Ideas and tactics behind the 4.h4 (or 5.h4) attack vs. the Gruenfeld? What are the main ideas and tactical themes behind the early h2-h4 attack vs. the Gruenfeld? I mean, the 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.h4 (or 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.h4, which seems to me a fairly related line) variations?

First, I think that a lot of it is simply to get away from the heavier theory of other lines. Stockfish does not think highly of this move, and it does not make sense that such a move would be best from a purely theoretical standpoint. From a practical standpoint, that is another ball of wax since some of the positions get very messy. After all, who does not get a little queasy when the opponent starts throwing the h-pawn at you?

White's idea is pretty straight forward: It is obviously to prepare a direct attack against the black king, and there are actually lines that black voluntarily castles into to it. I do not believe that theory has come up with a definitive evaluation just yet. Can black play a line that will render h4 semi-useless, or not? I am skeptical that this is good for any advantage, or worse.

Despite the aggressive intentions, the lines below show that black has a lot of counter-punching available in the position.

Here is a couple of lines with my comments on the early 4.h4.

 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. h4 c5 {This has to be best just striking back in the center will full force. This seems to render h4 pointless for now since there is clearly not going to be any king of direct attack with the center so open.} (4... dxc4 {This would be the most principled move, meeting a flank attack with action in the center, but it is not well-prepared, and white gets too much center.} 5. e4 c5 6. d5) (4... c6 {This is a line, but it seems passive, and seems to fall right into white's plans as far as I am concerned.}) 5. dxc5 d4 {Leading to a very complex game.} 6. Nb5 e5 $1 7. b4 Nc6 8. Bg5 Nxb4 9. Bxf6 Qxf6 10. Nc7+ Kd8 11. Nxa8 Bf5 12. Rc1 Bxc5 {And black is probably better.}

Here are some lines and comments on 5.h4.

 [FEN ""]

  1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. h4 {Unlike the last line, c5 does not work so well here so white seems justified in throwing in Nf3 also before 5.h4.} dxc4 $1 (5... c5 $2 6. dxc5 {And because there is no d4, black will struggle to regain the pawn.}) 6. e4 {And black has several ideas here.} c5 $1 {Striking back at the center is the main line.} (6... O-O {In this line, black says, "I am ahead in development, so I do not see how your attack will work.} 7. h5 Nxh5 8. Bxc4 Bg4 9. Be3 e5 (9... Nc6 $5) 10. dxe5 Nc6 {Was Morozevich-Popov Moscow blitz 2013.}) 7. d5 {And there are three moves from here, 0-0, Qa5, and b5!? The last two are very complex.} b5 $5 {For example.} 8. Nxb5 $2 Qa5+ 9. Nc3 Nxe4 10. Bd2 (10. Qa4+ $4 Qxa4 11. Nxa4 Bd7 $19) 10... Nxc3 11. Qc1 Nd7 $17 (11... Nxa2 $5)


Applying Techniques in Tutorials To preface, I've played chess a while but am just beginning to take it seriously in regards to the studying past games and different techniques. Bear with me as my question is a bit conceptual...

The big question I have is how to use these techniques correctly in a real world situation. Whenever you watch or read about certain types of games to play, the person teaches in a way that you just 'assume' the other person is going to make a certain move, then you make this move, etc etc. Obviously this is not realistic so I'm wondering if that means that the best players just absorb all of these different situations and adapt accordingly?

This seems improbable to me because of the near infinite possible ways a game can be played. Do the greats generally play the same way with slightly nuanced differences? How can one 'assume' what the other player is doing?

Knowing a little history, I believe it was game 3 of the Spassky/Fisher matches where Fisher played way outside of the box...did this throw Spassky off because he was so used to seeing certain moves?

I know I have a couple questions here but in general I'm just trying to find the best way to use tutorials and past matches in the real world.

Thanks!

It depends on what exactly the tutorial is trying to teach you.

If it is an opening tutorial, say about the Italian game, then obviously after 1.e4 black has any number of responses and you'll have to find a tutorial for each and every one of them.

If the tutorial teaches you about certain strategic situations, then only the sensible responses will be examined, and what is sensible is something you'll learn by being exposed to many different positions and moves. See: How do players "see" several moves ahead?

If the tutorial touches upon a tactical position, for example a mating attack, then it makes a lot of sense for you to try to find the right way to continue if the opponent had made a different move. It'll probably have some easy refutation and you'll learn a lot by trying to find it by yourself.


Why do Super GMs still have to write down their moves at tournaments? I thought that the boards can register the moves electronically. What is the point of writing them down?

I can think of several reasons:

The players will want to know how many moves have been played in the game (as you often get extra time after moves 40 and 60), how many moves have been played before the last pawn move or capture etc. Currently the players may not consult any other material than the score sheets during a game, but even if the rule was changed, the score sheet is probably the easiest way to access this information.
The electronic boards can be unreliable sometimes. Also, although this probably never happens in Super GM level, problems may occur with illegal moves etc.
There is no pressure to change the rules, or the trouble of changing the rules weighs more than the potential gain. Some players like the old-fashioned way of writing the moves down. Comparing with reason 2, somebody should decide when the electronic boards are good enough to be trusted, and drawing the line is not an easy job.


Why did GM Godena resign in this position? Being an Italian, I am following my team at the Batumi Olympiad, and I was disappointed in seeing that GM Godena had just lost to a mere Candidate Master rated 500 ELO lower (Italy - Nepal). Then I realized that he resigned in a much better position Why?

This is the final position:

[Title "Godena vs. Lama, Batumi - 2018"]
[FEN "r3r3/1q2pp1k/7p/1b1PN1p1/4Pn2/4Q2P/3N1PP1/1R2R1K1 w - - 4 30"]

Here is full the Game:

[Title "Godena vs. Lama, Batumi - 2018"]
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O Bg7 5. c3 Nf6 6. Re1 a6 7. Bxc6 dxc6 8. h3 O-O 9. d4 Qa5 10. Bg5 h6 11. Bh4 Re8 12. Nbd2 cxd4 13. cxd4 Be6 14. Bg3 Rad8 15. Be5 Nh5 16. Bxg7 Kxg7 17. Qc1 Qb5 18. Qc3 Kh7 19. a4 Qb6 20. b4 Qc7 21. b5 axb5 22. axb5 Qc8 23. bxc6 bxc6 24. Rac1 Nf4 25. Qe3 g5 26. Ne5 Qb7 27. Nxc6 Ra8 28. d5 Bd7 29. Ne5 Bb5 30. Rb1

Transmissions can be inaccurate in real-time. I once saw 1.e4 a6 in a Follow Chess game, but it was actually 1. e4 c5.

In the real game, GM Godena lost on time.


Tournament Chess in the French Language As a continuation of my previous question (Rated Tournaments in France - For a Poor French Speaker), I have taken part in my first tournament in France.
While I can get by in the French language, I am unsure of what some common chess phrases for tournament play may be. A direct English to French translation is likely incorrect.
Could anyone enlighten me with either some phrases or a link to a resource (unable to find so far) for the below questions?

offering a draw / claiming a draw via repetition
calling for an adjudicator
claiming an illegal move has been made

plus anything else that springs to mind.
The last thing I want is to offend anyone in a tournament by coming across rude or ignorant, and adhering to the etiquette of tournament play.

Native French speaker and regular tournament-goer (pre-Covid) here. The comments under the other answer are correct.
Some background tournament etiquette (probably not France-specific but necessary for what follows):

Calling the arbiter: stop the clock, raise your hand and say "arbitre" (once, but loud enough to be heard). Do not leave your place.
(pre-Covid, this may have changed) You shake hands with your opponent before and after the game.

Now for the French sentences:

Offering a draw: see Evargalo's comment, "je propose (la) nulle" is IMO best; just "nulle ?" sounds quite rough to me but it is not offensive either. Refusing such as offer: "non" (no); accepting: "oui" (yes); or any other non-verbal variant (for instance, extending the hand over the board after such an offer = let's shake on it = yes).
Claiming a draw by repetition: "nulle" (as an affirmation, not a question). Should the opponent disagree (I have never seen that happen), call the arbiter: "la même position a été répétée trois fois" (the same position has been repeated three times). "Je réclame la nulle par répétition" (I claim a draw by repetition) is correct, but formal.
Illegal move: if you feel nice, you can point out that the move is illegal and allow the opponent to retract it ("ce coup est illégal", this move is illegal, or something more precise, for instance "on ne peut pas laisser le roi en échec", you cannot leave the king in check). The officially-correct thing to do is to call the arbiter who will apply whatever the rules say (if memory serves, in longer time controls, the opponent gets extra time for the first two offenses).
Resigning: "j'abandonne" (I resign). Common non-verbal alternatives: tipping the king over (which some people consider mildly rude, but IMO it is not if you do it calmly and with a smile), or extending the hand over the chessboard (to shake it, implying the game is over).
Reminding someone of the touch-move rule: "pièce touchée, pièce à jouer" (a touched piece must be played). Less useful: "pièce lâchée, pièce jouée" (a dropped piece has been played = you cannot change the square you put it on). (Only for intentional contact - if the opponent reaches for their glass across the board and accidentally touches a piece, it does not apply.)
Adjusting pieces: "j'adoube" (must be said before touching a piece)
Pairings: "appareillement(s)"
Leaderboard: "classement"

Game notation is algebraic, with the following abbreviations: R=roi (king), D=dame (queen, literally "lady"), T=tour (rook, lit. "tower"), F=fou (bishop, lit. "fool"), C=cavalier (knight, lit. "rider"). For instance Alekhine's defense is written 1.e4 Cf6 instead of 1.e4 Nf6.


Winning percentage in chess 960 How does the winning percentage (white win/draw/black win) in chess 960 (Fischer random) compare to that of regular chess? Are there more white wins, fewer draws,...?

The CCRL 40/4 FRC engine competition that has run through almost 200,000 games running night and day come up with these stats:

Chess960 FRC based off 200,000 or so games:
White wins: 80'914 (41.6%)
Black wins: 70'840 (36.5%)
Draws: 42'546 (21.9%)
White score: 52.6%
http://www.computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/404FRC/rating_list_all.html

Standard chess based off 1.4 million games:
White wins: 547'582 (39.2%)
Black wins: 447'252 (32.0%)
Draws: 403'047 (28.8%)
White score: 53.6%

As you can see, there are significantly fewer draws among the engines and slightly more black wins. These days, the top engines are playing the Chess960 opening fairly well so the stats aren't completely useless. As for top quality human games, there are less than 2000 on the records which is way too small a sample.

A rudimentary case study was carried out to find out if there were any really unfair start positions in Chess960, but none were found. Each of the 960 starts offers players something reasonable. Here is where it was done:
http://chess960jungle.blogspot.com.au/search/label/SP%20analysis

I can't post more links as references because the site won't let me. The problem with Chess960 right now is that most of it is being played online at blitz time controls which is useless for statistics.


How Does The Sicilian Defense Work? Having just discovered this move (I'm new to all the terms and strategies, being just a beginner hobbyist), I was wondering how the move works.

Don't get me wrong, I understand what it is (in terms of the movement), but I don't understand what it accomplishes (i.e. how it counters white's move).

I hope this made sense, and thanks in advance for the responses!

1.e4 e5 is played to stop white from playing yet another pawn to the center with 2.d4. Sicilian Defense (1...c5) also accomplishes this with the c pawn. This way if you end up trading on d4 you can still have both of your central pawns unlike your opponent and have an advantage in the center.

Symmetric positions like 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 usually don't give much of a winning chance to black and tend to be drawish. Sicilian on the other hand creates imbalance in the first move and shows black is here for the win! Imbalance creating openings (Sicilian, Nimzo Indian) become popular for black, otherwise it's hard to get the advantage. White tends to get the initiative early on but the pawn structure suggests black is better if he can survive the early middlegame.

I realize this is a basic explanation and misses lots of exceptions but.. it is just move 1, don't expect too much from me!


Failing to understand a pin from a tactics book I've began going through, over the board, 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations - 21st century edition. This book is a great supplement to my last question on studying tactics, and I feel like I'm learning a lot from it.

One of the problems I'm having with this particular book is right out of the gate the tactics for pins are very difficult to see in a lot of cases for me.  Here is an example, problem 14:

[fen "r4rk1/p2nqppp/Qpp5/3p4/3Pn3/2N1PN2/PP3PPP/2R2RK1 w Qq - 0 1"]

To me one move was clear -

Nxd5

This move clears the way for the rook to enter and pin the knight to the queen. It's almost forced to take with the pawn to prevent the queen capture, the queen is on a pretty good square all things considered. Initially I had evaluated:

Qb7

But disregarded it as a first move because even though the knight is pinned to the queen

... Rfb8

Mitigates the attack immediately and forces the queen back - or so I thought. By having the rook perform the pin I'd be in better shape to mitigate that attack when I do 2. Qb7.

After:

... Rfb8
Nxd5 Rxf7
Nxe7+

Which seemed too easy to be right for this tactic and leaves the game at even money, which from what it seems is never the goal of a pin.

So from what I've gathered here I saw the pin at least. The problem I'm suffering from at the moment is how the solution plays out - the solutions don't really give great justification and there's a lot of moves here to consider it "solved":

Qb7! Rfc8
Nxd5! Qd6
Rxc6!!

From this I'm curious

Why 1. ...Rfc8 and not Rfb8, attacking the queen?
Why does black resign after Rxc6!!?
How do I study from this tactic book effectively? I'm getting a ton of them wrong even though I'm seeing the tactic, I'm unable to make the same moves in the tactic for black to make everything "play out right". I'm not sure when to consider a solution "complete".

I'm sorry if this is trivial, I'm working on fixing my over the board play by doing tactics and this book is incredibly difficult. Difficulty is great because its challenging but I'm only on problem 14!

To me one move was clear -

  Nxd5

But after 1...cxd5 2.Rc7, although the knight is pinned for a move, Black can easily unpin it by moving the queen to d6, d8, e6, or e8.  In fact, the knight is not even fully pinned - Black could move it to c5 and force a queen trade.  You've sacrificed the knight for a pawn, and get no lasting pin.

  Why 1. ...Rfc8 and not Rfb8, attacking the queen?

Well, after 2.Qxc6 Black has lost a pawn.  And after that move the d5 pawn is threatened twice and not defended, so Black must play 2...Nxc3 if he wants to have a shot at saving it. But now he's traded off a well-placed knight, and after 3.Rxc3, d5 is isolated and still needs a defender, and White will gain solid control of the c-file and will be up a pawn.

Rfc8 is shown here, not necessarily because it's Black's best move, but because in order to figure out how to proceed against it (and that Qb7 is a good move in the first place), you need to see the pin that Nxd5 exploits.  (And if this is based off an actual game, it might be the move actually played in the game.)

  Why does black resign after Rxc6!!?

Because he's down two pawns, and White will control the only open file.  There's a threat of Ne7+ which limits Black's options in the coming moves.


What are the best scoring openings in Chess960? I don't play Chess960, or Fischer Chess as it is also known. I've seen a lecture or two about it, but I was never interested.

Last week I was a bit bored so I decided to participate in a tournament on chess.com. By mistake I joined a Chess960 tournament, but didn't want to resign. It's an online game so I wanted to have some fun.

I'm unrated in Chesss960 because I never play it. I played against players rated 1400+ and they beat me. I tried to apply the normal chess principles but it did ‘t work.

Here is one Chess960 position that I’ve mulled over.

[FEN "rnnkbqrb/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNNKBQRB w - - 0 1"]

For example, I've come to the conclusion that the best opening move, if you're white, is “g3” or “g4,” so the bishop and the queen can move,  along with the rook later.

I think the knights are not as important and there's no need to develop them so quickly because the bishops are too strong. You're never gonna be able to control the center of board, especially if the opponent decides to play with the queen after 1... g3.

The knight on b1 is useless and the rook on a1 is in constant danger, and I don't know how to save it. I can't waste time developing the knights in order to bring the rook to a better place. By then the opponent will control the board.

Castling on the king side is a mistake. That's if you have time to castle. This game is very aggressive and maybe the best way is to keep attacking.

All that is what I think about the game. Maybe I’m wrong since I don't like it and I’m not used to it. I don't know any openings. I try to analyze each position, and the next thing know, I'm checkmated. I try to develop into a familiar position, but the bishops and the queen are not letting me take a breath!

The openings I read about are easy on paper but when you play the game it's very different, or maybe my opponents are too aggressive.

Can someone could tell me some of the best practices and openings are in Chess960 for a player who plays regular chess? I don't need to be a pro at it, I just want to play for fun!

I have found the trickiest part about playing 960 is the opening. So many possibilities! But, since the major pieces are random for every game it is unlikely you'll come across the same setup frequently enough to recognize some opening. So I say ditch trying to create one and stick with tried and true chess opening principles: Control the center, try not to move the same piece twice, limit king exposure.

After playing more games you'll come to find the endgame is familiar which shouldn't be too surprising - the board is still 8x8 after all.


Speed of minimax with alpha beta pruning in chess engines Can a minimax function with just alpha beta pruning really evaluate 1.8 billion chess positions (3 ply = 356) in just a second?

My chess engine, which uses minimax with only alpha beta pruning, takes 30 seconds to search 2 ply deep, evaluate the leaves, and determine the best move.

There're some problems with your question:

Alpha-beta pruning doesn't make you search faster, it makes you search further. For illustration (these numbers are not accurate) if your computer is searching at 1 million nodes (here a "node" is a position) per second, without alpha-beta pruning you might only make it 5 ply deep. With it, you might reach 10 ply.
Obviously, how fast you search is going to depend on hardware. With sufficiently powerful hardware you can search 1.8 billion nodes per second. For example right now, Fishtesting is running with this hardware: 650 machines 5048 cores 1.21M nps (6127.86M total nps) 8825 games/minute. That's 6.1 billion nodes per second.
However note that Fishtesting is running with 5048 cores. A typical desktop computer might have 4 cores, so this is fantastically powerful hardware. If you're getting 1.8 billion nodes per second, and you have reasonably normal hardware, your eval function is probably very simple compared to the top engines.


Calculating the precise number of combinations of possible moves from a given position I was surprised Bobby Fischer couldn't find a mate in 3 within 30 minutes in this problem by Pal Benko. This made me wonder-how many actual moves are possible with so few pieces left in only 3 moves?
[FEN "8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1"]

It turns out there's a lot, which I base on an estimation assuming (very crudely) 10 possible moves per piece per move, which would result in (4*10) * (1*10) * (4*10) * (1*10) * (4*10) * (1*10) = 64,000,000. But of course this is a very very rough estimation.
How can we calculate the precise number of move combinations possible in 3 moves, whist avoiding manual calculation via estimation or decision trees, and preferably using some free and open source software/engine/equation?

Your estimate is a bit high. In particular you overestimate the number of king moves. At most a king has 8 moves (not including castling which does not apply here), however here, both the black and the white king have a lot less legal moves than your estimated 10. The white king because it is on the edge of the board and the black king because it is not allowed to run into check. A more realistic number for the possible king moves would be 4. The number of legal moves for all four white pieces here is somewhere between 30 and 40. With these estimates you should have around 1 million variations which is confirmed by the data below.
I wrote a simple (should be done with recursion), not-elegant loop in python-chess to count all the legal variations until the 3rd white move and ended up with 347 863 variations. If I go one ply further (i.e. like in your example) until the 3rd black move I get: 1 403 476 variations.
The program loops through all variations and adds the number of legal moves for the 5th ply (3rd move by white). Example program below is until the 3rd white move. Simply add a loop if you want to go until the 3rd black move.
import chess

board = chess.Board("8/8/8/8/4k3/8/8/2BQKB2 w - - 0 1")

counter = 0

for move1w in board.legal_moves:
    board.push(move1w)
    for move1b in board.legal_moves:
        board.push(move1b)
        for move2w in board.legal_moves:
            board.push(move2w)
            for move2b in board.legal_moves:
                board.push(move2b)
                counter += board.legal_moves.count()
                board.pop()
            board.pop()
        board.pop()
    board.pop()

print('The number of variations is:')
print(counter)


Conceptually, what makes the Sicilian opening sensible for black? We all know the Sicilian as shown below, is one of the most famous and commonly employed openings in chess. But compared to the other replies, which tend to be more about fixing the center (such as e5, or the French e6-d5, Caro-kann c6-d5), the Sicilian tends not only to not fix the center, at least more often than not,
but it also starts from a pawn non-central pawn move which doesn't liberate any of our bishops or knights. On top of that, it is not a move on our kingside, which means relative
to white's e4 we will be slower in developing our kingside pieces. As opposed to starting with e5 and still stopping d4.

I started pondering this question after I had read the discussions on this post, which was about the point behind Ruy-Lopez and why it's good for white.
So considering those discussions and the above points, my question is:

At a conceptual and strategic level, what makes the Sicilian a sensible opening for black?

Diagram:

 [title "The Sicilian opening"]
 [fen "rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 2"]

Note: Discussions are primarily from black's perspective.

It may be relevant to remind that one way or the other, most often, the Sicilian continues with white preparing the d4 pawn push, which leads to a trade of the c5-d4 pawns.
Common starting lines are shown in the following diagram:

 [title "common starting lines"]
 [fen ""]

 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 (2...d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6) (2...e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4) (2...g6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Bg7 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Be3 Nf6) 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4

At a very basic and fundamental level, the Sicilian 1.e4 c5 achieves the following:

Claims immediate control over the center, otherwise white would happily take the full sweet center with e4-d4.
Leads to a trade of a non-central pawn (c7) for a white's central pawn (d2)!
Provides a certain degree of flexibility in how to commit the central e-d pawns. And also breaks the symmetry right from the start, which tends to make the continuation of the game more dynamic.

For the purposes of your question, I will further expand on the first two points:

Expanding on point 1:

Claiming their share of control over the center: white's e4 actives the queen and bishop, but more importantly it provides light square control in the center as it takes away d5-f5 from black. That does not mean d5 is unplayable, in fact that opening exists (see Scandinavian Defense) but it simply means black can't establish a pawn on d5 and maintain it, as white will immediately take. Similarly, black's c5 in return, provides dark square control as it controls b4 and more importantly d4. On the plus side, it stops white from landing a pawn on d4 without having had to commit their central pawns (black's e & d pawns remain flexible still). But on the other hand, c5 is not a move that provides activity to any minor piece, in fact it only activates the queen, therefore, the setback of it is that it doesn't directly contribute to black's minor piece development, as you also hinted at in your question.

And on point 2: not all pawns are equal

At a basic level of pawn consideration: the Sicilian almost always leads white to trade a central pawn for a non-central pawn, and that in itself is a gain for black!

To see why consider the following thought process: generally, we say pawns have a value of 1, as a means of quantifying their worth relative to the other pieces, which are dynamically faster and move reversibly. But amongst the pawns themselves, do they all have the same value still?

Well let's consider e.g. white's queenside pawns: the a2 pawn which is at the boundary of the board, only provides control over one square, namely b3. In contrast, the b2 pawn being slightly away from the boundary, provides control over 2 squares, a3 and c3. And even when you push these pawns, the relative control they provide remains similar. However, things become more interesting towards the more central pawns: the c2 pawn, also provides control over 2 squares, but when pushed for example to c4, it also provides us with control over a central square, namely d5, and a non-central and less important square, b5.

And finally, the pawn on d2, when pushed to d4, it provides control over a central (e5) square and a near-central (c5) square, meaning it secures more central space than a c pawn is capable of doing2. So, with all that in mind, doesn't it stand to reason that the central pawns are in fact worth more than the side pawns? and indeed it does. Intuitively, if you imagine the b2 pawn being worth 1, then the a2 pawn is something like 0.9, and the d and e pawns are probably close to 1.1-1.2. But the absolute values you assign to them do not matter much, it's more important to remember conceptually their differences.
To conclude this point, in the Sicilian, black is in fact exchanging the pawn on c7 for the pawn on d2, so clearly, black's getting away with a better deal in that regard1.

I guess the common denominator of all these discussions and different points boils down to the control over the center. This cannot be emphasized enough: Having the center, your pieces move and reroute more efficiently across the board, they also see a larger portion of the board when centralised. So much like the pawn comparison above, it's as if their relative worth increases when they are placed more centrally. Compare a bishop on e5 which sees 13 other squares distributed over two diagonals (so sees both the king and queen side), to a bishop on h8 which sees 7 squares only, and all of them along the same diagonal.

Two Caveats:

1: All things considered, it begs to ask: doesn't all this mean that black should even be better by playing the Sicilian? What does white have to gain by allowing all this?
Short answer: tempo and initiative.
Longer answer: To understand these things you need to always remember than chess is never that linear, and that there are many more angles to consider before we can fully assess a position. In this case, white has the better activity and develops more efficiently. These stem from the fact that in the Sicilian white's first 2 pawn moves in the game are (often) e4 (by definition) and d4 (after being prepared by Nf3). Thus, both our bishops are activated, and nothing prohibits our knights from being developed centrally. Sure, white trades a better d2 pawn for a c pawn, but in return the d file becomes semi-open for white, along which white will exert pressure (and so should do black along its own semi-open file, namely the c file). Being up in development means we castle faster, and have more pieces in play, so white will still be for the most part dictating the flow of the game.

2 One might ask whether the relative worth of the e-f-g-h pawns follows symmetrically from the discussion of the queenside pawns.  Partly yes, but major difference is that these are kingside pawns, and as such, their movement leaves behind weaknesses around the king. So if you will, the king is what breaks the symmetry between the left and right side of the board. For example, when the c2 pawn moves, it leaves light square weaknesses behind it but these are squares that are of lesser concern for black as often the king will not lie behind them. In contrast, when the f pawn moves, it weakens the dark squares around the king and exposes it to diagonal attacks (and leaves holes for pieces to land on near your king.)


Guidelines for chess tournament prize distribution Does FIDE or any national organization offer any guidelines on prize distribution for chess tournaments?

Are there specific patterns on how top-heavy the payout should be, or the balance between place and class prizes which have wide adoption?

The US Chess Federation Official Rules of Chess 5th Edition has a section (section 33, if you have a copy) that has some guidelines about prizes.  These are specifically described as recommendations and not rules.

A ratio of 10 to 1 between the top prize and the entry fee for serious tournaments is suggested (and perhaps even more if you want to attract top players.)

It suggests that class prizes be at least the amount of the entry fee, and also suggests that the place prizes all be higher than the class prizes.


The moves leading to the winning combination We've all worked tactics problems.  I can do those pretty well.  Yet I have never been able to pull off one of these amazing combinations in my games.  Not once.

These tactical situations don't arise from nowhere - they are created.

I had a bit of an epiphany recently.  I had viewed positional play as an alternative to Tal-like tactical play. You did one or the other, Karpov or Tal.  Now I don't think this is true.  Fischer said, "Tactics arise from a superior position."  Now I think that positional play leads up to the combination by leaving the opponent no good squares.  When he moves on a bad square, a tactic likely appears.

I would like you all to give me advice on how I can learn to find the moves before the combination.  I seriously think this is an enormous gap in my knowledge.  This is why my games are boring.  I shuffle my pieces without a clear plan, hoping for some combination to appear.  How can it, when I do not actively seek to make it happen?  When I win, it's because I defend well and the attacker destroys himself on me.  To make matters worse, when I realized I defend pretty well, I started concentrating on defenses that were solid.  A little is good, more is better, right??  This has probably only enabled me to strengthen my bad habits.

Anyway, please, save me from me.

Your situation sounds a lot like my own - in the past, I tended to use a very "defensive" style of play, preferring closed openings, subtle position play, etc.  If the opponent made a mistake and I could win a pawn with some clever tactics, it'd be enough to win the game, most of the time.

This approach is probably perfectly fine if you are aiming for a respectable rating (as we've often heard, simply not blundering will see you through to the 1800s), but for some reason, I began to lose interest in chess (probably from too many draws and eeked out wins).

After a break of several years, I started playing "strictly for fun", with friends in person, and online.  This has given me the opportunity to experiment more with play style, and I found out that I actually prefer an aggressive style.  It was surprising for me just how often this style of play would lead to the opportunity for exciting tactics.  My experience on making the transition:

Play unrated games: It's difficult to experiment (wildly) with your play style while trying to play your strongest game.  You should still review your games and try to learn from them, but you shouldn't worry if you lose.

Stop playing drawish openings: Some openings are simply more suitable for aggressive play than others.  Prefer open games versus closed ones.  As white, you have a tempo advantage, and you should try to make the most of it.  As black, you can try to unbalance the game, as opposed to simply letting white run the show (e.g. Sicilian Defense).  I've always found the Danish Gambit to be a wonderful opening.  Get someone to play this opening with from the "Accepted" position, to appreciate what an aggressive style can lead to - you're two full pawns down, but have a huge advantage in development (aside - unfortunately, the Schlechter variation is strong for black, and almost everyone knows it nowadays).

Don't use your aggressive style on computers:  Perhaps it's just me, but computers nowadays are way too good at tactics.  They see things coming a mile away, and simply won't walk into your clever tactics, unless they are 6+ moves ahead.  It's not fun to keep getting floored by the computer.  Humans make mistakes more often, but more importantly, do not see every possible combination to at least 4 moves (unlike computers).

Piece position is important:  This goes without saying, but having the pieces there when you need them makes all the difference.  Attacks are often won or lost on a single tempo difference, so don't get tricked into giving up tempo, and try to get some from your opponent!

Build pressure: If in doubt, build pressure, complicate the situation.  Look for a weak spot, and start aiming pieces at it.  Again, you'd be surprised at how often a tense situation can lead to a brilliant combo / quick win.

These are all the basic, non-tactics related tips I have.  To reiterate, I think you should just play many games in a more aggressive style.  You will probably lose a lot at first, but you will also get a lot more practice in attacking, both strategically and tactically.  Eventually the results will come, and if you decide to switch back to a more defensive style, the lessons learned will stay with you.

Edit: To expand on the comment about playing against computers, I find that their simulation of "weaker" human players is quite badly done.  One well known program, for example, seems to change the player's heuristics in favour of different pieces ("likes knights", etc), and throws in a few major blunders at lower levels, while playing 99% accurately most of the time, thinking many moves ahead, and having an excellent opening repertoire.  I don't really find this to be a realistic representation of a real player.  Setting the AI up yourself, to have a shorter think time than you (and to not think on your clock time) may work slightly better, although typically leads to weak endgame play.  In the end, it's more fun to just play against people, and with the internet, there's plenty of opportunity for that.


Elo rating of the best player from the 19th century, if he played today? Take the best player from the 19th century, at his prime, and imagine he started playing tournaments today. He can't learn new stuff.
What Elo would he achieve?

Ken Regan's research (e.g., Understanding Distributions of Chess Performances - PDF link) suggests that the best players of the 19th century were playing at a level in the 2400-2500 range (see the table on page 9 of that paper).


Scid vs PC, how to get ECO data ? Installed SCID vs PC.
Can this give a count or frequency distribution of the ECO codes of the games ?
So far unable to do this.
Under the Tools tab there is a selection "Opening Report".
This gives a lot of data, most of limited value, such as oldest games, most frequent players, shortest wins. Finally there is 5. Theory Table.
This is a table of moves in 8 columns and 20 double rows. How to interpret this is obscure and certainly not intuitive.
There is a Help Index.  "Theory table" is absent from Help.

Under Options there is a selection "Load ECO file". Found .eco in data subdirectory of bin. Loaded it. Seems to get me nothing.

You can get a count of how many of a particular ECO code (or a particular range of codes) is in the database.

In the Game List, select Change Filter (magnifying glass icon), then Search by Header (binoculars icon). In the dialog box that pops up, there are two fields for ECO code, allowing you to choose a start and end. For example, enter B00 and B99 if you want to count all the B codes. Then click the Search button. The Game List will now show the count of games in the database that match the filter.


What "double moves" are sometimes considered legal? As we know, castling is a legal "double move," where two pieces are moved at once.

But in my country, Indonesia, in my childhood, the opening below was an 'assumed legal' double move to counter 1.e4 and similar openings.

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/p1pppp1p/1p1111p1/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR - - - 0 0 "]

As I understand, this opening is an illegal double move. (Someone can help me with the FIDE rule.)

I would like to know, though, are such double moves played in any other place in the world??

Castling is the only legal chess move in which two pieces are moved. You can verify this by searching for "FIDE Laws of Chess" and reading "Article 3: The moves of the pieces" (I do not provide the URL here because unfortunately it frequently changes).


What is the best defense for White against the Traxler Counter Attack? I had posted the question Should Black avoid the Two Knights Defense because of the Fried Liver Attack? After seeing the Traxler Counter Attack from Black, it made me wonder if White should just avoid the Fried Liver Attack because of this.  I have seen some variations on how the game is continued if Black plays the Traxler Counter Attack, but I am not sure what White's best response would be.  In all variations, I have seen the continuation 5. Nxf7 Bxf2

[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+

If the game continues 6. Kxf2:

[FEN ""]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6.Kxf2 Ne4 7.Kg1 Qh4

In the above game, I see Black with a growing attack on White, so I guess by best I mean, how can White avoid getting brutally attacked in the Traxler Counter Attack?

6. Kf1 is the best response.

It looks like this:

[FEN ""]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kf1 Qe7 7. Nxh8 Bb6 8. Bf7+ Kd8 9. Nc3 *


Following the moves from the black’s point of view I am an intermediate level chess enthusiast. I have noticed that one of the main hindrances that slows down my progress is that I have never been able to internalize the algebraic notation and lack a good “board sense”. I know that Algebraic Notation is a pretty simple and straightforward system and I have actually no problem reading the moves and playing them over the board. The problem is that, when I am playing black, I am not able to look at the board and without first reading the grids name the exact square right away.

It is relatively easy to do this when you are playing white and I don't have much trouble doing that, but when it comes to the black side all of a sudden everything is reversed and I have to sit back and think what square is what and that sometimes becomes annoying to the point where it prevents me from concentrating on the moves.

In all chess books diagrams are shown from the point of view of white and because of that I never tried to follow games from the opposite side. When I look at the videos where grandmasters are quickly analyzing their games, I see that they have absolutely no problem following the games and talking about moves from the black’s point of view. So I guess that’s something I should also be able to do, in case I want to improve my chess.

Incidentally, I noticed that I don't have that problem with descriptive notation. I can play black's moves very quickly on the board when I am reading or analyzing moves written using that system of notation. The reason is that descriptive notation is “relative” but algebraic notation is “absolute” and only one name is assigned to the squares no matter which side is talking. Alas, descriptive notation is obsolete and I have to find a way to deal with the standard system.

Has anyone else experienced the same problem, and if yes, how have they been able to solve this? Any tips on visualizing the board and following the moves rapidly from the black side is also appreciated.

I would recommend using chess eye, here's a video about it, it will help you memorize the board, difficult but fun!

EDIT

I don't think this is the answer you're looking for, but I'm answering anyway since there's no other answer and since my initial answer didn't help much, i feel that i must improve my answer even if it won't help you. Here's how i visualize, I don't follow from black perspective nor white. I see them as a list, such as this.

I memorized only the A rank, especially a1 and a8 and worked my way through the board using maths, not memorization, i think maths helps more, if you calculate it, it makes sense to you. For example if you tell me to memorize how to derive an equation, I'll never understand it and I will find it hard to remember, if you tell me the idea behind it and tell me why i am doing it, i will understand and do it fast.

I'm not a fan of memorization and i know that modern chess is all about memorization, criticize me all you want.

I just remember that a1 is black, therefore a4 has to be white, a8 has to be white as well, count them on your fingers.

b1 is directly above a1 so it's the opposite color, b1 is white, b4 has to be black, b8 has to be black.

A pattern is visible here

x1 color is different than x8
x4 = x8
x8 = y1

Not only that a1 and c1 are black, because there's always x black followed by y white, you can say that all the odd rank numbers starts with black ends with white, and vise versa for the even rank numbers

a is an odd rank since it's the first letter and the first rank, a1 is black
b is even b1 is white.

So a1 is black, what about h1? well a8 is white, and h is the 8th ranks, its number 8, got to be white. Want to count from h to a? lets do it,

h1 is white, and so is is g8, g1 is black and h8 is black of course, i want you to imagine it, not just to read it, forget about the letters, just imagine that you're counting from 1 to 8, each number has a color, and when you get to 8, you start again, 1 has the same color as 8.

one last rank is the d rank, it's number 4, a1 is black, a4 is white, d is rank number 4, which is white! that's what i do, a list, white, black doesn't matter, might help you with blindfolded chess or if you're playing against an engine, no GUI.


Complexity of critical positions I understand that chess is pretty complex regarding the game tree complexity (Shannon number) or number of possible positions. If we were trying to solve chess (whuch I know is impossible for practical reasons), however we might not be interested in all positions. For instance I remember reading that for the 7 men tablebase they excluded positions where one side had a bare king.

Is there an estimate for the complexity of chess if clearly won positions are excluded?

The problem every time you have such enormous number of configurations, is that any "simple-minded" description of configurations to discard will remove an insignificant portion of the total.

In the case at hand, there are trillions upon trillions of positions with a bare king (for instance), but they represent a small fraction of a percent of all positions.

You still have to deal with the bulk of configurations that make chess hard, so the difficulty of the original problem is still there.


Are Bronstein delay and simple (US) delay really equivalent? I have a question regarding delay in time controls. I've seen this thread and it doesn't address my doubt.

Let's consider an example from the beginning of a game, to show how simple and Bronstein delay seem different to me. Regular/base time is 10 seconds and delay is 5 seconds.
Now Player X's clock starts. They will take 8 seconds to move. Using simple delay, the delay time runs out plus 3 seconds of regular time, and the clock reads 7 seconds left at the end of the move. Player Y then moves and it's back to X. He takes another 8 seconds to move. The delay time runs out plus 3 seconds of regular time, and the clock reads 4 seconds left at the end of the move. Game goes on.
What if Bronstein delay were added after the move? They start with 10 seconds. After 8 seconds, this drops to 2 seconds but after the first move, Player X gets the 'refunded time' of the delay and thus their clock reads 7 seconds left at the end of the move. (Same as with simple delay). But when it's next his turn, he will again take another 8 seconds to move. If clocks could go negative, his time would drop to -1 seconds, then be 'refunded' by the delay (5) to read 4 seconds. But clocks and time in chess, as far as I've seen, don't work that way. Instead, he has only 7 seconds to make his move; after this time, the clock hits 0. And if he wanted to take 8 seconds to move, then here he would flag and the game would end.

Wikipedia claims that "Bronstein delay and Simple delay are mathematically equivalent." Now, by Wikipedia's definition, Bronstein delay is added after the move (and consists of the lower value between the time allotted for the delay and the time the player took to move). Simple delay consists of running down the delay timer before the regular clock timer starts. These are not mathematically equivalent, as simple delay adds time before the move. You would flag with Bronstein delay added after, on your final turn, where you would have had an extra few seconds with simple delay.
That's not the only issue. The more pressing problem is that I cannot think of a way Bronstein delay could be added before the move (thereby making them equivalent): it seems you cannot know, before the move, whether the player will use more or less time than the delay, and if less, then how much exactly they will use; hence it is intrinsic to the concept of Bronstein delay to add the time after.
How is this reconciled? Or is it to be admitted that there are really two, slightly different, delay systems (i.e. Bronstein and simple US delay are not, and cannot, be identical) and there cannot be otherwise?

Another Example:
Player X has 3 seconds (regular time) left. The delay is 5 seconds. Player Y's turn ends and now X is going to have to play.
With simple delay, they will have 5 seconds delay time, plus 3 more seconds--that is, 8 seconds to make a move before they flag.
With Bronstein delay, they will have 3 seconds before they flag. I assume that when the clock hits 0, the player flags (it cannot go negative). Now, were they to take 4 seconds to play, they would not get the benefit of the delay at all.

They are equivalent.
With Bronstein, the time is added after the move - it has to be, because before the move you don't know whether or not you'll take the full amount of the delay time. However, perhaps what you're missing is that the first move has the delay time added. So if you start a game with 10 seconds on the clock and a 5 second delay, the Bronstein clock would actually read 15 seconds at the start (and start counting down right away) while the normal delay timer would read 10 seconds (and not start counting until 5 seconds had passed.)


Is there a way to get MANY and FAST (but not deep) position evaluations in javascript? I am working on a statistical chess project that needs to evaluate many (about 20-30) different positions per turn. They do not need to be deep but fast.

Is there a possibility to use engines (stockfish is preferred because I am familiar with its evaluation system) that receives a fen as an input and gives me a fast evaluation of the position (probably with a given deepness, e.g 10) as output.

It should run in a web browser. So I assume the official Stockfish is not suitable, because it is written in C++.

I found this and this, but there is no hint how to use them, so I would appreciate for some hints if I should use them. Does somebody has experience with this implementations? Could you advise me something else?

Stockfish JS is a Javascript port of the Stockfish engine. It should be useful for your project. You might want to learn the UCI protocol.

Hint:

Use Stockfish JS. Consider:

Send MultiPV for a position. You will get an evaluation for the moves.

OR

For n legal moves, play them one by one. Ask Stockfish for an evaluation on each of those possibilities.

The second approach is slower but more accurate. If you just want shallow search, try the first one.

If you could multithread, do it. If you could run positions independently, do it.


I need help Identifying this chess set I need help identifying this chess set, I got it from my father and he says it is from Poland and on the broken board it says it is made of crystal bohemia.

The closest one that I have found is called celestial strains at:
http://www.chess-museum.com/stone--glass-sets.html

There are some Polish sets on the site but they are not the same.


What do DTM, DTZ, DTC, DTR, DTZ50, and DTZR mean? I need help clarifying the abbreviations and acronyms used in endgame tablebases. Just what do DTM, DTZ, DTC, DTR, DTZ50, DTZR mean?

In various endgame tablebases, the terms mean as follows:

Depth to Mate.   For each position that is represented, 'DTM' indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to 'Mate' if won/lost - assuming that the winner is minimizing and the loser is maximizing DTM.

DTC
Depth to Conversion 'Conversion' is the changing of the force on the board, by capture and/or Pawn-conversion. For each position that is represented, 'DTC' indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to the goal of 'Won Conversion' if won/lost - assuming that the winner is minimizing and the loser is maximizing DTC.

DTZ
Depth to Zeroing (of the ply count) The ply-count is zeroed if and only if a Pawn is pushed or a capture is made. For each position that is represented, 'DTZ' indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to the goal of 'Win and ply-count zeroed' if won/lost - assuming that the winner is minimizing and the loser is maximizing DTZ.

DTZ50
Depth to Zeroing (of the ply count) in the context of the 50-Move Rule The DTC, DTM and DTZ metrics do not consider the current FIDE 50-move rule whereby a game in which no irreversible moves have been played for 100 plies can be claimed as a draw by the player 'on move'.

DTR
Depth by the (k-move) Rule 'The Rule' referred to here is a notional set of k-move rules. For each position that is represented, 'DTR' indicates the theoretical value and, for won/lost positions, the least k for which DTZk is not draw - assuming that the winner is minimising and the loser is maximising DTR.

DTZR
Depth to Zeroing move, give that DTR is being minimaxed If DTR = draw, then DTZR = draw. Otherwise, Otherwise DTRZR indicates the theoretical value, and the number of winner's moves to the zeroing of the ply count, given that the two sides are minimaxing first DTR and then DTZR.

DTZR would be used in conjunction with DTR to progress a deep win in the context of a k-move rule because DTR can remain unchanged over a sequence of moves.


Up to which rating is my strategy in the opening is applicable? I don't want to waste time on opening preparation. By this, I mean that I don't want to have to understand/memorize the moves or the typical plans in the middlegame. I just want to develop my pieces, castle the king, and connect the rooks. From there, I wish to wing it, try not to blunder anything, and look out for tactics. Is this enough to reach 2000ELO?

This is an opinion based question as there is no way to know.
For Bobby Fischer it might have been, but I met Bobby and know that he memorized all the openings.
Would it work for you?
My tournament experience says no.
These days there are too many people memorizing everything along with all the better training for tactics than when I learned.
Your more likely ceiling would be 1500, with possibly 1700 IF you were really good.
After that, positional play would start to be a factor and by 2000  most players would beat  you with traps, better/deeper tactics, or positional play.
And since they do know the openings they would come out of most of them with an edge in position as well as the initiative.  So just routine play would give them the edge to win if they were at 2000 already.  And if they do not beat you in the middle game with strategy then they will win in the endgame because they are far better than lower rated players at endgames.
If you want to make even uscf 2000 let alone ELO 2000 you will have to specialize in ONE opening for white and one for black and become so familiar with them that you do not need to memorize them as the moves will be obvious because you do understand them.  And you will have to be totally fluent with ALL tactical motifs and recognize them in different game settings.


Steps to checkmate in my endgame position There is a black bishop at a4, black queen at b4, a black king at e5 and a white king at c1. There is a checkmate in 3 moves. I want to know what the moves are.

[FEN "8/8/8/4k3/bq6/8/8/2K5 b - - 0 1"]

Black mates in three with

[FEN "8/8/8/4k3/bq6/8/8/2K5 b - - 0 1"]

1... Qb7 2. Kd2 Qe4 3. Kc1 (3. Kc3 Qd4#) Qc2#

The paradoxical Qb7 is the only solution, you can check this with an endgame database.


Is Magnus Carlsen ever going to play against Stockfish in a event? I was wondering if the actual champion is ever going to play against a chess engine like Kasparov and Krammik did?
Or is this kind of event not going to happen anymore due to the strength of the engines being just too high?

I don't think it'll ever happen because:

Who's going to pay? Deep Blue was covered by IBM, Deep Fritz was covered by Chessbase, but Stockfish is a free open-source engine.
It's not fun for Carlsen to play an odd match with Stockfish, but he will likely be beaten convincingly if the match is fair.
Human vs computer in chess is not interesting anymore. The focus has shifted to Go and Poker.

It's not going to happen.


What is the best move for White in this position? [title "White to move"]
[fen "2b2rk1/pr2n1bp/2p1p1p1/2pqPp2/N2p1P1Q/1P1P1N2/P1PB2PP/1R3R1K w - - 1 0"]

In this position, I was considering the best move for white. Re1 seems good but why not Ba5? Or even c4? After Re1, what's the best plan for white?

First, how would you evaluate the position?  This should help you come up with a plan and thus the moves to consider. It seems you are randomly selecting moves, which you would then calculate the consequences.

Black has serious weaknesses you can think to exploit.  How about those c-pawns?  c5 looks very weak.  And White's Knights are probably drooling over all the holes they can hop on.

B-c1-a3xc5 looks like the juiciest plan (someday getting a Knight to d6 is attractive too).  You just have to make sure Black can't get away with something like c5-c4.   Black will have to do something desperate for counter-play.

A dream line would go:  1.Bc1 Re8 2.Ba3 Rb5 3.Nfd2 Bf8 4.Nc4 Rd8 5.Nd6 Ra5 6.Qf6


Is it important to have chess as part of the education in schools? Some countries like Russia have chess as school matter.
I was wondering if it could be as important as the other topics of a normal curriculum, considering that the importance of disciplines is the generation of constructive minds of our children.

The Telegraph ran a story supporting the benefits of learning chess. Here is the summary for the 'for' camp:

  Pupils as young as seven should be given compulsory lessons in chess amid claims it boosts concentration levels, numeracy and reading comprehension, according to a teachers’ leader.

From the limited research I've done, articles like this do not highlight the 'against' camp, so I will construct my own argument for why chess may not be included on the syllabus:

Limited class time. Class time could be spent on existing subjects (reading, writing, arithmetic), or spent on many other worthy 'new' subjects (computing, citizenship, financial awareness etc.). It becomes a trade off between what we want to teach the next generation with the limited time they have in school
Uncertainty of transferable skills. In the quote above it's claimed that chess improves numeracy skills. But surely studying mathematics would be a more direct way to do this?
Level of popularity. In the UK, football/soccer is arguably the national sport. There just wouldn't be many pupils that would want to study chess, nor many teachers of a suitable callibre


What does "U2000: ($600 b/25) $250-150-100." mean? When looking for tournaments I keep finding myself confused by abbreviations used (I just found a reference which has been slightly helpful). This one for example is from a Marshall club tournament in the coming future. I get the Under 2000 part but what about the

"($600 b/25) $250-150-100" ?

Here is the full listing:

  6-SS, G/90 +30. Two sections. U2000: ($600 b/25) $250-150-100. U1700: $100. U1400: ($600 b/25) $250-150-100. U1100: $100. EF: $60, MCC Mbrs $40. Reg:. 6:15-6:45pm. Rds.: 7pm each Wed. Limit two byes; request by rd. 4. www.marshallchessclub.org. 23 W. 10th St., NYC. 212-477-3716.

Based on ("b/") 25 entries in the section, its total prize pool will be $600. That money will be distributed as $250 for first place, $150 for second place, $100 for third place, and $100 for the top-finishing player under 1700 in the under 2000 section.

If there are more than 25 entries, the prize pool will be larger, and the prizes for each place will likely be adjusted proportionally. Likewise, the prize pool will be smaller if there are under 25 entries.


Winning plan for black in this line of French Defense: Advance Variation Main Line I play the French Defense as both white and black. I often play this line with black suggested by Korchnoi if I am not wrong. I have found a way to prevent the sudden b4, via Bd7 (if 8.Rb1 Bd7 9.b4 cxb3 10.Nxb3, I can answer with 10...Ba4, pinning the queen and winning material).

[FEN "r1b1kbnr/pp3ppp/1qn1p3/2ppP3/3P4/2P2N2/PP3PPP/RNBQKB1R w KQkq - 3 6"]

6. a3 c4 7. Nbd2 Na5

The problem is, although I feel comfortable with the limitations white has in development, I do not often find a winning plan as black and I end up finishing by playing for a draw.

What are your thoughts as to what I could do here?

Once stuff has settled down on the queenside, you may eventually castle there and create play on the other sector, with moves such as ...f6 or ...f5 Take a look at a few illustrative games that may help you understand how to put this into practice


Which chess website has the strongest players? The debate on which is the "best" chess website tends to be subjective and thus is inconclusive. On the other hand, the site that has the strongest players should be objectively ascertainable provided metrics are available.

So which is the strongest chess website in terms of:

Number of registered titled players (FM, WFM, IM, WIM, GM, WGM)
Number of active (routinely visit) titled players
Number of super-GMs (> 2800)
Or other verifiable metrics.

ICC and playchess.com are definitely the top two in terms of the number of registered titled players who play actively.

I was able to find metrics on how many titled players are on ICC, seen here; I couldn't find the numbers for playchess, however they are similar.  Many titled players play on both.


Import and export of PGN How do I perform the following related things?

Export/import PGN of games from Droidfish.
Import my games to Chess.com

I found an option to export my games from Chess.com (Share PGN) but I couldn't find any options for the rest of them.

Importing and exporting games to and from Droidfish
Hold down on the board, and a set of options appear:

Click on Share Game or Clipboard to share (export) PGN.
Click on Retrieve Position to import PGN from your device. Alternatively, if you have the game on Clipboard, you can click Clipboard and then choose to paste the game from Clipboard.


Tips to enjoy a tournament During a long chess game, it's difficult to maintain an emotional balance. In some positions we feel comfortable, and in other uncomfortable.

But, do you have some tips to stay emotionally balanced? And more important, any tip to enjoy the game and maintain the competitivity ?

There are quite a few things to do to improve your results as well as enjoy the tournament.

On the physical side stay well rested and well hydrated during your game. Eat plenty but keep it healthy. When it's not your move walk around and look at other boards, resting your tired eyes and getting the blood circulating. Do a light exercise in the morning before your games even start. Lastly if you didn't sleep well maybe have some caffeine ready to go.

As for mentality, don't worry about anything except having interesting, exciting games you can show your chess friends when you get back from the tournament. Win or loss, make sure you play what you think are the best moves, even if they get very complex. Don't look at your opponents rating just briefly glance enough to see your board color and the table you're playing at. Knowing their rating and letting it distract you won't let you make better chess moves over the board. Keep your entire focus on the game you are playing. Once you finish a game, win or loss, don't think about it too much and relax. You just played a physically exhausting game, recupe the best you can and focus on getting your energy back. As long as you tried your best that's all that matters. Results are just check marks for one side or another, what really matters is being brave and showing determination to play the best move you can see, and improving your understanding using those games once the tournament ends.

At least I try to do all these things when I play tournament chess, I've even come first in my section a number of times.


Is h6 or g6 better to defend the h7 square against a combined attack by a queen and bishop? I am setting the question from black's perspective, but it holds the same for white too.

Many times in my personal games a position arises where a Bishop along the b1-h7 diagonal and a Queen on the h-file put pressure on the h7 square, sometimes even threatening a straight checkmate.

Not considering cases of using other pieces to defend h7, both pawn moves g7-g6 and h7-h6 prevent this threat.

My question is out of these two pawn moves, under my conditions, what is the decisive factor in choosing one over other?

For representative purposes I am using a position from round 9 match between
Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Alexei Shirov that happened last day (27th December 2019) at world rapid chess championship, but my question is on general ideas of this threat by queen and bishop.

[fen "r1bqr1k1/pp3ppp/2pb1n2/3n4/3P3Q/P1NB1N2/1P3PPP/R1B2RK1 w - - 0 1"]

First, there is no hard-and-fast rule, but if I were to generalize, probably Pg6 in more cases as it blunts the incredibly dangerous Bd3. Playing h6 in some positions invites Bxh6 in many cases.

In the game you reference, Shirov played h6, but he also knows that Bh6 gh; Qh6 ideas will immediately be met by Bf8-g7, which is a common saving idea. In other words, he was prepared because his previous developing moves were good.

Black's best plan was obvious and it was to trade down, which Shirov did. The position was dangerous, and trading is the most common plan in such positions.

In the given position, black also has a couple of addition pluses that make h6 preferable, and they are that he can trade material on c3, potentially reducing white's attacking chances, and the biggest one is the Re8 controls the file, and allowed for the Bf8-g7 defense previously mentioned. Often these attacks for white require a rook-lift, with Re1-e3-g3(or h3), but it is clear that is impossible here.

Shirov only lost as the result of a blunder later in a winning position.

 [FEN ""]
 [Event "World Rapid 2019"]
 [Site "Moscow RUS"]
 [Date "2019.12.27"]
 [Round "9.11"]
 [White "Duda, Jan-Krzysztof"]
 [Black "Shirov, Alexei"]
 [Result "1-0"]
 [WhiteElo "2758"]
 [BlackElo "2684"]
 [PlyCount "111"]

 1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. Qc2 e5 6. cxd5 Nxd5 7. Bc4 Nb4 8. Qe4 Bd6 9. O-O O-O 10. d4 Re8 11. a3 Nf6 12. Qh4 exd4 13. exd4 Nbd5 14. Bd3 h6 15. Bd2 Nxc3 16. bxc3 Bg4 17. a4 Bxf3 18. gxf3 Nd5 19. Qg4 Qf6 20. Rab1 Bf4 21. c4 Bxd2 22. cxd5 Rad8 23. dxc6 Rxd4 24. Be4 bxc6 25. Rb7 Rxa4 26. Bh7+ Kxh7 27. Qxa4 Qxf3 28. Qc2+ f5 29. Qxd2 Re6 30. Rc1 Rg6+ 31. Kf1 Qh1+ 32. Ke2 Re6+ 33. Kd3 Rd6+ $4 (33... Qf3+ {Wins the queen.}) 34. Kc3 Qf3+ 35. Qe3 Qd5 36. Rg1 Qa5+ 37. Kb3 Qd5+ 38. Kb2 Rd7 39. Rxd7 Qxd7 40. Ra1 c5 41. Qxc5 Qd2+ 42. Kb3 Qd3+ 43. Kb4 Qd2+ 44. Ka4 Qf4+ 45. Ka5 Qd2+ 46. Ka6 Qd3+ 47. Kxa7 Qd7+ 48. Ka6 Qd3+ 49. Ka5 Qd2+ 50. Ka4 Qf4+ 51. Ka3 Qf3+ 52. Qe3 Qa8+ 53. Kb2 Qb8+ 54. Kc2 Qxh2 55. Ra5 Qc7+ 56. Qc5 1-0


Online chess lectures for kids What are sites to learn for kids. Especially, video lectures. The lectures should be simpler to understand.

According to chessyourchild.com, the top 5 sites are:

  chesskid.com
  zoomchess.com
  chesscoachonline.com
  chessclub.com/icckids
  chesscademy.com

There's also a chess.com forum about it: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/safe-chess-sites-for-children

As a child, I used chesskid.com right about when it was established. It was pretty good, but I found nothing worked better than on-the-board learning. It all depends on the psyche of the kid; I recommend that you try these 5 sites and see which fits best.


Reason(s) to play 5. Nf3 in the stonewall dutch opening? I have heard that it is a good idea for white to trade dark-squared bishops because blacks pawns often end up on light squares leaving the dark squares vulnerable.  In the scenario below, it seems 5. Nh3 is white's best move for reasons I will explain below, but are there any good reasons why white would choose 5. Nf3 over 5. Nh3

[FEN ""]
1. d4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. c4 d5 5. Nf3 (5. Nh3) c6

If white does in fact play 5. Nf3 and play continues with 5...c6 6. O-O Bd6, then if white's Knight were on h3 instead of f3, white could easily prepare the move Bf4 without worrying about getting a damaged pawn structure.  With 5. Nf3 c6 6. O-O Bd6, white's best move is b3 aiming to exchange dark squared bishops with Ba3, but black's Qd7 stops the dark squared bishop exchange for sometime.

Given the above, if white isntead decides to play 5. Nh3, white is preparing Bf4 for the exchange of the dark squared bishops and avoids the battery of the Bishop on d6 and the Queen on d7.

Given that 5. Nh3 has known as long as the stonewall formation has been known and masters of the past have played it frequently, so why is 5. Nf3 more popular when it actually seems inferior to 5. Nh3.  Is it because 5. Nf3 just seems like a more natural move or has a more natural feel to it?  Are there any other reasons to play 5. Nf3 over 5. Nh3?

A couple thoughts:

After Bxf4, taking gxf4 is acceptable.  The g-file is open, black's ideas of g5 are prevented, you have a lock on e5, and can fix the pawn structure with f3+e4.
After a g5-g4 push, h4 is often a better square for the knight than f4, to stop h5-h4.
f3 points at e5, a better square than f4.  f4 is vulnerable to an e5 push, and the e6 pawn is rarely weak.


Is there an objective measure of how "complicated" or "tension-filled" a chess position can be? Probably most chess players will have the intuitive notion of what kind of positions are not "tension-filled" and what kind of positions are. Usually these are middlegame positions.

Here's an idea of what kind of positions are "tension-filled": In the position there are many pieces that are either hanging or, many times, a piece of lower material value attacks a piece of higher material value (which may or not be defended). Perhaps it could be defined in such a way as "the total value of hanging pieces plus the total value of defended pieces which are attacked by pieces of inferior material value minus the material value of the pieces of inferior material value attacking the defended pieces", or something like this. This is just a "materialistic" attempt to define the concept, since it doesn't incorporate advantages or disadvantages due to positional factors. Perhaps one could consider Tal vs Hecht, 1962 Varna Olympiad at move 21 as an example of a complicated position.

Nonetheless, is there actually an "objective" or "mathematical" way to quantify this idea which can distinguish a position which is not so complicated from one which most chess players would intuitively agree is "complicated"? Has this been done before?

To me, a position looks "tension-filled" only when there are many threats on the board and (the important part!) - when these threats are mutual. A position that contains many threats but all of them being made by one player - that's rather realization of huge positional advantage.

I don't know very well the quality notation of moves in English chess books, but in Russian ones some moves get the '!?' quality notation, which means "this is a slightly risky move that can give you advantage if your opponent fails to find the right countermove (which is not trivial to find, that's the whole point of the idea), otherwise your position will get worse".


Are Elo ratings adjusted after each match, or after each tournament? I'm aware that the FIDE ratings list is only published once per month.  I'm interested in how often the ratings are recalculated internally to FIDE without being published.

Are ratings adjusted match after match, or after every tournament? Even if the ratings are updated once a month, does FIDE count every match, or a whole tournament?

An example to make my point clear

Consider a three-player, single round robin tournament.

Player                  Elo

Roanin Novel          2798

Rigi Hains                2745

Dan H. Yvasin            2784

Results

Round 1: R. Novel (1) beat Rigi Hains (0)

Round 2: Rigi Hains (0.5) drew with D.H. Yvasin (0.5)

Round 3: D.H. Yvasin (1) drew with R. Novel (1.5)

My question

If FIDE was calculating the players' ratings, would it first update the players' ratings match by match1, or would their rating be adjusted by counting the tournament as a whole?2

1 In this case, rating changes after every match.

2 Here we calculate the expected score of each player at the start of the tournament, and compare it with the final score only. No rating changes occur between matches.

The calculations (all assume K=10)

Method 1 [Match by match] (Final ratings in bold)

After the first match, R. Novel is rated 2802.24 and Rigi is rated 2740.76.
After the second match, Rigi is rated 2741.38 and Dan is rated 2783.38
After the last match, Dan is rated 2783.65 and Novel is rated 2801.97

Method 2 [Whole tournament]

Roanin Novel

Initial expected score = 1.096
Actual score = 1.5
Hence, new rating = 2802.04

Rigi Hains

Initial expected score = 0.868
Actual score = 0.5
Hence, new rating = 2741.32

Dan H. Yvasin

Initial expected score = 1.036
Actual score = 1.0
Hence, new rating = 2783.64

Conclusion

In such a short tournament, there doesn't seem to be a significant difference in the results of the two methods, but maybe there could be one in a longer tournament.
Which of them does FIDE use?

Short answer: Neither

Elo-ratings are not ajusted for calculation after each game, they are not adjusted after each tournament either.

For all games played during one month, each player is supposed to have his last published elo-rating. If I am 2300 on the 1st of November and we play together November the 29th, your rating will be calculated by considering that you have faced a 2300-player. Whether I have gained 50 points in a previous tournament from 5 to 12 of november, or lost 100 points from novermber 16 to 23, will only be relevant for my rating on December 1st, and for my opponents in December and thereafter.

In your example, the second method applies. But there won't be any ajustment after the tournament if one of your three players plays another tournament within the same month.


Do the King's side and Queen's side pieces have different values because of which square color they start on? I wonder if the Bishop and Knight that start out on the same color square as the opponent's King, is worth more than it's twin on the other flank. And if that is of significance when making choices about pawn structure and piece exchange in the early game.

White's King starts out on and castles to dark squares, so Black's King's side dark Bishop can check white, or use the King as a pinboard, or win a tempo when the King moves to avoid that. For the Knights, it takes both sides' King's side Knights 4 moves to give a check, but only 3 moves for the Queen's side Knights, regardless which way is castled.

Is this enough to say that from the onset, the King's side Bishop is (a potential tempo) better than the Queen's side Bishop, and vice versa for the Knights?

Should one transfer one's Queen's side Knight to the King's side, on a 3-move path towards check, and thus possibly win a tempo later on? And also not trade the King's side Knight against the opponent's Queen's side Knight early on?

There is no doubt that the value of a piece depends on where it is on the board, but the difference between b1 and g1 or between c1 and f1 is going to be very small and probably not worth worrying about for human players. (Position-dependent piece values are much more sensitive to the rank and centrality of the square, neither of which change in this case.)

One way to try to measure this would be to ask the all-wise Stockfish. :-) What does it say if you remove one of these pieces? Here's what I got using the Lichess analysis board to default depth (these are the evaluation scores after removing the white piece):

Queen's knight: -3.8
King's knight: -3.6
Queen's bishop: -4.7
King's bishop: -4.8

So if we are to believe Stockfish, the queen's knight is worth 0.2 more, and the King's bishop is worth 0.1 more than their counterparts. Seems like a relatively small difference to me, and it is probably dependent on depth. Still, for whatever it is worth, the small differences at least went in the same direction as your hypothesis!


What are the similarities and differences in pawn Structure from the Scandinavian and the Caro-Kann? It seems both openings have the Capablanca Pawn Structure with c6 and e6

I'm curious about where the similarities stop and what are the optimal pawn breaks.

The pawn structure in the Caro-Kann Classical Variation and the Scandinavian can be the exact same. The optimal pawn breaks are either pushing the c6 pawn to c5 or pushing the e6 pawn to e5. The differences are in the positions of the pieces, which is why far more people play the Caro-Kann than the Scandinavian. In the Scandinavian, black spends many tempi moving their Queen around, giving white time clamp down on these possible pawn breaks.


How to install chess.pgn on python? I don't know how to import chess.pgn on Python.
I searched everywhere, but I didn't find anything. Can anybody here help me?

First you need to install this library:

pip install python-chess

And make sure you're using the right pip, because still in some Linus distros pip and python are python 2.x and for python 3.x you should use pip3 and python3. If you want to check try this:

pip --version

You will see an output like this that will tell you what python you're using, in my case it's 3.8:

  pip 19.2.3 from /usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pip (python 3.8)


Can anyone find any redeeming qualities in "The Vulture"? "The Vulture" is an off-beat line of the Benoni, and while I have seen many off-beat lines over the years, I cannot see any redeeming qualities in this opening if white plays the natural 4.Qc2.

Stefan Bucker wrote a book on it here.

Does anyone see ANYTHING hopeful here for black?

 [FEN ""]

 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 Ne4 4. Qc2 Qa5+ 5. Nd2 Nd6 6. e4 g6 7. b4 $1 Qxb4 (7... cxb4 8. Nb3 Qc7 9. Bb2 Rg8 10. Nf3 (10. Bd3 {Or this attempt to keep the N from f5.} b5 11. c5 Nc4 12. Bxc4 bxc4 13. Qxc4 $16) 10... f6 (10... Bg7 11. Bxg7 Rxg7 12. c5 Kf8 13. Rc1 Ne8 14. Bb5 $18) 11. e5 fxe5 12. Bxe5 Bg7 13. Bxg7 Rxg7 14. c5 Nf5 15. Rc1 $18) 8. Rb1 Qa5 9. Bb2 Rg8 10. Bc3 Qc7 11. Bd3 f6 12. e5 fxe5 13. Ngf3 Bg7 14. Ng5 $18 e4 15. Bxe4 $1 $18

3...Ne4 is kind of pointless. The idea is to play Nd6 controlling e4 and attacking the c4 pawn. The only other options are Nf6 losing a tempo or f5 in a weird Dutch-like position. White is maintaining an advantage after 3...Nd6 4.e4 though.

It avoids theory I guess.


What is the best way to document and archive my past games? I am looking for more sophisticated solutions for documenting, archiving and analysing my past games. Right now I have a folder filled with PGN files. What systems have proved to work well?

I would recommend you to use a game database software, as Scid, Scid vs PC, ChessX, ChessDB, Scid on the Go (Android), etc.

I use Scid for all of that (documenting, archiving and analysing) and it works really well.


Pawn structure in king's indian or grünfeld I'm trying out kings indian against d4 openings but there is one problem... I get mated.

I can't defend after castling under the h7 g6 f7 pawn structure. Somehow it works as an opening with an opening for infiltrating enemy attackers. I.e. the a1-h8 diagonal seems like it is built by traitors on my team.

Now my question to you is, what am I overlooking? How do I defend the g7 square? How do I stop enemies from getting too close to this strange triangle of mine (f6 and h6)?

To be precise: it is this pawn triangle that I can not defend when I have castled under it. Does not matter if it is with white or black pieces, queen side or king side.

EDIT: since I know now what it is called, I am talking about the "house". I am not talking about some specific game or in the opening. It is later in the game, the bishop has probably been sent off for patting nearby pawns. The king is left in the house-of-holes.

Attacking/Defending the empty house

This is going to be a long answer that will require several edits to complete, but I wanted there to be an answer started.

Not moving a pawn in front of the king leads it to be vulnerable to back rank mates. Moving a pawn in front of the king (making luft) creates holes that can be exploited (particularly by knights). Each disturbance has its own peculiarities. CJS Purdy wrote an article that started to outline the weaknesses of the various pawn structures, but he barely scratched the surface of the problem.

In this first example Judit Polgar defends a piece with tactics. Her opponent takes the piece, giving up her fianchettoed bishop, and is promptly punished for the crass materialism. It is important when winning material with the use of the bishop, to check that you are not leaving yourself open. Particularly if your opponent retains his corresponding bishop.  I wrote a blog post that expands on this example here

[Event "Thessaloniki"]
[Site "Thessaloniki"]
[Date "1988.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Judit Polgar"]
[Black "Pavlina Angelova"]
[ECO "B31"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "33"]

[FEN ""]
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6 4.O-O Bg7 5.c3 e5 6.d4 exd4 7.cxd4
Nxd4 8.Nxd4 cxd4 9.e5 Ne7 10.Bg5 O-O 11.Qxd4 Nc6 12.Qh4 Qb6
13.Nc3 Bxe5 14.Rae1 Bxc3 15.bxc3 Qxb5 16.Qh6 Qf5 17.Qxf8+ 1-0

White will mate with Bh6+ and Re8#. This is a variety of back rank mate.

In this second example, a current line from the Catalan Opening, White gives up his fianchettoed bishop for a pawn, but leaving black with the corresponding bishop and better development. All white has is the pawn, but this position is considered a slight edge for white.

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Open Catalan"]
[Black "Theory Line"]
[Result "*"]
[PlyCount "27"]

[FEN ""]

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Ne5 Nc6 8.
Bxc6 bxc6 9. Nxc6 Qe8 10. Nxe7+ Qxe7 11. Qa4 e5 12. dxe5 Qxe5 13. Qxc4 Be6 14.
Qd3 *

White will block the long diagonal with f2-f3 and e2-e4 as needed. He will defend the g2 square with heavy pieces, and eventually gain pressure on blacks c7-pawn. White may need to return the b2-pawn.

h-file attack

This is the way many approach prying open the fianchettoed king. The variation against the Pirc defense is named the 150-attack after the British rating system for about 1700 ELO. It fails miserably against the Gruenfeld, because the center is too open for a wing attack, and has trouble against the KID, because white's c2-c4 move is mostly wasted, and makes the white king less safe on the queenside, but if black plays passively, it can work. This plan is most famous in the Yugoslav dragon, but black has found many resources that have caused white to shift to more flexible plans in the Yugoslav.

The key elements are:

a bishop and queen battery on e3 and d2 respectfully, The bishop will go to h6 and trade off the bishop on g7
pawns on e4 and f3, that protect the battery and support g2-g4
queenside castling to allow both rooks to come to the h-file
the advance of the h-pawn to trade on g6 and open the h-file
one or more rook sacrifices on the h-file to open things up.

Here is a manufactured game that shows the basic plan. Black plays many time wasting moves that modern players of the Dragon would not play.

[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Sicilian Dragon,Yugoslav Attack"]
[Black "Too slow, too late"]
[Result "1-0"]
[PlyCount "47"]

[FEN ""]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Nc6 7. f3 Bg7 8. Qd2
O-O 9. O-O-O Bd7 10. h4 Qa5 11. g4 Rfc8 12. Nb3 Qc7 13. h5 Ne5 14. Be2 b5 15.
hxg6 fxg6 16. Bh6 b4 17. Nd5 Nxd5 18. Bxg7 Kxg7?? 19. Qh6+ Kf6 20. g5+ Kf7 21.
Qxh7+ Kf8 22. Qh8+ Kf7 23. Rh7+ Ke6 24. Nd4# 1-0

To handle this attack, it is of critical importance for black to get an attack rolling quickly on the queenside or the center, and not to panic. 18...Kxg7?? is a huge blunder, while 18...Ne3 saves, as 19.Qxe3?? Qxc2#

Other ideas to keep in mind:

open up the center. This is one way that KID players try to disrupt the Saemisch
sometimes h7-h5 can be played to block the opening of the h-file. This is risky if white has a bishop on the a2-g8 diagonal
trade or divert white's bishop from the c1-h6 diagonal.

Next edit will talk about the f-file attack.


Can I become a GM by playing 100 games per day without studying books, strategy, etc? Some things in life you learn by simply doing, not just doing it, but doing it a lot. Practice makes perfection. I don't believe no-one is born a GM. Even Kasparov had to practice a lot.

So has anyone have experience with just playing many, many games to practice? Did it help you improve or it just cannot work that way?

Let me play devil's advocate here (since everyone seems to take the negative position) and say yes, you absolutely can.

But, and this is a big but (no pun intended) the games you play have to be "good" games, and it will not be enough to simply play them, but rigorous analysis must also be done on each game that is played.

The absolute truth of the matter is that any student, with enough motivation, a cheap computer with a decent processor, some (free) chess software and either a lot of talent or a lot of time, can become an IM or even GM. This is something not many players will admit, because it seems to subvert all the chess-related purchases they might have made.

In the past, it was necessary to hire a tutor, or read books and other chess literature, to keep up-to-date on opening theory and to learn chess. Today, with the advent of powerful chess engines and game databases, much of this is obsolete. Furthermore, I would argue that chess books are not only outdated, but outright inefficient when compared to the alternatives. These are bold claims, so let me try and support them with a plan of action which is bereft of any chess literature and focuses only on games.

The Plan

Don't play 100 short games a day, this is a waste of time. Play 1 long game (90 minutes or more) against a moderately strong computer engine and spend the rest of the time doing analysis
You will lose pretty much every game you play (if the computer is set to its highest level) but you must not get discouraged or change your style of play to beat the computer (i.e don't play closed positions solely for the reason that computers are bad with them). This is where motivation and discipline will determine whether you really benefit from this method.
In every game, focus on a single thing and try to improve it. Initially the biggest problem might be gross blunders, hence you should do a blunder check on every move you play to prevent such blunders from occurring.
You should try to create a thinking algorithm, a step-by-step process or checklist which helps you to make decisions over-the-board and then use this algorithm for every move (until it becomes habitual and automatic). Steps might include things like the blunder-check above, or deciding whether the position is tactical (requires intensive calculation) or positional (requires sound planning and positional understanding). This is the only thing where it might be faster (not necessarily better) to read up on, instead of building it yourself, since efficient thinking systems already exist that were created by very successful players (Capablanca, Nimzovitch, Tal etc.).
Analysis of your games should be done to figure out weaknesses or lapses in understanding. The easiest way to do this is to look at positions where you spent the most amount of time. A computer must be used to keep yourself objective and grounded in the concrete, but is used only to check your analysis, not to replace it. (Most computer engines have the option to analyze your annotations and almost all give a point score for every move, take advantage of these options).
Play in tournaments and OTB games, record them, and analyze them the same as your other games. These games are more valuable, because you can actually win them once in a while and because they are games outside of a controlled environment (i.e not in the comfort of your home).
You will undoubtedly improve the most by focusing on your own games, but for a change of pace you might want to analyze a collection of games by a strong GM or favorite player. You should do this by playing guess-the-move from the winning side, making annotations for moves you guess (correctly or incorrectly). Then check the game with a computer engine (you'd be surprised with how many mistakes you find, both in your own analysis and in the moves of the GM's). You can also use these games to figure out the thinking algorithms of the masters.

If you actually stick to the above recommendations, I really think you'd make significant progress. Much more so than if you spend an equivalent amount of time reading a book. The reason is because passively reading something is very inefficient, compared to actively learning through difficult training games. Why is reading/chess literature still popular? Mostly because it gives a false sense of accomplishment and because its enjoyable. Ask yourself if the last chess book you read gave you a significant boost to your rating or chess understanding. Ask yourself how much you actually remember from the book, whether the concepts or games or annotations, and how much of it has actually influenced your OTB play.

The method above is not merely my own conjecture but is inspired by the training system developed by Botvinnik (there is a portion I left out, concerning physical exercise, but I think that's self-evident), who emphasized long-time-control training games and thorough analysis for chess improvement. The emphasis on thinking algorithims comes from the research done by de Groot.

Ultimately the final verdict, is yes, you can improve in chess through just games. But few have the dedication, discipline and motivation to do so.


Which World Champions other than Viswanathan Anand had a jolly personality? First of all, congratulations to Viswanathan Anand for winning the Candidates 2014 tournament and qualifying for a rematch with Magnus Carlsen later this year!

I saw this interesting gesture made by Anand towards Karjakin after their game in the Candidates 2014 tournament (video here at 5:42:54). Anand just needed a draw to win the tournament and qualify for the World Championship, but Karjakin dragged the game for a whole 90 moves, making Anand patiently work and wait for the result. After Karjakin finally accepted the draw, Anand made a joking gesture as though he was going to attack Karjakin.

It seems to me that chess players can be often thought of as "too serious", but World Champions like Anand have helped change the outlook on that.

Which other World Champions in chess history had a jolly personality like Anand? Or is Anand unique in that regard?

Ah. I somehow missed that during live relay. Thanks for sharing.

Mikhail Tal comes to mind based on his Life and Games. He mentioned about 'forgetting' to stop his clock during tournament games for the sake of his time troubled opponents.

I don't know how many of us mere mortals could consider doing that. He must have been a jolly good fellow.


Difference between 7. Qc2 vs 7. Qa4 in the Catalan This is a position from the main tabia of Catalan Opening:

 [FEN "rnbq1rk1/ppp1bppp/4pn2/8/2pP4/5NP1/PP2PPBP/RNBQ1RK1 w - - 0 7"]
 [StartPly "12"]
 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O dxc4

The main move for white is 7. Qc2 with the intention of grabbing a pawn back on c4; however, the same result can be achieved with 7. Qa4.

Why is 7. Qc2 so much more popular? (~10:1 ratio in BigDatabase from Chessbase, with 10065 vs 1186 as of Dec 21, 2019)

Does Qc2 prevent some lines that Qa4 does not? Isn't the idea behind both of them the same?

Reason for asking: I am playing Catalan with both black and white, and study the theory on the materials from Victor Bologan. In the materials, I have, the 7. Qa4 idea is not mentioned; however, I often face it, and wonder if there is any particular idea (or even concrete line) that I should be aware of.

As you mentioned, 7.Qc2 a6 8.Qxc4 and 7.Qa4 a6 8.Qxc4 lead to the same position.

However, after 7.Qc2 a6, white has the option to play 8.a4, which is recommended by GM Avrukh in Grandmaster Repertoire 1A: The Catalan. According to the Game Database of ChessTempo, 8.a4 is a bit more popular than 8.Qxc4.
Having the choice of 8.a4 and 8.Qxc4 is probably the main reason why 7.Qc2 is played so much more often than 7.Qa4.

On the other hand, 7.Qc2 allows 7....b5, a move that became popular on the highest level only recently. For example, see Ding Liren-Carlsen.
So, if white prefers to play 8.Qxc4 after 7....a6, it makes sense to choose 7.Qa4, which occurred in Caruana-Duda.

After 7.Qa4, there are some sidelines you might consider as black: 7....Qd5 (played in Adly-Aronian (blitz)) and 7....b6.

      [StartPly "12"]

      [FEN ""]
      1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Nf3 Be7 5.Bg2 O-O 6.O-O dxc4 7.Qc2 (7.Qa4 a6 (7...b6)(7...Qd5) 8.Qxc4) a6 (7...b5) 8.a4 (8.Qxc4)


What are the first moves chosen (White), by brute force chess engines? Title says it all. Feel free to add comment, theory, or explanation.

Just to clarify, this is only regarding turn 1 of White, and no proceeding turns after it.

Houdini 1.5 on my old machine (1.8 G 2 cpu) slows down a lot around 20 ply (10 moves).

At 20 ply, it seems to slightly favor a four knights queen pawn game, starting with d4 or Nf3 over the Four Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6)

it switches at 22 ply to the Ruy Lopez Berlin (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Be7).

at ply 23, it switches back to d-pawn four knights, but starting with 1.Nf3


How did I still lose with 1 piece advantage? Throughout the game, I thought I had a positional and piece advantage, but I STILL LOST!

What did I do wrong? (using Ruy Lopez btw)

[FEN ""]

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5 Nf6
4. Nc3 a6
5. Bxc6 dxc6
6. O-O Nxe4
7. Nxe4 Bg4
8. h3 Bh5
9. g4 Bg6
10. Nc3 Qd6
11. Re1 O-O-O
12. Ne5 f6
13. Ng6 hxg6
14. d4 Rxh3
15. Kf1 Rh1
16. Kg2 Qh2
17. Kf3 Qh3
18. Ke2 Re8
19. Kd2 Re8xe1
20. Qxe1 Rxe1
21. Kxe1 Qg4
22. Be3 Bb4

At this point, I surrendered because I'm at a positional disadvantage, my knight is pinned and my rook is still undeveloped.

I know one weakness of using Ruy Lopez is that your left side develops slowly, but damn! Where did I make a mistake? Was I just unlucky?

EDIT 1:
OMG I just realized he baited my king-side pawns to open up for an attack! >:(

I should've read this article earlier: Keeping Your Castled King Safe

Two things leap out at me:

Moderate error: After 8...Bh5, you're a piece up but you're not done developing and your knight on e4 is unprotected. Reasonable moves (I'm sure there are others) include 9.d3, supporting your knight and allowing your bishop to develop; 9.Re1, centralizing your rook and supporting your knight; and 9.Ng3, kicking Black's bishop and moving your knight to a safe square. Instead you played 9.g4, weakening your king's position and forcing the Black bishop to a place where it attacks your knight.
Huge error: You're still doing OK as of 13...hxg6, but your h3-pawn is under attack. (Note that this wouldn't have been an issue if you hadn't played 9.g4.) The simplest defense is 14.Qf3 but 14.Kg2 is possible too. Instead you let Black's rook capture on h3 and now your king is under severe attack.

You could have defended against the ensuing attack better, but I'm not going to bother with that because the way to win games like these is to not even let it get to that point.


What is the name of this variation: 1. e4 b6 2. e5? I had started playing Owen's Defense. My opponent pushed the pawn one step forward.

What variation did he try, securing this pawn he may play well.

r1bqkbnr/p1pppppp/1pn5/4P3/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 1 3

I don't think that this variation has a name. Variations that are infrequently played are less likely to be named. I don't have access to Megabase right now, but I can't even find a game starting with 1. e4 b6 2. e5 in online databases. You're already well away from main lines with 1... b6. 2. e5 seems weird (2. d4 would be my choice) and 2... Nc6 will impede the bishop on b7.


Queen versus rook endgame: to check or not to check? Most tutorials the K+Q versus K+R endgame claim that at some stage, the key is to force the rook away from the king, then it is supposed to be easy: give a series of checks and fork/skewer the rook.
However, when training with computer, it turns out that it's a bit more subtle. For example, I often reach an "almost Philidor's position" below, from which I don't know what to do, so I learned the following sequence:
[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/4KQ2/6rk/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Qc6 Kh3 2. Kf3 Rg3+ 3. Kf2 Rg5 4. Qe4! Ra5 5. Kf3! Ra3+ 6. Kf4 Kh2 7. Qc2+ Kh3 8. Qc1! Ra4+ 9. Kf3

After black's 4... Ra5, the rook got separated from the king, however, there's no way to win it with checks. Instead, we have to make several quiet moves allowing rook checks, but using the fact that checks run out, and mate threats prevent the rook from rejoining the king. In the final position, Kh2 is the only move that stops both mate threats, but then Qd2 and the rook is finally forked next move. This is all rather non-obvious (to me). A similar situation occurs when the computer suddenly abandons the third-rank defense.
So, my questions are about the position after 4...Ra5, and concretely, about the property that one shouldn't try to win the rook by checks:

is there a rule to recognize such positions, or is this an exceptional setup that one needs to know? The geometry in position after 4...Ra5 does look somewhat special to me, in that white King blocks the e1-h4 diagonal so that the rooks cannot be forked form e1.
if this is a position one has to know, what are other  other positions with a similar property? Among them, are there positions that have no quick win (so that white would need e. g. to allow the queen and the king to rejoin and set up some kind of 3rd or 2nd rank defense)?

For a human, winning Q/R against a computer is more difficult than expected. Indeed, the key is not checking itself but avoiding that the rook checks the king away. Of course, the best concrete strategy in some position may giving some checks first, just to lead the Q to the correct field without losing a tempo. Note that in the final position the Q controls the vital a3 field. Also observe that 1.Qc6 is fastest, but not most lucid in terms of human strategy. I surely had begun with 1.Qh5+ and trying to convert it into the Philidor position. But also here the trick is that attacking the rook hinders it on returning, e.g. : 1.Qh5+ Kg3 2.Qh1 (again, losing a tempo is more elegant, Black to move will be forked quickly) Ra2! 3.Qf3+ Kh2 (otherwise a fork comes soon again) 4.Qd5! (the key move) Rg2 5.Kf3 Rg3+ 6.Kf2 and again, Black is out of checks. (The point being, after your king lands on f3 uncontested, the defense collapses.)