnt a lot. GM Igor Smirnov says that before you play a tournament, you must have a look into your own games where you had a good win. It not only exuberates your confidence but gives you a strong determination to win the game. Kasparov also says that you must memorize some of the games related to a specific opening which you play. It helps you to remember patterns and best moves in a particular opening.


Is shuffling aimlessly for hundreds of moves permissible? As I write this, game 73 of the TCEC Season 18 superfinal has just ended. What was most "interesting" about this game is the sheer amount of shuffling both sides did: starting from around move 30 to move 200+, effectively nothing happened with Leela pushing a pawn only to avoid 50-move draws. It had three such moves to reset the 50-move counter, which naturally led to 150+ moves of shuffling. On move 220, Leela finally played 220. e4, which led to some trades and a more equal-ish position, but this also reset the 50-move counter and the shuffling started anew. The game went past move 300 with opposite color bishops on the board, enough for humans to say it's a clear draw, but Leela still saw a 40% chance for White to win, which led to more shuffling. Finally, on move 357 and faced with yet another 50-move draw, Leela's eval dropped and the game was adjudicated as drawn.
(This description makes it sound like it's Leela's fault the shuffling happened, but in fairness, Stockfish also saw a substantial White advantage for much of the game.)
This kind of scenario happens pretty often in computer chess, but I'm wondering what would've happened if this were a human game. Can the player with Black claim that White is being unsporting by shuffling and refusing to accept a draw? Are arbiters permitted to adjudicate if one player isn't making an active attempt to win the game, but seems to be merely prolonging it?

Can the player with Black claim that White is being unsporting by
shuffling and refusing to accept a draw?

No. White may be quite legitimately trying to win on time. In blitz this is always allowed. In longer formats it depends on the format.

Are arbiters permitted to adjudicate if one player isn't making an
active attempt to win the game, but seems to be merely prolonging it?

Only if there is no increment and the other player is down to less than 2 minutes on the clock. This is dealt with in the section called "Guidelines III. Games without increment including Quickplay Finishes" of the FIDE Laws of Chess and applies only if this was announced beforehand.

Guidelines III. Games without increment including Quickplay Finishes
III.1 A ‘quickplay finish’ is the phase of a game when all the
remaining moves must be completed in a finite time.
III.2.1 The Guidelines below concerning the final period of the game
including Quickplay Finishes, shall only be used at an event if their
use has been announced beforehand.
III.2.2 These Guidelines shall apply only to standard chess and rapid
chess games without increment and not to blitz games.
...
III.4 If the player having the move has less than two minutes left on
his clock, he may request that an increment extra five seconds be
introduced for both players. This constitutes the offer of a draw. If
the offer refused, and the arbiter agrees to the request, the clocks
shall then be set with the extra time; the opponent shall be awarded
two extra minutes and the game shall continue.
III.5 If Article III.4 does not apply and the player having the move
has less than two minutes left on his clock, he may claim a draw
before his flag falls. He shall summon the arbiter and may stop the
chessclock (see Article 6.12.2). He may claim on the basis that his
opponent cannot win by normal means, and/or that his opponent has been
making no effort to win by normal means:
III.5.1 If the arbiter agrees that the opponent cannot win by normal
means, or that the opponent has been making no effort to win the game
by normal means, he shall declare the game drawn. Otherwise he shall
postpone his decision or reject the claim.
III.5.2 If the arbiter postpones his decision, the opponent may be
awarded two extra minutes and the game shall continue, if possible, in
the presence of an arbiter. The arbiter shall declare the final result
later in the game or as soon as possible after the flag of either
player has fallen. He shall declare the game drawn if he agrees that
the opponent of the player whose flag has fallen cannot win by normal
means, or that he was not making sufficient attempts to win by normal
means.


Training in 10-15 minutes I have a question that can probably also help others: how to train having 10 or 15 minutes? And I am not talking about ONLY 15 minutes per day. No. Imagine that you've done your tactics today, played one game (maybe even with long time control), analyzed games or read a book. And you thought you are done.

And suddenly in the evening/night you come across 10-15 minutes of free time. E.g. waiting for a film to start/delivery guy/a spouse and would like to use it for chess progress. I reject playing blitz during this time as I do not consider blitz games as training. What do you propose? Solve a study? Play endgames against a computer? Quick opening refresher? Maybe short movies on YouTube?

It really depends on what area of the game you're focusing on improving.

If you want to improve general tactical vision, do a bunch of "cheap tactics". These are tactics that are easy and should take under a minute to solve, and doing many of them helps to improve your implicit tactical abilities during a game (you're able to see basic tactics quicker).

If you're working on your precision, studies are a good choice. Another option is to play through one grandmaster game on the board, and try to understand the main ideas in the game. For example, looking at a Karpov game can improve your pattern recognition for techniques on squeezing the opponent.

The point of studying chess is to make certain skills implicit knowledge... you should be able to subconsciously know certain things during a chess game. Doing cheap tactics improves your implicit tactical skills, and doing a study/looking at master games improves your implicit pattern recognition abilities.


Why did Polgar resign? My question concerns the final position in the game

Judit Polgar vs Garry Kasparov
It (cat.19) (1996)  ·  Sicilian Defense: Najdorf. Amsterdam Variation (B82)  ·  0-1

[White "Polgar"]
[Black "Kasparov"]
[FEN ""]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.f4 e6 7.Qf3 Qb6 8.a3 Nc6 9.Nxc6 bxc6 10.b3 Bb7 11.Bb2 d5 12.Bd3 c5 13.exd5 exd5 14.O-O-O O-O-O 15.Na4 Qc7 16.Bf5+ Kb8 17.Be5 Bd6 18.Qc3 d4 19.Bxd6 Qxd6 20.Qxc5 Qxf4+ 21.Kb1 Rd5 22.Rdf1 Qe5 23.Qc4 Rb5 24.Qxf7 Bd5 25.Qxg7 Rg8 26.Qh6 Bxb3 27.cxb3 Rxb3+ 28.Kc1 Qc7+ 29.Bc2 d3 30.Qf4 Rc8 31.Qxc7+ Rxc7 32.Rf2 Ne4 33.Rf8+ Ka7 34.Rf7 Rbb7 35.Rxc7 Rxc7 36.Rd1 Rxc2+ 37.Kb1 Rxg2 38.Rxd3 Rxh2 39.Rd7+ Kb8 40.Re7 Nd2+ 41.Kc1 Nb3+ 42.Kd1 h5 43.Re3 Nd4 44.Nc5 a5 45.Nb3 Nc6 46.Rc3 Kb7 47.Ke1 Kb6 48.Kf1 Rh4 49.Kg2 Nd4 50.Nxa5 Kxa5 51.Rc5+ Kb6 52.Re5 Kc6 53.Kg3 Rh1 54.Kg2 Kd6 55.Ra5 Rh4 56.Kg3 Rg4+ 57.Kh3 Ne2 58.Rxh5 Rg3+ 59.Kh4 Rxa3 60.Kg4 Ke6 61.Rb5 Rg3+ 62.Kh4 Rg1 63.Rg5 Rf1 64.Ra5 Kf6 65.Ra8 Rg1 66.Rf8+ Ke5 67.Re8+ Kf4 68.Rf8+ Ke4 69.Re8+ Kf3 70.Kh5 Ng3+ 71.Kh6 Nf5+ 72.Kh7 Kf4 73.Rb8 Rg7+ 74.Kh8 Rd7 75.Re8 Kg5 76.Re6 Nd4 77.Re1 Kf6 78.Rd1 Rd5 79.Ra1 Ne6 80.Ra6 Kf7 81.Ra7+ Kg6 82.Ra8 Rd7 83.Rb8 Rc7 84.Kg8 Rc5 85.Ra8 Rb5 86.Kh8 Rb7 87.Rc8 Nc7 88.Rg8+ Kh6 89.Rg1 Rb8+ 90.Rg8 Ne8 0-1

White resigned, but I cannot find a win for Black. As long as
Black keeps his R & N on the 8th rank, White shuttles his R between g8
and f8. If Black moves his N, W plays R takes R. If Black moves his R,
W plays R x N.

The idea I'm missing must involve moving the Black King. But I would
appreciate a detailed explanation.

If white ever trades her rook for black's knight, the game is lost. The only move for her is thus 91.Rf8, which is answered by 92.Kg6 Rg8+ 93.Kf7 resulting in the following position:

[FEN "1r2n1RK/5k2/8/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 66 93 "]

1. Rg1 (1.Rxe8 Rxe8 2.Kh7 Re6 3.Kh8 Rh6#) (1.Rg7 Nxg7 2.Kh7 Rb6 3.Kh8 Rh6#) (1.Kh7 Nf6+) Nf6  2. Rg8 Rxg8#

and now any rook move loses to the discovered mate Nf6# or loses the rook entirely


How to think this end game puzzle and play this position I encountered the following puzzle on Lichess. I instinctively knew I had to play Kc4 and then it would be about counting possible moves since neither king can move  with out losing a pawn but I was lost.
How should I approach this position as white?
[fen "8/5pp1/3k3p/p1pP4/P7/3K1P2/6PP/8 w - - 0 1"]

As you rightly point out Kc4 is forced for white and then whichever king has to move first loses.
It is worth quickly checking if white can abandon the d5 pawn and go for the a5 with the intention of queening the a4 pawn. You do this by counting to see who queens first.
For white it goes Kb5, Kxa5, Kb4 (to threaten the c pawn), a5, a6, a7, a8=Q - 7 moves.
For black it goes Kxd5, c4, Kd4, c3, c2, c1=Q - 6 moves and black will win the white queen after checking on the b and a files.
White can avoid this by going Kb6 instead of Kb4 but then black can miss out the move Kd4 and queen two moves before white instead of just one. Again lost for white. So the kings are locked in place.
We can see that here:
[fen "8/5pp1/3k3p/p1pP4/P7/3K1P2/6PP/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kc4 h5 2. Kb5 Kxd5 3. Kxa5 c4 4. Kb4 (4. Kb6 c3 5. a5 c2 6. a6 c1=Q 7. a7 Qb2+) 4...Kd4 5. a5 c3 6. a6 c2 7. a7 c1=Q 8. a8=Q Qb2+ 9. Ka4 Qa1+ 10. Kb4 Qxa8

Then it becomes a case of counting "reserve moves". Basically the number of reserve moves each side has in this position is the number pawn moves before losing something. Black has two problems here. First they have to move first and second the symmetry in the position suggests that the number of reserve moves for each side is the same.
Obviously, unless you have a tactical possibility, then you only ever want to move a pawn one square forward and never two. That would be a blunder and just lose a precious reserve move. Also, if you can move an opposed pawn past the halfway line between your pawn and your opponent's pawn you can maybe gain a move / deprive your opponent of a move.
Checking that is relatively easy. Here is what it could look like:
[fen "8/5pp1/3k3p/p1pP4/P7/3K1P2/6PP/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kc4 h5 2. f4 g6 3. g3 f6 4.h3 g5 5. f5 g4 6. h4

and black, as predicted, has run out of reserve moves first and so loses.


Why did the Berlin Defense of the Ruy Lopez disappear from the play of World Champions before Kramnik revived it? The Berlin defense of the Ruy Lopez was played by the likes of Steinitz and Lasker.

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6

However, it soon disappeared out of the play of World Champions and they rarely played it, before Kramnik revived it. What were the reasons for this? Was it merely a matter of the taste of the positions resulting from the Berlin or was the Berlin considered to be bad for Black after the period of Lasker?

The reason, as far as I know, it is because it is drawish. GMs look for opens that are either heavily imbalanced or uncertain, like the sicilian or the scotch, or quiet oppenings that allow positional manuevering, like the Caro-Kann. Drawish lines are used by GMs solely when they are required.
Another reason is that the Berlin wasn't almost played at all in GM level. Kasparov didn't have such a deep knowlege of the opening, unlike Kramnik. Openings decide games in World Championships.


How opening moves determine the whole game play? I started chess some time ago. I was studying opening theory and it seems most opening moves characterize the style of play.
I want to ask how can a couple of moves determine the whole game play? For example, the french defense is known to be solid and offers counter-attacking chances. How can two moves i.e. e4 e6 d4 d5 say so much about the game?

With my limited experience, I can only think of the following reason:-
1) Pawn structure: Since pawns cannot be moved backwards, so depending on your first moves, the best moves that you can play usually depend on your opening.

Any more reasons? If possible, please explain in general and also the particular case of french defense. Thanks.

Your intuition is right; it's all about the pawns.

As you note, they can't move backwards.
They can't capture straight ahead, so two opposing pawns facing each other (say on e4 and e5) can't move.
They are the least valuable piece, so no one (generally) will capture one with a piece if their piece can be recaptured in turn. So (generally) the only thing that gets exchanged for a pawn is another pawn, which can be hard to make happen because of the way they move.

As a result of all of this, your pawn structure is (generally) the least dynamic part of your position, and all your other piece movement is in relation to it. These pawn structures are often set pretty early in the opening, so they recur a lot and people have studied them very deeply.


Is there any way to extract PGNs from a DGT live games presentation? For example:

http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm

I have no particular interest in this tournament, but I often seen displays like this and wish to extract games without needing to type them out manually. Is there some way to download the PGNs?

http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/tfd.htm

If you remove the last file name, you get the listing of the contents of the directory:

  http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/

The .txt files are files used by the Flash program to find the moves. But there also is a pgn file:

  http://www.budva2013.org/live/d/games.pgn

However, if I recall correctly, the pgn file does not always exist. If it does not exist, one way would be to write a script that parses the pos##.txt files which contain all moves even when the games are ongoing. I thought of doing that before the pgn files started appearing (probably an update of the dgt software?) in the directories, but never got started.


In tournament chess, is the Traxler Counterattack just a dubious opening or a blunder? In the level of tournament chess, is the Traxler Counterattack just a dubious opening or a blunder? In club or online chess it works just fine, but it is one of those opening rarely seen in professional high level chess.

 [FEN ""]
 1.  e4   e5
 2. Nf3  Nc6
 3. Bc4  Nf6
 4. Ng5  Bc5

In Karpov-Beliavsky, Moscow, 1983, Black held a draw without ever being in serious trouble. Karpov played 5.Bxf7. I have never seen detailed analysis of the game.

If it suits your style, try it. But there is a HUGE volume of analysis on it. If you play it more than once you may face a booked-up opponent.


How to handle Black's Bc5 in Bird's Leningrad? I want to learn and play the Bird's Opening, Reverse Leningrad Variation, as White.  I'm having a hard time with some aspects of this opening which keep coming up.  I want to avoid a Stonewall-like setup (d4/e3/f4) as it's boring and doesn't fit my style.  It's a little difficult to find good information on this variation.

One of the more common issues I keep dealing with is Black's ...Bc5 move, either before or after White's castling.  Here are some examples:

Before castling:  1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. g3 Bc5 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. d3 O-O and I have to play either e3 or d4 in order to castle, it seems?

After castling:  1.f4 d5 2.g3 e6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.O-O O-O 6.d3 Nc6 7.c3 Bc5+ 8.Kh1 and now I have to deal with the possible ...d4 push.  I know the moves in this example aren't great, for example Black moving the bishop twice, but it just serves as an example of a type of scenario that keeps coming up in my games.  I don't want to allow the ...d4 push.  And the Bc5 can be chased back with b4 push, but it can stay on that diagonal, causing me problems.  And I really don't want to play d4 because I don't like that pawn formation.  (Or is White's d4 a normal part of the Reverse Leningrad variation of the Bird's?)  And also I don't like playing e3 because it seems weak.

I know an e4 push for White is thematic in this opening.  But I often run into situations like this where I don't get a chance for that push, I'm more worried about things like Black's knight going to g4 and joining forces with the Bc5.  And e3 seems like too passive an approach to put a lid on that.  Of course if I get a chance to push h3 I can prevent ...Ng4, but often I have too much to deal with in the centre, and not enough time to get that push in.

I'm not a very highly-rated player, but I study hard, and just want to understand the themes of this variation.  For players who use this variation a lot, how do you deal with Black's moves:  Bc5, d4 and Ng4?  (For Bc5 I don't mind moving Kh1, but should I let that bishop stay around?)

Additionally, do you tend to push both c3 and d3, and put the QN on a3?  (These moves seem to be part of the main line, or at least considered book.)  If so, could someone also help me understand what the knight is doing on a3, anyhow?

There are some key ideas and elements of this opening that I think I'm failing to understand.  Any help on any of these questions would be much appreciated.  (Sorry I didn't embed a chessboard in my post, as I haven't yet learned how to do that -- this is my first post here.)  Thanks!

Objectively ...Bc5 is not a great move in this line, the main reason being the reply d4, especially if you haven't played d3 yet. The stonewall with a Bg2-fianchetto is not the most aggressive set-up, but with one or two extra tempi it is worth going for it and follow-up with c4, Nc3, and then either prepare e4 or Ne5.

In any case, if you choose a move order with 0-0 before d3, your opponent will be less tempted to throw in Bc5. He might be afraid of d2-d4 or e2-e3, have already put a pawn on c5, or played Be7 and not want to lose more tempi.

Assuming he plays Bc5 anyway and you don't want to go d4, you just sidestep with Kh1, keep an eye for ...Ng4 tricks (most often countered by Na3-c2, Qe1, or, well, d4, but sometimes you might want to stop it altogether with h3), and then play the standard Leningrad moves c3 and a4. If Black doesn't react you will grab queenside space with b4, possibly even trapping the bishop.

If Black goes a7-a5 to stop that, the manoeuvre Na3-c2 covers e3 and add control on b4 and d4. Bc1 is usually developped to d2. Your main plan afterwards should be e2-e4: without a pawn on c5, Black is in danger of getting pawnrolled in the center.

An eventual d5-d4 by Black, without a pawn on c5, is not very frightening. Don't take on d4 unless it wins a pawn. Instead of Nc2, Nc4 becomes another possibility. Same plans: e2-e4 (but don't forget about en passant captures - most often it is no problem because of the sequence: e2-e4 dxe3ep d3-d4 Bc5 moves, Bxe3), Ne5 invasions, h3-g4 expansion followed by Qe1-g3/h4 and possibly f5...

If Bc5 is played before you castle, well, there is always d4. But even without d4, if you are in a hurry to castle, a pawn chain d2-e3 will do. I suppose the most accurate is to continue your Leningrad plans before castling nor touching the central panws: c3, a4, b4 if allowed, Na3-c2, keping your options in the center: either d4, or d2-e3, or d3-e4, depending on Black's set-up.

Of course, this is all general ideas and many subtleties may happen depending on the precise move order. But the rule of thumb is: don't be afraid of Bc5.

One of those tricks:

[FEN ""]
1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.g3 e6 4.Bg2 Nbd7 (4...Bc5 5.d4 (5.c3) (5.e3)) 5.O-O Bc5 6.Kh1 O-O 7.c3 a5 8.a4 c6 9.Na3 Qe7 10.d3 Ng4 (10...e5 11.fe5) 11.Nc2 (11.d4) (11.Qe1 {intending h3 or e4} Ne3? 12.Bxe3 Bxe3 13.d4 {and Na3-c2xe3 is a similar trap}) Nf2 (11...e5 12.fxe5 Ngxe5 13.Nxe5 Nxe5 14.d4) 12.Rxf2 Bxf2 13.e3 {and the Bf2 is trapped}


A question regarding "The Horse Concoction" Long ago in 2000, Tim Krabbe presented, a now classic, problem by Harry Goldsteen in his article “The Horse Concoction” on his site. It has blossomed across the Internet, as some of us know.
The task's stipulation is complex.

Take an empty board. Put white pawns on b3, b6, h4 and h7, and a white Queen on f1. Now add ten black knights, both Kings, and the necessary material to enable White to stalemate Black in one move, and Black to win after any other move.

The retrograde analysis Tim Krabbe glosses over isn’t too hard to understand. But there is just one part that he skips over that nags at me, and I cannot figure it out.
Firstly, here is the unique position that solves the problem.
[FEN "8/7P/1P5B/2B1Q1n1/3nn2P/1PRnk1nR/3nnnK1/2B1nQBn w - - 0 1"]

Krabbe remarks that the knight jammed in the corner cannot be jammed in the corner on h8 for reasons too big for his article. But why is that so?

This is just the very beginning of what must have been Goldsteen's demonstration, but if anyone wants to carry on from here...
Let's try and build the position after White's key move.
The bNh8 cannot be pinned, so there must be "blockading" knights on f7 and g6, that are pinned themselves.
Because squares f7 and h7 are occupied, the bNg6 cannot be pinned diagonally. It cannot be pinned vertically either, otherwise we cannot pin the bNf7. Hence it is pinned horizontally, leftwards.
The bK cannot be on f6 because there wouldn't be enough space to set up a pin on the f6-h8 diagonal. It cannot be too far from the bNf7 either, so you can conclude that the bK stands on e6.
The space available (or lack thereof) allows us to define the positions of four more pinned knights and four pinning pieces, leading to this position:
[FEN "2B1R1Bn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3nn3/2B4P/1P6/8/5Q2 w - - 0 1"]

Two remarks:

The wQf1 (or even a wP, although it seems unlikely) might have moved with the key move, I just put it on the diagram as a reminder that it had to be there before.

Each wB or wR might be replaced by a wQ.

There will be two additionnal bN's, and two pinning pieces, on the e-file and on the e6-h3 diagonal.
To go further, I suppose we might discuss cases depending on the locations of these two bN's. A very important point is that Black must be winning if White doesn't stalemate, so most probably wK willl be under check by the 10th knight (as in the solution with a bNh1) to avoid allowing scores of possible first white moves. Most probably too, the bK will also have a free square to escape to, thus unpinning half of its army.

Second step:
White already has three promoted pieces on the diagram. Since adding two more of them would be illegal (due to the remaining four wP's), it means that one of the last pinning pieces must be either the wQ or the wPh7.
There are only five possible stalemating key moves to consider:

Ph7xNg8:B or Ph7xNg8:Q (these ones are very unlikely because they cannot be check-parrying moves)
Qf1xNh3
Qf1xNe1
Qf1xNe2

As a consequence, the positions of the wP's on b3, b6, and h4 are certain.
Let's consider that White's key move is 1.Qf1-takes-the-knight-that-was-checking-white-King and try now to infer where the wK might stand.
Given that the wK cannot be on f4 or g5 (these squares are controlled by other bN's), the available square that is closest to the cluster of black pieces is d4, with d3 and f3 second-order possibilities. Because it is very hard to imagine Black, who is down scores of material, to be winning against a far-away wK (say, on c1), putting the wK on d4 could be the most logical next step.
As a consequence, the pinned bN on the e6-h3 diagonal cannot be on f5, and must stand on g4. To limit wK freedom, it is tempting to put the 9th knight on e5 (controlling d3), but it might also be on e3 or e4.
Which leads to this diagram before the key move:
[FEN "2B1R1Bn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3nn3/2BK2nP/1P5B/4n3/5Q2 w - - 0 1"]

But this leads to several new difficulties:

The key move 1.Qxe2 is not stalemating in spite of the 8 pins, since black can play 1...Kf6 or 1...Kf5. Of course, adding more (non-promoted) units, e.g. wNg3, wBg5, might still be possible.
(Notice that if we add chosen the setup wKd3/bNe4/bNe1 instead, we would also need to cover square e5; but then, the bNg4 could be on f5 blocking one flight square...)

We have to demonstrate a black win after the alternative capture 1.Bxe2, or make it impossible by adding a wNd3.

In both case, adding white units reduces the number of previous captures by Black, and is very likely to be impossible while keeping the legality of the position (less captures means less paths to promotions for both sides).
The alternative, in case adding a wB would still allow all the promotions, is:
[FEN "2B1R1Bn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3n1n2/2B1n2P/1P1K3B/8/B3nQ2 w - - 0 1"]

[Ba1 could be on b2,c3,d4,g7]
[If this is legal - edit: it is not]
Then we really have a stalemate after 1.Qf1xe1, but demonstrating a Black win after the alternative 1.Ke2 is a long shot, since only two black units can move! The best try would be to put wBa1 on c3 and play 1...Nxc3+ followed by 2...Ke5 or 2...Kf6, but that would allow yet another variation starting with 1.Bxe1! And still... (funnily enough, 1...Ng3+ 2.Kxe1 Nxf1 3.Kxf1 is another stalemate, and if Black cannot win the wQ at once he should not dream of a long-term win and has to checkmate quite forcefully)

The third step should be retrograde analysis to prove that we cannot add a white knight nor a dark-squared bishop.
Edit: this step is actually pretty easy: Black needs three captures to promote all his pawns: one by the b-pawn, one by the h-pawn, and one by the e-pawn or the c-pawn to allow the opposing white pawn to promote on a light square.
As a consequence, the third diagram above is illegal.
With a key move by the wQ, even without the stipulation that it should be the only move to prevent a defeat, I am thus unable to even reach a legal stalemate. [but I will not pretend I am 100% confident about all this reasonning; dear reader, please double check!]
The possible key moves that remain, because they allow more pieces to be present, are the non-check-parrying 1.h7xNg8:B and 1.h7xNg8:Q.
I am pretty convinced that they cannot be mandatory to prevent defeat (and thus, that Harry Goldsteen is right - not a surprise!), but step four will be to...

Step four
build a legal 9-knights stalemate starting with 1.h7xNg8:B
I believe this is achieved by the following position:
[FEN "2B1R1nn/3nnn1P/1PRnk1nR/3nn3/2BK2nP/1P5B/8/4RQ2 w - - 0 1"]

1.h7xNg8=B is stalemate
However, Black is clearly not winning after any other White move. Indeed, White has a direct mate in 1 with
1.Bxg4# or 1.Bxd5#
Convincing oneself that it is really mate is a little mind-boggling with all these pinned defenders who cannot defend.
I may spend a bit more time and sweat to prove properly that this last position is legal, but I will stop thereafter. After reaching that point, I am totally convinced that Goldsteen's assertion that "there is no solution to the Horse Concoction with a bNh8" is absolutely correct.
Addednum-Here is game that proves it is legal. Due to the page freezing, it can be played out on apronus.com.
Move List: 1. a4 a5 2. h4 h5 3. g4 e5 4. g5 Rh6 5. gxh6 d5 6. f4 Bd6 7. d4 e4 8. Na3 g5 9. Nc4 e3 10. Nd2 exd2+ 11. Kf2 Be5 12. dxe5 g4 13. e4 Qg5 14. fxg5 f5 15. b3 Ra6 16. Ba3 b5 17. h7 Rb6 18. g6 b4 19. g7 Rb5 20. axb5 bxa3 21. c4 c5 22. Nh3 Bd7 23. b6 Bb5 24. cxb5 g3+ 25. Ke2 g2 26. Nf2 f4 27. Ng4 hxg4 28. b7 f3+ 29. Ke3 d4+ 30. Kf4 g3 31. e6 f2 32. e5 g1=N 33. Bh3 g2 34. e7 Kf7 35. e6+ Kf6 36. e8=B a2 37. e7 a4 38. Bf7 a3 39. e8=B c4 40. Bed7 c3 41. Bc8 Nd7 42. b8=R d3 43. Bb7 c2 44. Re8 Ne7 45. Bc4 f1=N 46. g8=R c1=N 47. b6 Nf3 48. Bb5 Nfe5 49. Qe1 Nf7 50. Rh2 g1=N 51. Rb1 d1=N 52. Rg5 Nf2 53. Rh5 Ng4 54. Rc2 d2 55. Ke4 d1=N 56. Rcc5 Nc3+ 57. Kd4 Ncd5 58. Bc4 Nfe3 59. Rb2 N3f5+ 60. Ke4 N5h6 61. Kd4 Nhg8 62. Ke4 a1=N 63. Rd2 Nf3 64. Qe2 N3e5 65. Qe1 N5g6 66. Qe2 Ngh8 67. Qe1 Nc2 68. Qe2 Ne1 69. Rd1 a2 70. Qg2 a1=N 71. Qg1 Nac2 72. Qf1+ Ke6 73. Bc8 Nce3 74. Kd4 N3f5+ 75. Ke4 N5d6+ 76. Kd4 Ncd3 77. Rc6 N3e5 78. Rc1 N1d3 79. Re1 N3f4 80. Rh6+ Nfg6


Listing engine evaluation of each game after opening to track my opening skill level I've recently picked up the book "Pump up your rating" where the author talks about tracking each of your games with a post-mortem analysis. The report of all your games combined will show you in the long run which areas of your chess game are holding you back.
Inspired by this approach I want to understand which openings I'm playing correctly and which ones I need to study in more detail. I've downloaded my chess games and have tried to analyse them using ChessX, Scid vs Pc and Lucas Chess. Scid vs Pc gives me the option to automatically annotate the games but stores the engine score in a non tabular format. I can only see the evaluation of the moves when opening a specific game.
Ideally I want to add a column to my chess games in a database which shows the engine evaluation of the game at the end of the "Opening".
After some research I found that move 10-12 are commonly accepted as the end of the "Opening". I haven't found a way to programmatically extract the engine evaluation at move 10 or 12 from all my games. Scid vs Pc allows you to add user defined flags but this is just a text string.
I'm very new to chess databases and engines in general and would be greateful for any advice on how to achieve this.

It is good to review games to see why you lost.
Just tracking your alleged 'rating' per some engine after each game is useless as you 'rating' is not that stable until you have a lot of experience and even then there is a wide variation on any given day for most players.


Do 5 connected pawns usually win against a rook? Suppose, white has 5 connected pawns, black only a rook. Under normal circumstances
 (black cannot immediately win a pawn, the white pawns are not too far advanced, say
 on the rows 2 to 4, black's king is standing in front of the white pawns)

Can the pawns triumph in such a situation ?

Yes of course, there are more chances for white who has 5 connected pawns to wins instead of black who has a rook. A rook can't check the king all the time and the pawns are always helping each others to get to the final state to get a queen. This problem is usually won by the 5 pawns.


Difference between tactic and combination? What is the difference between a Tactic and a Combination?  For reference, here is a game I played as white and I think I had a nice combination from move 16, but I am not sure if it is classified as a combination or tactics.  This what my thought process from move 16 was.  There are probably multiple mistakes made in the game, but I am not looking for a complete analysis.

16. Bc2 - staring down the diagonal
17. Ned4 - I am hoping he will take it so I can advance my pawn to e5.
18. exd4 - He takes the sacrifice which is what I was hoping for.
19. Qxh7# - Apparently, he didn't notice the open diagonal and probably was concentrating on me attacking his bishop.

[FEN ""]
1. e4 d6 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 Bg7 4. Be3 Nc6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O e5 7. d5 Nce7 8.
   Qd3 a6 9. Bc4 b5 10. Bb3 f5 11. Nc3 f4 12. Bd2 Bf6 13. a3 Nh6 14. Ne2 g5 15.
   c4 O-O 16. Bc2 Qe8 17. Ned4 exd4 18. e5 dxe5 19. Qxh7#

The United States Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms defines the tactical level as:

  The level of war at which battles and engagements are planned and
  executed to accomplish military objectives assigned to tactical units
  or task forces. Activities at this level focus on the ordered
  arrangement and maneuver of combat elements in relation to each other
  and to the enemy to achieve combat objectives.

Your ultimate combat objective is to checkmate, and for that you'll have to assign specific tasks to the tactical units you have deployed in order to achieve the desired objective.

For example:

17. Ned4 - Tactical sacrifice, in order to allow e4 pawn to advance.

18. e5 is merely the completion of the tactical maneuver.

From the moment you are considering the diagonal b1-h7 as one of your attacking strengths you are considering a "strategy" which is to checkmate on h7, or in other words you are considering the "combination" of the specific techniques (tactics) involved in accomplishing such objective.


Source on common ways to make draws I was recently surprised by the following drawing idea, black to move:
6k1/pR3pbp/6p1/1Q6/8/5nP1/PP1r3P/5K2 b - - 0 1

In this position black can play Nxh2+ and, no matter white's king move, move the knight back with Nf3 and make a repetition (or win!).
It is a win if white decides to run to the h1 corner because for example 1...Nxh2+ Kg1 2. Nf3+ Kh1 3.Rh2#. If instead white goes for the rook, then 1...Nxh2+ Ke1 2.Nf3+ Kf1 (only legal move) and we have repeated the position.
Is there a source where I can find a collection of drawing ideas like the above?

there are different books that cover this topic,
for example Neishtadt book on tactic " Improve Your Chess Tactics: 700 Practical Lessons & Exercises" has a chapter dedicated to miracle saves, which is stalemate and perpetual.
On John Speelman tactic book as well there si chapter on that,
I'd say many chess tactic books have a chapter on this topic generally.


Strategy in Isolated Queen Pawn Positions What should Black's plan be in Isolated Queen Pawn Openings like this one arising from the Caro-Kann Panov attack?

    [fen ""]
    1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 e6 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.cxd5 Nxd5

First of all, the isolated pawn is a dynamic strength, and a static weakness.

But what does this mean?

This means that he represents a pawn weakness, but compensates this weakness in some other way. In short, Black should strive towards endgame, while White must obtain some sort of pressure/attack in order to compensate for his weak d-pawn.

Why is this so, and can Black/White achieve his plan? This will be the topic of the text below.

Characteristics of the Isolated pawn:

If left alone and unhindered, it will expand and cramp the enemy, yet if blockaded it becomes a target and a bottleneck.

The shortcomings of the isolated pawn are inability to defend it with another pawn and the fact that the square in front of him ( and sometimes the squares around him too ) is weak and can be used as a strong-point for the opponents pieces. This is most evident in the endgame. Aside from that, the benefits of the isolated pawn are seen in the middlegame in view of space advantage,open lines and aggressive strong-points in the center, especially the e5 square.

  What should Black's plan be in Isolated Queen Pawn Openings like this one arising from the Caro-Kann Panov attack?

These plans are typical and well explored. Opening moves just make some plans possible and some not.

Plans for both sides in the position with Isolated pawn:

Here is a short summary of the plans for both sides:

Plans for the side with the isolated pawn :

Attack on the kingside;
Favorable opening of the center;
Advancing the isolated pawn in order to cramp the opponent;
Development of initiative on the queenside;

Plans for the side fighting against the isolated pawn :

Simplification of the game with goal to transpose into favorable endgame;
Transposing into the position with hanging pawns;

In order to help you better grasp these plans here are the illustrative games:

Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Attack on the kingside :

Botvinik-Tolush, Moscow 1965 is a good example for this. The key idea is to push f4!, which gives White the attack. Smyslov-Ribli, London 1983 seventh game is another good example.

Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Favorable opening of the center :

Spassky-Avtonomov, Leningrad 1949 is a good example. Pay attention to White's d5! push, opening lines and activating his pieces.

Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Advancing the isolated pawn in order to cramp the opponent :

Novoteljnov-Bondarevski, Moscow 1951 is one  good example. Pay attention to 12...d4!.

Plan for side with the isolated pawn: Development of initiative on the queenside :

This happens rarely, but I was able to find illustrative game. Notice how Black exploits queenside weaknesses with 16...Qb5 to increase his initiative in the game Bitman-Zlotnik, Moscow 1979. I can not find online resource for this game.

Now after seeing plans for the side with isolated pawn we must examine plans for the side fighting the isolated pawn:

Plan for side fighting the isolated pawn: Simplification of the game with goal to transpose into favorable endgame :

Karpov-Spassky, Montreal 1979 is a very good example.

Plan for side fighting the isolated pawn: Transposing into the position with hanging pawns :

Zukertort-Steinitz, Vienna 1886 is a classical example. Notice how Steinitz exchanged pieces, thus reducing White's attacking potential. As soon as White is not able to attack he starts to stand worse due to the weakness of the isolated pawn.

Furman-Kholmov, Kiev 1954 and Taimanov-Karpov, Moscow 1973 are very good examples of a positional approach. However, you might be forced to destroy hanging pawns dynamically like in Petrosian-Smyslov, Moscow 1961.  Pay attention to 18...Rxc3! strike.

But how does all this apply for your line in Panov attack?

Typical plans in the position with isolated pawn are not opening dependent. Opening moves can only enable some plans and make others impossible to execute, but no matter what opening you play the typical plans remain the same.

This is very important to know. In order to choose proper plan you must know the current opening theory.

I believe that little has changed and that you will have to implement the plan of transforming White isolated pawn into hanging pawns, and then attack them.

You should also cement a piece on d5 and avoid transformation of the current pawn structure, unless it favors you ( hanging pawns as I have said, are the only good pawn structure for you, others favor White ). As said, 4 minor pieces on the board are good for White, 3 is unclear and everything else favors Black.

Just exchange smart and you will be on a good way to at least draw.

The paramount importance is the opening play. If you get good position from opening, then it will be easier for you to play the position as your plans are clear and straightforward. White on the other hand has to generate an attack which is not that easy, and usually will have to be satisfied with a small space advantage.

ILLUSTRATIVE GAMES FROM OP's OPENING:

We shall analyze games #2 and #6 from Kamsky-Karpov, Elista 1996 which will hopefully help you grasp the above mentioned concepts:

First quickly play through the games 2 and 6. You will notice that everything was the same until move 12 where Black first played Bd7 and Rc8, sticking to passive defense, while in the game 6 he played more active Qb6 which allowed him to exchange few pieces.

Notice how in the second game Black was cramped due to the presence of 4 minor pieces on the board and because he had no counterplay. Also pay attention to 45.f4! that launched a kingside attack. This is the topic we covered above under kingside attack. The attack was possible due to the 18.d5! which opens center favorably, again we mentioned that too under favorable opening of the center.

Now look how Black stood much better when he played actively, and when he exchanged a minor piece. Notice how he had more space to maneuver, and notice how he immediately took d5 square, and other ones around the d4 pawn, under his control. This is important! "Cementing" a piece on d5 hinders opponent's attacking potential. Pay really good attention to this. After 23.Bxf5 we can see that White has lost his space advantage, and now Black got fully equal game since only 2 minor pieces were left. Black equalized by keeping the squares around isolated pawn "in check". Also, he had enough space to properly regroup his pieces for defense and counter attack.

Another highly instructive game is J.Polgar-V.Smyslov, Aruba 1992. Just look how Black exchanged the queens with 9...Qb6! and 10...Ba5!and then look how White's isolated pawn became instantly weak when he was not able to attack anymore. Black had pressure in that game in the end but since there were 4 minor pieces White had enough defenders for his weak pawn.

A CONCRETE PLAN SUGGESTION FOR THE OP's POSITION:

I used to play Caro-Kann, so in the position you mention my plan would be:

To finish my development.
Exchange at least one minor piece.
Solve the problem of developing my light-squared bishop, usually by playing b6+Bb7 or by playing Rd8+Bd7+Be8. These are typical maneuvers for Black.

At that point opening ends and starts the middlegame. There you can try to implement one of the 2 above mentioned plans. It all depends from White's moves. Still, you will probably exchange knights on c3 and maybe dark-squared bishops, which will result in the pawn structure with the hanging pawns.

About the move order in your post:

White takes on d5 too early, so all kind of options are possible for you. Still, you have 3 good moves as Black after he plays: Nc6, Bb4, Be7. Personally, I prefer solidity above all, so I would choose Be7 but the best move in my opinion is Bb4.

Again I must stress that it is of paramount importance to leave the opening with equal position. The same goes for White too.

SUMMARY:

For detailed explanation of plans in the Isolated pawn position consult the following books:

I.Sokolov-Winning chess middlegames, Baburin-Winning Pawn Structures and especially B.A.Zlotnik-Typical middlegame positions. The last book is pure gold and is out of print, but still try to find it.

As for Caro-Kann, Panov attack you should get Karpov's book A.Karpov & M.Podgaets-Caro-Kann defense Panov Attack, Batsford 2006. It is entirely devoted to Panov attack, and I think it is outstanding.

Sorry for scarce information, but there is just too much to be said for this topic that it wouldn't fit here. So if you have follow up questions just leave a comment.

Best regards.


Making sense of Scid vs. PC tree score statistics I can't seem to figure out how to interpret the score statistics when browsing a chess database with Scid vs. PC.

To give an example, the following is a position from the ICOfY chess database tree browsed with Scid vs. PC:

In the above position White is to play and the move Nc3 is shown as yielding a score of 27%. I.e. Black is winning by a wide margin. However, when I click on the Nc3 move I am faced with the following screen:

... which paints a widely different picture for Black's prospects. Namely, showing a score of 46% for Black's most common reply (i.e. Black is only slightly better if I interpret the statistics correctly). Am I right in thinking that these statistics are not consistent with one another or am I failing to grasp something? Bonus point if you can explain why the Event description (lower left corner) is a series of question marks.

The statistics show what happened in games that reached the current position.

So in your first diagram, there are 28 games that reached that position. White scored 30.3% on average in those games. In 11 of them, Nc3 was played here, and White scored 27.2% in those 11 games.

The position after Nc3 was reached 72 times. That obviously includes the 11 games from above, but also 61 other games that reached this position in a different order of moves. And in these 72 together, white scored 52.7%.

That's not inconsistent, you can go through the list of games yourself and verify the numbers.

What it is, is an example why looking at move statistics can be very misleading. The fact that white scored only 30.3% from the first position doesn't mean that black is winning at all. You don't even know that a single one of those results had anything to do with the opening! There could be all kinds of reasons for the results, maybe black was the much better player in all of them, or there were some white blunders, or who knows what.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.


Why does White play g5? As a total newbie, I've been solving some medium-level problems on chesstempo. This one caught my eye. We play as Black after White's first move.
[FEN "6k1/5p1p/5bp1/p7/P1r3PP/2n2N2/4NP2/1R4K1 w - - 0 1"]

1. Rb8+ Kg7 2. g5

What I can't understand is why White plays g5.
It is a quite poor attack on the bishop as Black then plays Ne2, capturing the White knight and checking the king. Therefore White loses the knight and does not get to capture the bishop. Instead, White could have at least exchanged the knights:
[FEN "1K/2PN/2N2n/PP3r1P/7p/1pb/pkp/6R w - - 0 1"]

1. Nf6 Rf6

I this reckon to be a fine attack on h4 pawn as the White knight (which is protecting it) should be moved not to be captured by the rook. Yet, from White's viewpoint, I believe having the knights exchanged and the pawn captured is better than having the knight captured and leaving Black with all the pieces.
What is the point of such a move? What am I not seeing? Why are the moves I made (Nf6, Rf6) not right?

Black doesn't actually win a piece.
After 1.Rb8 Kg7 2.g5!? Nxe2, White will parry the check by playing 3.Kf1, when both the Bf6 and the Ne2 are under attack. You cannot save both pieces with 3...Nd4 attacking f3 and hoping for 4.Nxd4? Bxd4 because 4.gf6 is check.
As a consequence, Black wins a pawn and retains a winning position, but they don't pocket a piece.
Alternatives on the second move to 2.g5 are hardly better for White because their Pg4 is hanging with check, e.g. 2.Nxc3 Rxg4! (and not 2...Rxc3) 3.Kf1 Bxc3 with, once again, an extra pawn and a winning position.


Is an Arabian mate possible without the king’s help? Can an Arabian mate be enforced without the king's help in this position?
[FEN "r6k/8/8/8/8/8/8/K6n w - - 0 1"]

I don't think it is possible to forcibly mate the king with rook and knight only.

Proof: The only mating position is with the white king in a corner, the rook giving check from an adjacent square and the knight protecting the rook and covering the escape square.

For simplicity let's say Ka1, Rb1, Nc3. There are 7 other equivalent positions to this one.

If you retro-analyze the position the last move must have been with the rook along the b file from somewhere between b3 and b8. For the following analysis it does not matter from where it came.

Then what was white's last move? It certainly was a king move from a2, b2 or b1 to the corner (a1). However, since white was not forced to move the king to the corner but could have moved to a3 or c1 (or to b3 if the rook was standing there), the mate cannot be forced.

[fen "1r6k/8/8/8/8/K7/4n3/8 w - - 0 1"]
[StartPly "4"]

1. Ka2 Nc3+ 2. Ka1?? (2. Ka3!) Rb1++


How do you calculate pawn endgames, like if you have X number of pawns facing X numbers of opposite color? I'll use a random example here with white to move, but I'm really asking about the general principles.

8/7p/6p1/pp3p2/3k1P2/PP6/1P1K1PPP/8 w - - 0 1

I'm a chess amateur and endgames drive me crazy.  Every pawn can move in limited ways but when there are several, suddenly there are so many variations based on which one you move first and how the enemy reacts.  Do chess experts really calculate all that?  Or do they look and see, for instance, three pawns facing three pawns and right away know that's draw if king is located in a certain square?

In short, I'm sort of looking for some rules of thumbs that can help me analyze (like that pawn square rule about catching a pawn before it gets promoted) just to make pawn endgames manageable.

Do chess experts really calculate all that?

No, they really don't.

In a position like the one you gave an expert would look at two things -

1) The opposition

2) Reserve moves

and only then start calculating.

The opposition is what you get when the kings are opposite each other with one square gap between them exactly as shown in your diagram. The player who "has the opposition" (a good thing) is the player who doesn't have to move.

The reason it's a good thing is because currently neither king can move forward because then the kings would be next to each other. Generally speaking the player who has to move their king first would have to move either sideways or backwards letting the other king advance when maybe they can attack the other sides pawns.

Here it's not so straightforward because white pawns stop the black king from going to c3, c4, e3 and e5 and black pawns stop the white king from going to c4 and e4. White might want to play f3 to cover e4 instead of e3 and black might want to play b4 to cover c3 instead of c4.

Reserve moves are all the moves each player can play before he has to move his king and lose the opposition. The more the better and one reason to be careful how you push your pawns in an endgame. Here white has 4 obvious reserve moves - f3, g3, h3 and h4. Black has only 2 - h6 and h5. If white plays his moves in the right order, f3, g3, h3 first (in any order) then he will get extra moves g4 and g5 if he wants them because black cannot take the g4 pawn without giving white a passed pawn. So right from the get go black is in bad shape. He is going to have to give way and let white advance.

So, black's only hope is that he can construct a fortress with his pawns so that even though he will have to let the white king come to d3 he can stop it getting to the fourth rank using his king and pawns.

Now it's time to do some calculation.

It looks at first glance that maybe black is just going to be able to go back to d5 with his king (once his reserve moves are used up) and then shuffle his king between d5 and c5 because that will stop the white king going to c4 or d4 and the f5 pawn stops king to e4.

The problem is that then white is going to play b4 when his king is on c3 and black's king is on d5. This will give white a passed pawn and the win after either black takes the pawn and white recaptures with the king or black pushes the pawn to a4 and black plays b3.

So, maybe black needs to play b4 himself first? Maybe on his first move? Now it doesn't matter what white does. If he takes on b4 then black recaptures with his a pawn and his pawn is on b4. If white pushes a4 then black's pawn is protected on b4 and if white leaves it then so does black and the white king is never going to get to c4 to double attack it because the black king can always shuffle between c5 and d5.

But!!! It is white to go first. If he wants to win he has to play b4 himself on the first move. Otherwise it's going to be too late. So, what happens next? Black must capture with the a pawn and white moves Kc2 forcing black to take the a3 pawn as well. White recaptures with his a pawn and he has broadened the base and has the distant pawn (which means that after they take each other's pawns white is going to get back to the kingside just before white).

An expert white would probably stop calculating here confident that he would win.

Let's look at how it might go.

8/7p/6p1/pp3p2/3k1P2/PP6/1P1K1PPP/8 w - - 0 1

1. b4 axb4 2. Kc2 bxa3 3. bxa3 Kc4 4. h3 h6 5. g3 h5 6. f3 Kc5 7. Kc3 Kc6 8. Kd4 Kb6 9. g4 Ka5 10. Kc5 Ka4 11. Kb6 Kxa3 12. Kxb5 Kb3 13. gxf5 gxf5 14. Kc5 Kc3 15. Kd5 Kd3 16. Ke5 Ke3 17. Kxf5 Kxf3 18. Kg5 Kg3 19. h4

and the f pawn queens.


Looking for a PDF of the British Chess Magazine, Sep. 1907 I am looking for a PDF copy of British Chess Magazine dated September 1907 which contains an analysis of a game between Neustadtl and Porges.

First place to go is the Chess Archaeology web site, in particular the subsection
"Library" (URL: http://www.chessarch.com/library/library.shtml)
(You'll find two scans: one from Princeton, another from Stanford.)
Another useful source is the WorldCat library (URL: https://www.worldcat.org/). While it does list printed copies as well as copies on microform or in digital form, you can easily search only for digital copies (usually listed as eBooks, eMagazines or eJournals)
In this particular case, however, there seems to be no e-copies listed.


In online correspondence chess, are the ratings adjustments based on the pre- or post-game ratings? When playing rated online correspondence chess, it's quite possible that the players' ratings change during the game. When the game is over, which rating will be used for rating adjustments? The ratings they had before the game began, or the rating at the end of the game?

Every site that I have seen uses the rating at the end of the game.


KBN vs K checkmate on nonstandard boards I know how to win the endgame with bishop and knight, but it is a slippery process and seems to be just barely a win, with the enemy king very nearly escaping.  For this reason, I am curious about this endgame on other board sizes and if it will still be possible in the general case of an MxN board. Let's assume the 50 move rule doesn't apply.
Here are a few examples.

Is there a forced win on a 10x10 board?
Is there a forced win on a 7x7 board, with a bishop of the "wrong"' color (i.e. a bishop that can't attack the corner squares)?

Actually, the bishop and knight mate is not as slippery as it appears.  I have checked this on a tablebase program I wrote.  On a 10x10 board, the side with the bishop and knight (say white) can force mate in at most 47 moves.  White can even force mate on a 16x16 board, in at most 93 moves.  I believe mate can be forced on an arbitrarily large even size board.
First, on an odd size board, I've confirmed that white cannot force mate if the bishop is on the wrong color.  Mate can only be forced in a good corner (one that the bishop controls), so if there are no good corners, mate cannot be forced.
On the 10x10 board, the following is an optimal mate in 47.  The starting position is W: Ka1, Nb1, Bc1; B: Kc2.  1.Bb2 Kb3 2.Ba3 Kc2 3.Ka2 Kd3 4.Kb3 Ke4 5.Kc4 Ke5 6.Bg9 Kf4 7.Kd5 Kf5 8.Be7 Kf4 9.Ke6 Kg4 10.Ke5 Kf3 11.Kf5 Kg2 12.Kg4 Kf2 13.Kf4 Kg2 14.Nd2 Kh1 15.Kg3 Ki2 16.Nf3 Ki1 17.Kh3 Kh1 18.Bf6 Ki1 19.Nh2 Kh1 20.Bj2 Kg1 21.Ng4 Kf1 22.Kg3 Ke2 23.Nf2 Kd2 24.Bf6 Ke3 25.Bg7 Kd2 26.Kf4 Kc2 27.Ke4 Kd2 28.Bd4 Ke1 29.Nh1 Kf1 30.Kf3 Ke1 31.Be3 Kd1 32.Ke4 Kc2 33.Kd4 Kd1 34.Kd3 Ke1 35.Ng3 Kd1 36.Bc5 Ke1 37.Bd4 Kd1 38.Bc3 Kc1 39.Nf5 Kd1 40.Ne3 Kc1 41.Kc4 Kb1 42.Kb3 Kc1 43.Be1 Kb1 44.Bd2 Ka1 45.Nc2+ Kb1 46.Na3+ Ka1 47.Bc3#
This can be played out on apronus.com.
After 23. Nf2, we have a position just like the one shown in Andrew's answer (but upside down: W: Kg3, Bj2, Nf2; B: Ke2).  If we make this board 8x8 by removing the a and b columns (and rows 9 and 10), it would be mate in 14, but here it's mate in 25.  In the optimal line above, the black king never really tries to escape towards the a10 corner.  Let's say he does, with 23. ... Kd2 24. Bf6 Kc2.  This move shortens the mate by one move, with the continuation 25.Kf3 Kb3 26.Ke4 Ka4 27.Kd5 Kb5 28.Bd4 Ka4 29.Kc4 Ka5 30.Kc5 Ka6 31.Kc6.
The black king can only escape as far as a6, and is ultimately still trapped in the good a1 corner.  The rest of this continuation is 31. ... Ka5 32.Nd3 Ka4 33.Kc5 Ka5 34.Nb4 Ka4 35.Kc4 Ka5 36.Be3 Ka4 37.Bb6 Ka3 38.Nd3 Ka4 39.Nb2 Ka3 40.Kc3 Ka2 41.Kc2 Ka3 42.Ba5 Ka2 43.Bb4 Ka1 44.Nd3+ Ka2 45.Nc1+ Ka1 46.Bc3#
Here is the number of moves to force mate on every even sized board from 4 to 16.  4: 15; 6: 22; 8: 33; 10: 47; 12: 64; 14: 78; 16: 93.  Note that on any size board there are a handful of positions that are drawn because black can win a piece immediately.
The following is an optimal mate in 92 on a 16x16 board.  The starting position is again W: Ka1, Nb1, Bc1; B: Kc2. 1.Bb2 Kb3 2.Bi9 Ka4 3.Kb2 Kb5 4.Kc3 Kc6 5.Kd4 Kd7 6.Ke5 Ke8 7.Kf6 Kf8 8.Kg6 Kg8 9.Bg11 Kf9 10.Kh7 Ke10 11.Kg8 Kf11 12.Bi9 Ke10 13.Kh9 Kd11 14.Kg10 Ke10 15.Bg11 Kd9 16.Kf9 Kc10 17.Ke10 Kc11 18.Ke11 Kc12 19.Nd2 Kd13 20.Ne4 Ke14 21.Nf6 Kf13 22.Kf11 Ke14 23.Ke12 Kd15 24.Kd13 Ke16 25.Ke14 Kd16 26.Nd7 Kc16 27.Ne9 Kb15 28.Kd15 Kb14 29.Bf10+ Kb15 30.Nd11 Ka16 31.Nc13 Kb16 32.Kd16 Ka15 33.Kc15 Ka16 34.Kc16 Ka15 35.Na12+ Ka16 36.Nb14 Ka15 37.Nd13 Ka14 38.Nc11 Ka13 39.Bc13 Ka14 40.Kc15 Ka13 41.Kc14 Ka14 42.Bd12 Ka13 43.Na10 Ka12 44.Kc13 Kb11 45.Nb12 Ka12 46.Kc12 Ka13 47.Be11 Ka12 48.Bf12 Ka13 49.Bc15 Ka12 50.Nd11 Ka11 51.Bf12 Ka12 52.Nc13 Ka11 53.Kc11 Ka10 54.Nd11 Ka9 55.Nb10 Kb9 56.Kb11 Ka9 57.Kc10 Ka10 58.Bg13 Ka11 59.Be15 Ka10 60.Nd9 Ka9 61.Bh12 Ka10 62.Nc11+ Ka9 63.Kc9 Ka8 64.Nd9 Kb7 65.Nb8 Ka7 66.Kc8 Ka8 67.Bg11 Ka9 68.Be13+ Ka8 69.Nd7 Ka7 70.Bh10 Ka8 71.Nc9 Ka7 72.Kc7 Ka6 73.Kc6 Ka7 74.Bd6 Ka6 75.Bc5 Ka5 76.Ne8 Ka4 77.Kd5 Kb3 78.Kd4 Kc2 79.Bb4 Kb3 80.Kc5 Ka2 81.Kc4 Kb1 82.Kc3 Kc1 83.Nd6 Kd1 84.Kd3 Kc1 85.Nc4 Kd1 86.Ba5 Kc1 87.Bd2 Kb1 88.Kc3 Ka2 89.Kc2 Ka1 90.Kb3 Kb1 91.Na3+ Ka1 92.Bc3#
It is long, but playing through it definitely helped convince me that white could force mate on an arbitrarily large board.  In the first phase, the white king and bishop can corral the black king while buying tempi for the white knight to catch up.  Once the black king is trapped in the bad corner (a16 in this case), it is shuffled down the a-file with very little breathing room.  Although the procedure is significantly more complicated than a W maneuver, white appears to always be in complete control.


Does the chess community have a problem with manners and sportsmanship? Chess can be such an emotional game, when your intelligence is paired up against your opponent's.

It's great fun at times, but at other times, it seems like we get too sensitive. More so than, say, basketball or even billiards.

I'm asking because I recently faced an opponent on chess.com who, after I offered and he naively accepted a series of gambits, very rudely typed a chat message. Now, we've never even met or played before. And this is a game, is it not?

So my question is: is there chess etiquette somewhere?

I would say that the chess community does very well in terms of sportsmanship as compared to other competitive endeavors. I think it's a mistake to compare the behavior witnessed in online chess with the behavior witnessed in basketball or billiards (incidentally, two of my other most favorite kinds of competition). I'm sure that anyone who has played any significant amount of online chess has been needlessly attacked at some point (I know I have), but the relative anonymity of the internet is the culprit there far more than anything specific about chess.

I have seen some bad behavior when playing over-the-board chess, but in my experience at least, it is far less frequent and far less severe than typical bad behavior on the basketball court, or in the pool hall. Purely anecdotal, I know, but I still think it's fair to say that etiquette is as alive and well in chess as it is most anywhere else, so long as the participants have to show their faces, or attach their real names and reputations to what they do.


Difference between a grandmaster and an international master? International chess tournaments are played in many cities in the world. What are the criteria that differentiate a chess grandmaster from a chess international master? Dibyendu Barua of Calcutta [Kolkata] played in London and is a chess grandmaster. In 1982 He defeated the then world number two ranked Viktor Korchnoi. Dibyendu Barua was awarded the grandmaster title in 1991 by FIDE. Dibyendu Barua was the second Indian grandmaster after Viswanathan Anand to become a chess grandmaster.
I would like to know who is greater, a chess grandmaster or a chess international master?

What are the criteria that differentiate a chess grandmaster from a
chess international master?

The current FIDE rules regarding the awarding of international titles are described in FIDE Title Regulations effective from 1 July 2017. Basically there are two ways to achieve a title - via norms or directly via achieving a given result in a world or continental championship or in an Olympiad.
The level of achievement required to be awarded a direct title are described in Table for Direct Titles effective from 1 July 2017.
For instance the GM title is awarded to the top 16 players in the World Cup, the winner of the Women's World Championship, the outright winner of the World S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the outright winner of Continental Championships and the Continental S65, S50 and U20 Championships.
The IM title is awarded to the losing finalist in the Women's World Championship, the silver and bronze winners in the World S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the winners of the World U18 and U16 Championships, the silver and bronze winners in the Continental Championships, the winners of the Continental S65, S50 and U20 Championships, the winners of the Continental U18 Championships.
Qualification via norms requires 3 (or 2 for very long tournaments) "norm" level performances in high level tournaments combined with reaching a certain rating. These rules are complicated and you should refer to sections 1.4 and 1.5 of the document on the the FIDE website.


How many grandmasters have been stripped of their titles? How many grandmasters have been stripped of their grandmaster titles? I heard about a GM in the bathroom who had his taken away, and was wondering what other circumstances have resulted in a GM losing their title.

After doing some checking, it seems that this is a relatively new phenomenon. Before the advent of technology, and strong chess playing programs on smartphones, it does not appear that any GMs had ever been stripped of their titles until GM Gaioz Nigalidze, at least that I could find.
Gaioz Nigalidze was stripped of his GM title after being caught with a phone in a bathroom stall at the 2015 Dubai Open. He had been suspected for some time.
The case that you probably read about was GM Igors Rausis. Last year, Rausis made international news when he was caught doing the same thing in a bathroom stall at the Strasbourg Open. His behavior and meteoric rating increases over the course of 6 years had put him on the radar for a long time.
This seems to have set a good precedent as far as I am concerned as there is no room for cheating.
P.S. I found this interesting post that, believe it or not (at least in the case of Nigalidze) claimed he could earn the title again if he completed the norms in the future; but the official FIDE ethics report does not mention the possibility either way.


What are the main ideas and goals in the Queen's Indian Defense? There's no real surprise when it comes to the strategy for the King's Indian Defence: storm white's king side, maybe sac a few things, and mate (ideally).

But what does a practitioner of the QID hope to achieve in terms of the opening and long term goals?

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 b6

The key ideas for Black in the Queen's Indian Defense is to:

Restrain White in the center
Quick Development

The Queen's Indian Defense can be reached after the moves:

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6

In the Queen's Indian Defense, black is going aim his light-squared bishop and knight at e4 in order to restrain the moves e4 and to prevent d4 to d5.

White's most popular move is 4...g3 in which white aims to complete development on the king side and counter black on the long diagonal.

A key position is reached after the following:

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3

In the above position, 7...d5 might seem like a logical move, but it is against the spirit of the opening which say's that Black should be waiting for the most opportune moment to make moves like 7...d5 which occupy the center until the timing is just right. Also, after exchanging pawns on  d5, black finds himself with 2 problems, the bishop on b7 is blocked in and the c pawn is on an open file and becomes vulnerable to attack.  For example, after white plays Bf4 to eye the c pawn, Black would like to move his pawn to c5, but after the following:

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 d5 8. cxd5 exd5
    9. Bf4 c5 10. dxc5 bxc5

The above leaves Black with a hanging pawn formation. The d and c pawns are extremely vulnerable and if white can quickly generate an attack such as 11. Ne5 generating a third attacker and pinning the pawn.  Black may continue 11...Na6 and now white has 12. Nc4 taking advantage of the pin with the mindset of getting his knight to e3, so Black often plays Qd7, but White just plays Na5

Going back to positon after 7. Nc3, we just illustrated that 7...d5 is not a logical move for black, so instead he plays 7...Ne4 directly occupying the e4 square making it impossible for white to play e4 and he wants to use his f pawn to strengthen his hold over the e4 square and he won't block the diagonal of his bishop.  After the following:

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4
    8. Nxe4 Bxe4 9. Ne1 Bxg2 10. Nxg2 d5

Black is now willing to play d5 because there is not bishop on b7 anymore and he can now gain share of the center and the position is about equal, so after 7...Ne4, white often plays 8. Qc2, 8...f5 looks like a natural response, but white plays 9. Ne5 and would black would quickly find himself in trouble after:

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4
    8. Qc2 f5 9. Ne5 d6 10. Nxe4 fxe4 11. Bxe4

In the above diagram, black does not have time to capture the knight because of the bishop and queen staring down the diagonal, so instead of 8...f5, black should play 8...Nxc3 9. Qxc3 f5.  White still has in mind one other factor to gain an advantage.  In addition to still play pawn to e4, he also counts on the fact that blacks e6 pawn will become weak if black plays d6 eventually, so for example:

    [FEN ""]
    1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Ne4
    8. Qc2 Nxc3 9. Qxc3 f5 10. b3 Bf6 11. Bb2 d6 12. Rad1 Qe7 13. Ne1 Bxg2 14. Nxg2 Nd7
   15. Qc2.

White is looking for small small initiative based upon the weakness of the e6 pawn, so in the end the fight for e4 is the major theme that holds the entire Queen's Indian together.


Did Bobby Fischer actually write "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess"? Did Bobby Fischer actually write his bestseller primer “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” (1966, 978-0553130539), or was it written by a ghost writer?

I often ask myself this question because it seems very unlikely (to me, at least) that Bobby could keep interest in writing a book in which half of the book is about one or two-move mates, in other words, very simple tactics, and the other half doesn't go much deeper than that.

Basically, no.

It was co-authored by Stuart Margulies and Don Mosenfelder, and while Fischer may have contributed a little, it is generally accepted that he just lent his name to the project.

Soltis, Andrew (2003). Bobby Fischer Rediscovered. B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 10. ISBN 0-7134-8846-8.


What are the fastest horizontal checkmates for both castlings? Horizontal: wherein the rook attacks down a rank.

I wish to know the fastest possible castling checkmates, for both queenside and kingside, that are a horizontal one

See my question about vertical castling here.

I know this thread is old, but here is my improvement to kingside castling-8.0 moves. Black even has to do one useless waiting move (Ng4).
[FEN ""]
1. e3 e5 2. Ke2 c5 3. Kd3 Bd6 4. Ke4 Nh6 5. Kd5 Ng4 6. Kxd6 Qf6+ 7. Kc7 Qb6+ 8. Kxc8 O-O#

Queenside castling can be proven to be impossible in 8.0.


Viewing the board from the other side I have seen a few players going to the opponent's side of the board and then observing the position from that view. They usually do it when it is the opponent's move.

Does it really help in understanding threats or traps better?

I have practiced this technique since I was 10 years old. My very first chess coach emphasized the importance of analyzing the chess position from different angles - it doesn't necessarily help me understand threats or traps, but rather assists me in understanding the game from my opponent's perspective. My opponent will be considering the position and potential plans, and it's usually easier to realize a valid plan for the other side when viewing the board from that side.

Furthermore, this behavior does tap into the psychological aspect of chess. If your opponent is unaware of this tactic, he or she may be uncomfortable that you are standing behind them as they are unused to such actions. This can play to your advantage as you can break their train of thought. Of course, you shouldn't try to distract them - it's simply an unusual act that may warrant a second glance.


What is the longest known sequence of forced moves leading to a checkmate for one side? By forced move, it is meant that the player has only one legal move.

[fen "7k/q5Q1/p4PPK/6PP/8/5P2/8/8 b - - 0 1"]

1... Qxg7+ 2. fxg7+ Kg8 3. f4 a5 4. f5 a4 5. f6 a3 6. f7#

Above is an example with 10 half-moves. Each half-move is the only legal one and the end is a checkmate.

If you don't mind a bushel of promoted Queens, you can get 14 half-moves . . .

[Title "14 forced half-moves to checkmate"]
[Fen "3b3k/qqqqq3/rr4NK/7R/5N1Q/7Q/B6Q/7R b - - 0 0"]

1... Rxg6+ 2. Nxg6+ Rxg6+ 3. Kxg6+ Qh7+ 4. Rxh7+ Qxh7+ 5. Qxh7+ Qxh7+ 6. Qxh7+ Qxh7+ 7. Qxh7+ Qxh7+ 8. Rxh7#


Can this exchange-down endgame be explained succinctly? I am interested in the following exchange-down endgame (assume White to move):

[fen "6k1/5ppp/8/8/1r6/5KP1/5P1P/5B2 w - - 0 1"]

In particular, I am wondering whether this is objectively drawn (my hunch) or whether Black has a winning advantage. But really I'm after more than just the assessment of the position.

  My real interest is in knowing whether a drawing method for White or a winning method for Black can be explained in a relatively simple way. (If it can, I'm hoping for a demonstration of that fact as an answer.)

I'll say a little more about what I'm after. (First, what I'm not after: a synopsis of your engine's analysis. I have engines too. And the fact that, e.g. Stockfish gives this position -3.00 or so just doesn't signify all that much.) Consider the endgame where Black has no men left, while White has a rook pawn and the wrong-colored bishop. The drawing method there (assuming the black king has access to the queening square) is so simple that it can be quickly explained to a novice, and she'd be able to hold against any world champion.

The endgame I'm asking about here is more complex, of course, and any reasonably complete explanation of how to handle it will be correspondingly more complex as well. But I'm still hopeful that a fairly concise explanation of how to handle it (either how to win for Black or how to draw for White) can be given; and like the rook-pawn-and-wrong-bishop ending, I'm hoping for the sort of explanation that a relatively weak player could use as a reliable recipe for correct play.

No doubt, I'm setting a high bar for an answer here, but I think a good answer along the lines I'm asking for would be very valuable. And even if this particular position ultimately can't be explained well in this way, in more general terms, I think a large body of solid questions about common sorts of positions like this one, and especially answers offering clear, short verbal explanations of these positions, would be well suited to this site, and could also make it a useful reference, offering a sort of free, collective middlegame and endgame manual.

This endgame is completely winning for black with best play.  While there are some cases where the weaker side can build a fortress, those only occur with 1 or 2 pawns per side, not with 3 undoubled pawns.

For example, here is the most common fortress (with 2 pawns each):

[FEN "6k1/1R6/4K1p1/7p/8/2b3P1/7P/8 w - - 0 1"]

White cannot break down black's defense.  If the white king tries to come to g5, black prevents this with ...Bf6! when the white king appears on f4.

Dvoretsky's endgame manual explains succinctly:

  With three pawns on each side a fortress, as a rule, cannot be build.  Salvation is possible only in exceptional cases: when the pawn structure of the stronger side has flaws.

As an extreme case, look at the most "advantageous case for the weaker side, with the pawns in contact (the variation is from an actual game while the main line is black's best try):

[FEN "6k1/3R4/6p1/5p1p/5P1P/3K2P1/1b6/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kc4 Kf8 2. Kd5 Kg8 3. Ke6 Bc3 4. Rd3 $1 Bb2 5. g4 $3 $18 fxg4 (5... hxg4 6. h5 Kg7 7. hxg6 Kxg6 8. Rd5 Bc1 9. Rxf5 Bxf4 10. Rxf4 Kg5 11. Ke5 g3 12. Ke4 g2 13. Rf8 Kh4 14. Rg8) 6. f5 gxf5 7. Kxf5 Kf7 8. Kg5 Be5 9. Kxh5 g3 10. Rd2 Kf6 11. Kg4 Kg6 12. Re2 Bb8 13. h5+ Kh6 14. Re6+ Kh7 15. Rg6 Bc7 16. Kf5 Bb8 17. Rb6 $1

Now that we've established that the stronger side can win, even with the pawns in contact, let's look at the case in the question:

Black's winning plan is quite simple, bring the king to e1 to attack the pawn on f2 with both the rook and the king (forcing its advance to f4), and then black will bring the king back to e3, bring all 3 pawns to the 3rd rank, and finally push g6-g5, forcing weaknesses.

Here is a sample line.  It is just a single example, there are many other options for both colors, but hopefully it illustrates the winning plan for the stronger side.

[FEN "6k1/5ppp/8/8/1r6/5KP1/5P1P/5B2 b - - 0 1"]
[PlyCount "41"]

1... Kf8 2. Ke3 Ke7 3. Bd3 g6 4. Kf3 Kd6 5. Ke3 Ke5 6. Kf3 Kd4 7. Be2 Rb3+ 8.
Kg2 Kc3 9. Bf3 Kd2 10. Bc6 (10. Bd5 Rb2 11. Bxf7 Ke1 12. Bg8 Rxf2+ 13. Kg1 h6
14. Bd5 Ke2 15. Be6 Rf6 16. Bc4+ Ke3 17. Bb5 h5 18. Kg2 Rf2+ 19. Kg1 Rc2 20.
Ba4 Rc4 21. Bb3 Rd4 22. h4 Rd2 23. Bf7 Kf3 24. Bxg6 Kg4 25. Kf1 Rd6 26. Be8 Rd8
27. Bb5 Kxg3 28. Ke2 Kxh4) 10... Ke1 11. f4 Rb2+ 12. Kg1 Ke2 13. Kg2 Ke3+ 14.
Kg1 f6 15. h4 h6 16. Bd5 (16. Ba8 g5 17. fxg5 hxg5 18. hxg5 Rb8 19. Bc6 Rb6 20.
Ba8 f5 21. g4 f4) 16... g5 17. fxg5 hxg5 18. Bc6 (18. hxg5 Rb5) 18... gxh4 19.
gxh4 f5 20. h5 Rb6 21. Be8 f4 0-1

To finish this answer, consider the position if white has instead a dark squared bishop.  In this case, black's plan is very similar - attack the f2 pawn.  Black brings the king to e2, the rook to f3, and then advances the pawns (g7-g5, f7-f5-f4 - potentially including h7-h6 if needed) to break through.

Hopefully this gives you all of the plans needed to win as the stronger side.  The defensive chances with fewer than 3 pawns each are also worth examination, but they're probably worth a question on their own.


How do they determine the starting position for Fisher Random / Chess 960? My first question. :)

I am watching the Fischer Random World Championship with Magnus Carlsen and Wesley So, and I am wondering how they determine the starting position?

Is it software that picks, or do they start left to right, and pull pieces out of a bag? Or is it some other way?

Thank you.

8.4.3. Drawing of positions

● Set up of the pieces will be decided by a drawing made by Fischer Random Generator
software with all players present 15 minutes before the start of the first game of
each time control. This setup then will be used for both games. The players will
attend this drawing, and will then be given time before the start of play to confer
with a second.

Found in the download here: https://www.frchess.com/regulations

Interestingly, if the classical position is picked then they pick again.


King/Queen chess variation In Canada, there is a variation of chess in which king and queen are swapped from the normal starting position. However, some argue this makes no difference. Canadians are split. So the question is:

  Does swapping king/queen from the onset affect the game?

This does not make any difference.  Exchanging the positions of king and queen on both sides just corresponds to mirroring the whole game horizontally.  Thus they are equivalent.


Is Colle-Zukertort a good way to improve beginner play? I'm still trying to improve my repertoire and building more towards aggressive openings which I find to better fit my playing style.

Colle-Zukertort seems like a popular one and I've seen it recommended a couple times for beginners.

What are your thoughts on this, should I really include this as part of my regular play? Are there some other moves I could add to this to make my formation more robust?

The Colle is definitely not an aggressive opening in the classical sense.  If you like the positions that you get with the Colle, by all means, play it to your heart's content.

The Colle is a very conservative opening because white plays d4 and then really doesn't make any other moves to occupy the center.  Playing for theoretical equality as white might be okay if you just want to get a familiar position, but there are other openings that promise white a greater advantage, which is why top level games rarely, if ever, feature the Colle.

System openings like the Colle don't really teach you how to play chess, they teach you how to play the Colle.  The reason that the Colle is recommended to beginners is that the ideas and plans are simple, and it works fairly well against any kind of play by black.  White does frequently get an attack on black's kingside, which can be decisive if black does not defend accurately.

The biggest downside to the Colle is this: other openings, like e4 e5, will teach you concepts and themes that will apply to all parts of chess.  For instance, how to maneuver your knights and bishops in order to improve the position.  In the Sicilian (as either color), you can learn how to attack and defend - always useful.  The Colle is really limited to learning how to free the dark square bishop and how to stir up an attack on h7.  If black is on top of things, the attack will never come to fruition, and black will get a good game after striking with c5.

So my personal opinion if you want to win lots of games: learn the Colle, study all the possible positions, and memorize the moves.  If you want to improve your chess, which will lead to more wins down the road, then play main line openings and only play the Colle occasionally for a change of pace.

Some common "system" openings:

Colle (d4, e3, c3, Bd3)
Colle-Zukertort (white plays the Colle with b3 and Bb2 instead of c3)
Stonewall Attack (d4, e3, f4, Bd3)
King's Indian Attack (e4, d3, g3, Bg2, Nf3)

Notice that these openings don't try to occupy the center.  By not occupying the center, white avoids confrontation until later in the game.  This means that white can develop in a known fashion before initiating contact and only then follow the prescribed plans.


Chess study methods / memorisation techniques from before the computer-based SRS era Some of the other questions on SE discuss the use of spaced repetition systems such as Anki and Mnemosyne to learn tactics, openings and other aspects of chess (see especially Effectiveness of a spaced repetition system (SRS) for memorizing tactical patterns for long-term skill gain?).
(I am also aware that memorisation should never be done at the cost of understanding (see Understanding vs. Memorization).

My question, however, is about older memorisation techniques that don't rely on current SRS software. So far, I have found only one example of spaced repetition that does not rely on a computer. It comes from Hans Bouwmeester's book Schaken als vak: brug naar het professionele schaak (1976; English: Chess as a profession: bridge towards professional chess). (Bouwmeester coached people like Jan Timman, Gert Ligterink and Paul van der Sterren.)

At the end of a chapter about building up a card index or filing system for opening theory, he briefly describes a method for memorising opening variations (pp. 96-97). Assuming that you can subdivide your opening repertoire into 16 groups, you can review it in the following way (with 1.5 to 2 hours of study per day):

Day  1:     1
Day  2:     2   1
Day  3:     3   2
Day  4:     4   3   1
Day  5:     5   4   2
Day  6:     6   5   3
Day  7:     7   6   4
Day  8:     8   7   5   1
Day  9:     9   8   6   2
Day 10:     10  9   7   3
Day 11:     11  10  8   4
Day 12:     12  11  9   5
Day 13:     13  12  10  6
Day 14:     14  13  11  7
Day 15:     15  14  12  8
Day 16:     16  15  13  9   1
Day 17:     1   16  14  10  2
Day 18:     2   1   15  11  3
Day 19:     3   2   16  12  4
Day 20:     4   3   1   13  5
Day 21:     5   4   2   14  6
Day 22:     6   5   3   15  7
Day 23:     7   6   4   16  8

So, every day, you take a "new" group, you review the group from the day before, the group from 3 days earlier, the group from 1 week earlier and the group that was new 15 days earlier.

Bouwmeester implies that there are other methods, but he does not mention any. Is anybody aware of other methods (possibly from other chess books)? Have Dvoretsky, Jusupov or Aagaard written anything about this in their books?

I went through a number of chess books where advice on memorisation techniques might be expected, but I did not find anything that resembles Bouwmeester's proposed technique. Below is what I found; the books are listed in chronological order, except for Soltis.
Maizelis (1960)
Ilya Maizelis: The Soviet Chess Primer (English translation, 2014; original Russian edition, 1960)

Opening variations should not be taken on board by "cramming", and
learnt by heart. The mechanical assimilation of a series of moves in
some line or other is perhaps not difficult, but to say the least it
is useless. (Page 373)
You should play through opening variations on a chessboard, looking
carefully into the rationale of the manoeuvres involved. You must not
simply accept on trust everything written in the handbooks; you need
to form an independent assessment of the positions that arise. You are
therefore definitely not advised to play through opening after
opening, particularly at a fast pace. (Page 376)

Suetin (1974)
A. Suetin: Hoe men de opening speelt (1974; "How to Play the Opening"; originally in Russian).
In the book's last chapter, which discusses the study of openings, Suetin points out that the study of openings requires a good memory, but one should not blindly memorise as many variations as possible.
Players should find games that illustrate the variations that they have chosen to learn. Some players are better at remembering visual features such as positions, while others are better at remembering move sequences. "It is not feasible to provide a recipe that works for everyone." Players should note down their games and analyse them; they can then consult books to check for better continuations.
Euwe (1977)
Max Euwe: Praktische schaaklessen 3: Openingsrepertoire (1977).
Euwe warns against blindly following what is printed in books, but offers no advice on how to memorise openings.
Mednis (1982)
Edmar Mednis: How to Play Good Opening Moves. (1982) Revised by Burt Hochberg (2002).
Mednis points out that it is much more important to understand how to play good opening moves than to have memorised many complicated variations. He cites the match between Capablanca and Kostic as an example. Kostic was noted for his memorisation of openings (and games generally), while Capablanca admitted that he was no expert in opening theory. Nevertheless, Capablanca swept the first five games, after which Kostic resigned the match.
Awerbach, Kotow & Judowitsch (1983)
J. Awerbach, A. Kotow, M. Judowitsch: Schachbuch für Meister von Morgen: Ein Lehr- und Trainingswert - nicht nur für den Nachwuchs (1983; originally in Russian).
The chapter on openings was written by Judowitsch. The last part of the chapter discusses how to learn openings. It contains the usual advice about understanding, healthy opening principles and the analysis of master games, but nothing about memorisation techniques.
Kostjew (1987)
Alexander Kostjew: Schach lehren leicht gemacht (1987; originally in Russian).
Like several other authors, Kostjew points out that is is important to understand the idea(s) behind the main variations in one's repertoire. These can be learnt by studying a few games that use these variations (chapter I, section 18).
Samarian (2007)
Sergiu Samarian: Das systematische Schachtraining. Trainigsmethode, Strategien und Kombinationen (9th ed., 2007). This is the German chess federation's official instruction manual.
The book's last chapter discusses how to choose an opening repertoire and how to collect and analyse opening variations. It does not describe a memorisation technique. However, the book's introduction recommends players to memorise and understand one or two exemplary games for each of the themes discussed in the book.
Lars Bo Hansen (2009)
Lars Bo Hansen: Improve Your Chess by Learning from the Champions (2009)
Lars Bo Hansen says it is important to have a broad opening repertoire in order to adapt to your opponent, but does not give advice on how to study openings.
Stewart (2013)
William Stewart: Chess Psychology: The Will to Win (2013).
Chapter 5, "How to Study Chess", discusses how to organise a regimen for chess study. Stewart recommends a schedule with 30% tactics, 25% positional play, 20% endgames, 15% openings and 10% psychology. He also advises not to learn openings via memorisation.

Memorization of certain positions is important for any kind of study,
but really understanding the core concepts of what is happening on the
board is a lot more important than automatically knowing what response
to make to your opponent's move.

In spite of admitting that memorisation is important, Stewart does not say anything about efficient memorisation techniques.
Soltis (2010)
Andrew Soltis: Studying Chess Made Easy (2010).
At last a book that is honest about the importance of memorisation.
Chapter 4 discusses "the right was to study an opening".
Soltis writes, "Every player memorizes. Grandmasters do it more than anyone else," and that "all good opening play is part memory and part understanding".
To start learning a new opening, "a good first step is to look briefly at a large number of games that were played in that line". You should not look exclusively at recent grandmaster games, since the most instructive games are often several decades old.
An alternative approach is to find a book about the opening, especially one with good verbal descriptions. Soltis has much more to say about studying openings, but gives no advice on memorisation techniques.
Update 1: Dan Heisman
In a tweet on 11 August 2016, chess instructor Dan Heisman wrote, "[I]n all my chess reading I have never read about a player using a memorization technique & most analysis doesn't require it".
Update 2: Art of Memory Wiki and Forum
Memorisation in chess was discussed in a few threads on the Art of Memory Forum:

Memorizing Chess Openings and Classic Games,
Memorizing Chess: Methods and Material,
My system for random chess pieces.

However, the page Memorizing Chess Games on the Art of Memory wiki is still a stub.
(The thread memory techniques on Chess.com from 2011 discusses an alternative to memorising opening lines, i.e. playing lots of games in the chose opening, starting with games that are won or lost in 20 moves or less.)
Update 3: Mnemonics and Blindfold Chess
Staffan A. Svensson: Mnemonics and Blindfold Chess (2003, PDF): discusses several aspects of mnemonics and mnemonic systems that are relevant to blindfold chess.


Looking for resources on a sideline of the Caro Kann, 1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Qe2 [fen ""]
1. e4 c6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Qe2 d4 4. Nd1

I find this variation very interesting and would like to know whether it has a name, is in some books, or maybe just annotated games. It is played mostly by Russian players: Aleksei Pridorozhni, Vadim Zvjaginsev, Semen Dvoirys are listed with the most games and very convincing scores.

I have several Caro-Kann books and none mention this line.
In general, http://www.kenilworthchessclub.org/, and https://www.chessgames.com/ are good opening resources.
When you're analyzing rarely played lines it's best to just use a database and an engine. That's all I really use anymore anyway. Occasionally, I'll look at book if I don't understand a particular move but mostly it's database and engine.
White is getting crushed in this line. After 4. Nd1, e5, black is at least equal. I don't know why you'd want to play it.  Something like the 2 knights or the KIA would lead to similar positions but are better openings.


Chess tactics training I am looking for a tactic training software for Windows/Linux/Symbian. I think that I know all tactics by now, and I want to train myself in using them. I do not want tactical software that separate their lessons, such as Chessimo. I want them to have an Elo system of sorts that gives harder puzzles for an higher Elo, and easier puzzles for lower Elo.

The only examples that I can think of are Tactic Trainer for Android and the chess.com Tactics. I am quite sure that there is a similar thing for Windows. Also please not online, I'm looking for software. Price is not a issue, at least 'til $50.

Thank you people in advance.

I thought this is the best for Windows: http://www.amazon.com/CT-ART-Chess-Tactics-Training-Software/dp/1886846677


Pawn giving checkmate My computer checkmated me with a pawn move.

I could have taken that pawn en passant but I wasn't given a chance to do that.

Was that a fault of my computer, or is there a rule stating that a pawn giving checkmate cannot be taken en passant?

I would love to see the position; please add it to your question somehow (we can always edit it to look nice). However, there is no such rule. Either your computer doesn't implement captures en passant (improbable these days) or the capture was not valid for some other reason.


What happened with the Fide online areana? About a year ago I stumbled on arena.myfide.net which looked promising , and unique in the ability to get an actual Fide rating. But in that year no progress has been made with the site, and mobile support continues to say "coming soon". Is this site dead? Or are they just really taking their time with it?

It is active and the mobile/tablet option is still coming.

Fide Rated tourneys are daily for various time controls.


What's the correlation between FIDE rating and online rating? I'm wondering if there's any way to get an approximation of my FIDE rating by using one of my online ratings, say ICC or chess.com rating? If not, is there, at least, a correlation between how well you rank on those sites and your eventual FIDE rank?

I asked this on ICC once and was directed to the following link:

http://www.chessclub.com/help/ratings

IMHO, I don't think there is a fail-safe way to approximate a FIDE rating based on online ratings.


What is the average number of legal moves per turn? For example in the first turn there are 20 possible legal moves (16 pawn moves and 4 knights moves). This number increases in the middlegame and then decreases in the Endgame.

Are there some calculations on the average? Google search seem to be focused only on "average number of moves per game". Would appreciate if somebody have some links to some scientific researches or also blog posts.

Whilst acknowledging the comment by @SmallChess that this is pointless, it is also relatively straightforward to do. I analysed 2,539,871 games from a ChessBase mega database counting the number of moves for the next player to move before each move was played. I did not include the number of moves available after the final move of the game had been played. The total number of moves played was 194,389,820 (76.5 per game) and the total number of available moves was 6,039,013,721 giving an average of about 31.1 per move.

Here is an analysis of the average number of moves available for each colour at each move point for the first 100 moves of each. Move 0 is prior to the first move of each colour. It is interesting to observe that, on average, black has fewer options than white. I am not sure why this would be-hopefully, it isn't an error in the analysis (!) but I don't think it is.


Four player chess (team): is there some opening theory written somewhere? I am an active player on four player team chess on chess.com (my Elo is currently 2095). I am planning to write something about theory of opening of this chess variant. Question is, do you know if something like this already exists ? I find nothing on the internet. Moreover, I am also a programmer and I have this project to code a CPU for this kind of chess, do you know if somebody has already coded one ? I think it will be very difficult to write one (essentially for the CPU to evaluate the position) so that's why I am looking for pre-existing code.

I doubt there is any existing theory for four player chess, because it is not widely played or analyzed.  I'm not sure if there even exists any serious investigation of the overall strategy or tactics of this variant, as it is mostly a novelty game played casually.  It's pointless to analyze openings when even the basic strategies of a game are largely unknown.

I also suspect that the game itself is not really well suited to opening analysis in general, due to the increased size of the board and number of pieces.  This also makes writing an engine significantly more difficult.


How to package PGN in Lichess analysis page format I am trying to bundle together a couple of games on my own website. I would love to have an interface like Lichess's analysis page:

You can turn on the Stockfish engine, try out different moves and then save it.

Since everything is written in Javascript and HTML, I tried downloading the complete HTML of Lichess's analysis page. Opening the saved page again shows missing board background, Stockfish not working, buttons not showing up. I just can't get it to work. I know Lichess uses chessground.js for their layout engine but that is even more obscure with hardly any examples that show how to even display a full pgn. Does anyone know where I can get a Lichess-analysis-page quality package to display some PGNs while allowing for move exploration and Stockfish integration?

My guess is that just saving the HTML, Javascript, etc. didn't work because the Lichess site also has a server component. If you want to go down that road (which seems like a lot of work!), Lichess is open source; see https://github.com/ornicar/lila .

But maybe you could let lichess.org do the hard work and embed the Lichess view of the games in your website. That is supported: see "Embed a chess analysis in your site" and "Embed a chess game in your site" at https://lichess.org/developers . Unfortunately, I don't think it supports Stockfish and analysis within the embedded widget itself, but it does have a link to go to the full version on lichess.org.


6 man syzygy tablebase and ramdisk I have downloaded a copy of the 6 man Syzygy tablebase and configured it on my Fritz 15 GUI.

Due to obvious memory constraints, the full 6 man Syzygy tablebase cannot be loaded into memory (ie. ramdisk). Will I gain any benefit moving some of the 6 piece tablebase files onto a ramdisk, and if so, which piece combinations should I gain the most benefit from (ie. in terms of endgame positions). Has anyone done analysis in this area?

Currently I host my 6 piece Syzygy tablebase on my Synology NAS via iSCSI.

I have been doing this a lot recently. My iOS Syzygy 6-men apps require at least 2GB (possibly more) to run, which is not so easy for iPhones and iPads.

You gain the most benefit if you follow https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/endspiel_turbo_4. This is also how I distribute.
Stockfish only memory map (mmap) your tablebase file when it is needed. So you might choose your files depend on what position you want.
I can't comment on iSCSI, NAS etc.


About 12...Bg5 and move orders in the 9.Nd5 Sveshnikov After the moves

[FEN ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3 O-O 12.Nc2

12...Bg5 is considered the main move, to preserve the Bishop pair and to activate Black's dark-squared Bishop.

But White could easily take the same Bishop with the Knight at moves 11 and 12. Why is Black allowed to preserve and activate the Bishop? What are the refutations, at least as long as plans and ideas are concerned, of 11.Nxf6 and 12.Nxf6? I don't see ...d5 as an immediate threat from Black after Knight takes f6, so White could take the Bishop and perhaps follow-up with c3-Nc2-Ne3.

Black would be thrilled if White exchanged his perfectly-placed knight on d5 for Black's bad bishop on f6. 12...Bg5 brings it to a diagonal where it's actually doing something and also makes it possible to eventually play ...f5, undermining the pawn supporting White's knight.

White doesn't play Nxf6 earlier because he'd be exchanging a well-placed piece for a badly-placed one. Note that if Black plays alternative moves on move 12 like 12...Bb7 or 12...Rb8, White still doesn't play 13.Nxf6.


Best move arrow in Scid vs PC Is there a way to display the best move found by the engine on the main board? Lichess has arrows showing the best move (and even for the second, third, etc best lines). Is this possible in Scid vs PC?

According to the Scid vs PC help use menu options:
Options / Moves / Show Variation Arrows


An Interesting Idea: Pinned Pieces Stalemate I had an idea for a type of stalemate: One side is stalemated with 8 pins in a legal position with as many pieces as possible, with all of the stalemating side’s units being “necessary.”
”Necessary” is defined as either pinning a piece, blocking a piece, or covering a king’s flight square. The king must be involved of course.
The best I came up with was 22 units. What is the optimal amount?
[Title "me, chess.stackexchange.com 4/5/2019"]
[FEN "b2r2q1/1R1BkR2/8/qN1K1Nq1/8/1P1N1P2/q2r2q1/2q1q1b1 w - - 0 1"]

As a bonus optional question, what is the maximum number of units in a legal position with 4 “natural” pins, which means no promoted pinning pieces?

[FEN "b3r3/1R1p1p1q/1p1P1P1b/1Pk1BR2/1rN1K1Nq/p7/P1P1B1P1/1qn1q1nq w - - 0 1"]

Here is an (ugly) suggestion wth 29 units.

White is stalemated with 8 pins; removing any Black unit would break the stalemate. Black has promoted all of their four missing pawns (all into queens).

The three captures (white queen and 2 white pawns) ensure that this position is reachable. The three missing White pieces ensure that the position is legal and that Black could have promoted all four of their missing pawns.

The Black g-pawn captured the White h-pawn to produce doubled pawns that both promoted. The Black c-pawn captured the White queen to bypass the White pawn structure and promote. Finally, the White e-pawn was captured and then the Black e-pawn marched down and promoted.

This is optimal because 4 pawns must be promoted to create 8 pins, with requires a minimum of 3 units, thus leaving 29 left for the final position.